Possible to Boot Straight To Application?

[The Old Myron Siren]

I've been working on a emulation machine for the last couple of months that will be inside of an arcade cabinet. I'm using Windows 10 and Big Box (Launch Box) as the front-end for the machine and currently have it launch as soon as the local user logs in. However, what I am looking to achieve is to have the computer boot from a black screen into the Big Box application. I have somewhat achieved this by first, running a VBScript that terminites the explorer.exe process, leaving me with just a black desktop before it then launches Big Box, which is almost perfect. The problem is, there's about a half a second or so where I can see the black desktop with the recycle bin icon and taskbar down at the bottom. Additionally, I would like to bypass the login screen entirely. I currently have setup to automatically login so I never have to enter a username or password, but again, my ultimate goal is to have the machine boot up from nothing straight into Big Box.

 

Is this even achievable in Windows 10? I've done a few RetroPies before and it essentially does exactly this, however, I know that Linux is a different animal when it comes to what you can do compared to Windows. Thank in advance guys!

[barondeau]

You can use startup

[The Old Myron Siren]

2 minutes ago, barondeau said:

You can use startup

I already have a startup command that open up Big Box on login. What I want to do is to skip the login screen entirely and have my desktop already be entirely blank so I never see anything other than Big Box.

[warrenr]

Sounds like you want the Assigned Access feature of Windows 10.  It's one of the more underrated new features of Windows 10 -- the ability to run in "kiosk" mode for digital signage, single applications without Explorer, or even multiple applications with a locked-down Start menu.  More info here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/kiosk-methods

 

Combine that with the Automatic logon feature of Windows 10:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/324737/how-to-turn-on-automatic-logon-in-windows

 

and you should be able to accomplish what you're setting out to do

[The Old Myron Siren]

7 minutes ago, warrenr said:

Sounds like you want the Assigned Access feature of Windows 10.  It's one of the more underrated new features of Windows 10 -- the ability to run in "kiosk" mode for digital signage, single applications without Explorer, or even multiple applications with a locked-down Start menu.  More info here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/kiosk-methods

 

Combine that with the Automatic logon feature of Windows 10:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/324737/how-to-turn-on-automatic-logon-in-windows

 

and you should be able to accomplish what you're setting out to do

I like the sound of the Kiosk method, I'll give that a try in a little bit and report back. I did already do the registry edit that you mentioned, however, I still see it show my username on logon and the "Signing in..." message. Should that registry edit remove that and I did something wrong, or am I stuck out of luck on that front?

[The Old Myron Siren]

50 minutes ago, warrenr said:

Sounds like you want the Assigned Access feature of Windows 10.  It's one of the more underrated new features of Windows 10 -- the ability to run in "kiosk" mode for digital signage, single applications without Explorer, or even multiple applications with a locked-down Start menu.  More info here:

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/configuration/kiosk-methods

 

Combine that with the Automatic logon feature of Windows 10:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-ca/help/324737/how-to-turn-on-automatic-logon-in-windows

 

and you should be able to accomplish what you're setting out to do

Just as an added question, would I still be able to launch the various emulation softwares that I would be using as well while within Kiosk mode?

[soulreaper11207]

Totally did this for AS400 access machines at my first job. I pointed the registry to point at classic shell instead of explorer. This ended up loading a black screen.Then you will need to reg an auto log in. This stores a username and password in the registry to automatically log in. Then just set your emulation software to load at log on with task scheduler. 

[The Old Myron Siren]

3 hours ago, soulreaper11207 said:

Totally did this for AS400 access machines at my first job. I pointed the registry to point at classic shell instead of explorer. This ended up loading a black screen.Then you will need to reg an auto log in. This stores a username and password in the registry to automatically log in. Then just set your emulation software to load at log on with task scheduler. 

As far as I know, I've done the register an auto login in the registry. I don't ever have to enter a username or password to login, but I still see the starting screen where it shows my username and the "Signing in..." message below. Is there any way to bypass the screen, or did I not do the reg editing correctly? 

 

Additionally, could you explain what you did to prevent explorer from launching?