Looking for someone who knows windows 7 batch files.

[Seabottom]

I really want to play RollerCoaster Tycoon on my computer and the game needs to run in a natively small resolution.

I have searched a lot on google but nowhere is there a full .bat code provided for just one of the lines listed below.

I'd like to have a .bat shortcut that I can click and then run the game with tweaks, exactly like this:

1 - hide taskbar

2 - open mouse program (that I use to reconfigure the scroll whell up/down)

3 - Change screen resolution to 1280x720

4 - start RCT.exe

5 - Make it fullscreen (game can only run in windowed apparently so I have enlarge it to fit it to the screen.)

6 - When I exit the game, close the mouse program, un-hide the taskbar and revert the screen resolution.

I'm quite certain that this is possible, but I don't know any bat commands at all, so help would be greatly appreciated.

[vorticalbox]

I have rollercoaster tycoon 3 amd it totally plays full screen.

[elpiop]

i dont think you can hide the taskbar without the use of an external program. you can kill explorer.exe but that is probably not desired. I think also you need a 3rd party program to change resolution. i could probably help but you would need to get programs that you want that can do this first 

 

[Seabottom]

I can find the things I need on google which is rather simple, it's just that I don'w know how to correctly compile it all.

For hiding the taskbar I found that I could just kill explorer.exe.

It's only the windows interface that's killed and I don't need internet, steam or overclocking in the background while playing this old game.

@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe 
start explorer.exe

 

 

I also found a utility to change the resolution, but I have no idea how to use it, it's just gibberish to me

http://12noon.com/?page_id=641

Quote

There’s a command-line switch to direct all output to the clipboard (instead of a window), so you can also use Display Changer II in a command-line batch file or script using the Command Prompt or PowerShell.

 

 

And then I'd also need to call the mouse program along with the game it self. This should be no problem as windows supports that already.

 

 

 

Then the game window should be maximized, found this here code

START /MAX notepad.exe

 

 

And then when I exit the game, the batch file should kill the mouse program exe directly and restore explorer.exe + original screen resolution.

It seems I got the pieces, I just don't know how to put it together.

[elpiop]

edit:never mind

[elpiop]

seems to be easy to change resolution using nircmd so I made it using that. download it and place it in the same directory as the batch file, or run it and click copy to windows directory so it wont have to be in the same place as the batch file. 

 

download link is at the bottom of this page. just download 64 bit version and extract nircmd.exe form the zip file : http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html

@echo off
taskkill /f /im explorer.exe 
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1280 720 32
start mouseprogram.exe
start "" /wait /max rollercoastertycoon.exe 
start explorer.exe 
taskkill /f /im mouseprogram.exe
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1920 1080 32

 

[elpiop]

Well, it won't let me edit my previous post. I forgot to add:

 

Note: your mouseprogram.exe and rollercoastertycoon.exe have to be in the same directory as the batch file. if you want this changed you'll have to tell me the directory of the .exe files. And their names so I can make them correct. Also the main resolution of your monitor. I just assumed 1920x1080.

[Seabottom]

Thank you for your reply, it's greatly appreciated 

I found that the code works almost perfectly. Killing explorer.exe does indeed remove the taskbar but it's still there, just invisible it seems, so the game window cannot be maximized fully

I then found a neat .exe file that toggles the auto-hide state of the taskbar each time it is run. http://www.mim-sraga.hr/zvuk/toggleTaskbarAutohide.htm

 

So now it works almost perfectly. The game window is not maximized and I have to manually do so. Not the biggest deal but rather inconvenient when everything else is automated. It's like the windows maximizes for a very brief moment, then returns to its windowed state.

The current code below

@echo off
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1280 720 32
start Taskbar.exe
start XMouseButtonControl.exe
start "" /wait /max RCT.EXE 
start Taskbar.exe 
taskkill /f /im XMouseButtonControl.exe
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1920 1080 32

 

[elpiop]

5 hours ago, Seabottom said:

Thank you for your reply, it's greatly appreciated 

I found that the code works almost perfectly. Killing explorer.exe does indeed remove the taskbar but it's still there, just invisible it seems, so the game window cannot be maximized fully

I then found a neat .exe file that toggles the auto-hide state of the taskbar each time it is run. http://www.mim-sraga.hr/zvuk/toggleTaskbarAutohide.htm

 

So now it works almost perfectly. The game window is not maximized and I have to manually do so. Not the biggest deal but rather inconvenient when everything else is automated. It's like the windows maximizes for a very brief moment, then returns to its windowed state.

The current code below

@echo off
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1280 720 32
start Taskbar.exe
start XMouseButtonControl.exe
start "" /wait /max RCT.EXE 
start Taskbar.exe 
taskkill /f /im XMouseButtonControl.exe
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1920 1080 32

 

i know there are some hacks out there to run RCT at higher resolutions. I don't know of any way to start it maximized. If you want to try, the description of this video has a description of how it was done, and includes a link to already patched exe files. 

 

[Seabottom]

Making the game run in that high a resolution makes everything tiny as the game doesn't scale well (it is an older game after all), so that's no go.

It's not an issue though.

 

I discovered that I was unable to pin a .bat file to the start menu as I do with all my games, so I converted it to an exe file.

And I included all the files needed in it, so it was easier to store in my games folder for future use.

 

@echo off
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1280 720 32
start Taskbar.exe
start XMouseButtonControl.exe
start "" /wait RCT.EXE 
start Taskbar.exe 
taskkill /f /im XMouseButtonControl.exe
nircmd.exe setdisplay 1920 1080 32
taskkill /f /im Taskbar.exe
del nircmd.exe
del RCT.exe
del Taskbar.exe
del XMouseButtonControl.log

Since the .exe file apparently extracts the files I had to include in the .bat to remove them again otherwise I would get dialog boxes with overwriting each time I ran the executeable.