Web Gallery

Hi Pete,

Create a file at the root of the CD. Name it AUTORUN.INF, then add the following lines :

[autorun]
open=AutoPlay.exe -c
icon=Autoplay\PSELcd.ico
"Pete D" <Miatapete no spam @Yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message de

Create a Web gallery, then burn to CD.

Now, …. is there any way to have the CD "autostart" at the index page?
PeteD

Opps ! My system had a glitch and the message left before I completed it 🙂

Hi Pete,

Create a file at the root of the CD. Name it AUTORUN.INF, then add the following lines :

[autorun]
open=index.htm

Save this file. Change index.htm to index.html, depending on what is on your web page.

Ray
P.S. Untested. So better try it on a CD-RW.

"Ray" a écrit dans le message de

Hi Pete,

Create a file at the root of the CD. Name it AUTORUN.INF, then add the following lines :
[autorun]
open=AutoPlay.exe -c
icon=Autoplay\PSELcd.ico
"Pete D" <Miatapete no spam @Yahoo.com> a écrit dans le message de

Create a Web gallery, then burn to CD.

Now, …. is there any way to have the CD "autostart" at the index page?
PeteD

Hey Ray, Good morning to ya.

Root of the CD? I guess you mean in the first folder of the Web Gallery, where the index file is? Is that correct?

Oh and you mention Home page. I don’t want to connect to any page. Just be able to give the CD to Anyone with a computer and make it so they put it in an it starts at the index page automatically.

PeteD

Let me rephrase…

Your CD’s drive letter is (let’s suppose) E:

So, at E:\, you create AUTORUN.INF, containing the lines I suggested to you.

Then, burn your CD with your gallery + the AUTORUN.INF file.

Once you’ll insert the CD in a Windows XP / Me / 98, Windows will read the content of the CD and check for this specific file, if located at the root (E:\). If found, it will execute the command. In your case, this should open a web browser (IE or Netscape, depending on the viewer’s configuration), displaying INDEX.HTM (the main page of your web gallery).

Ray

Ray,

Hey Great Ray. I’ll give it a "go" as that saying goes.

Appreciate the instructions.

PeteD

If it’s not too late… try this on a CD-RW, in case it doesn’t work.. You’ll be able to earse it afterwards.

Ray

Great, Ray!! Now tell me how to do that so it’ll autorun in either a Mac or a Win. 🙂 I’ve created a couple of those recently, but I do the burning on a Mac and have an audience that’s Win. I’ve just been adding instructions.

I have a few Mac CDs at home, but can’t read them, so I can’t understand how to make an auto-run CD for Mac 🙁

The Autorun is a Microsoft as far as I can tell. However, I’m 100% sure that there must exist the same thing for Mac. Sorry, I can’t be of any more help. Perhaps Barbara can?

Ray

OK, Ray, thanks! We’ll hope somebody else can answer this question. And, if they do – pay attention! 🙂

Beth,

I just checked Toast and there are references to making an autorun CD for Macs. I’ll do a little more research as I’d like to know how to do this as well. I don’t know if you’d be interested if you had to buy Toast but I’ll check anyway.

Joe

Hi Ray,
I too am intrested in this. Do I use these lines or the one on your follow up message?

And Pete did it work?

Thanks
Scott

Great, Joe! Check it out, because I do have Toast but haven’t spent enough time looking through the options to spot that feature. You’re so sweet. 🙂

You’re so sweet.

<Beth makes Joe blush>Ok Beth, here’s how to do it. BTW this won’t work in OS X, only 9.

Fire up Toast Titanium and select "Create Temporary Partition" from the Utilities Menu. Once it mounts on your desktop, drag and drop your web gallery onto the Partition. Don’t put all the web gallery files into a folder and then drag to the partition, leave them all loose otherwise the autostart feature won’t work.

Click and hold on the "Other" button in Toast’s main window. You’ll get a contextual menu by holding it down. Select "Mac Volume" from the contextual menu. Click the "Select" button and then navigate to the Temporary Partition you created in the first step that contains your web gallery. Selected it and then check the "Autostart" check box. This should bring up a navigation window showing your Temporary Partition. Select the index.html file as your autostart file.

That’s it! After you burn the disk, insert it into your CD drive and voila! The web gallery will open to your index page in what ever browser you have set as your default.

It’s actually a pretty cool way to share photo’s if you ask me. You could also do this with a PDF slide show as well.

Joe

Cool, Joe!!! I’ll be testing it pretty soon. I have a CD with a Gallery made for my s-i-l, but it hasn’t been mailed yet. I’ll try to get this perfected (easy, since most of my work is still in OS 9 anyway) and eliminate those instructions. 🙂

So I wonder if you could include Ray’s AUTORUN.INF file (this is just a text file, right Ray?) and make this a hybrid CD that would work cross platform (even though you have to select "Mac Volume" in Toast).

Hmmm… I might have to fire up VPC and check it out.

Joe

Yes!! I do want it cross platform. If it isn’t, then it won’t do what I want it to.

By the way, Joe – I haven’t tried one of these yet, but I was thinking about what you said about having the index.html separate from the folders created by Web Gallery. Here’s what I’ve got. Maybe I’m being dense (always the first thing one should consider), but I can’t figure out how to set this up:

Currently: One folder labeled "Trip". Inside that folder are six separate folders, one for each major section of the trip. Then, I’d used PageMill to tie them all to a master index.htm, which lists the various sub-galleries and has links to the index of each gallery. The master index is in the "Trip" folder, too.

BUT, when I take that master index doc out of the folder (per your instruction to load the index separately from the folder), the links to the indexes of the various galleries get broken.

This is the part where my brain is drawing a blank: How do I keep the main index separate from the various gallery folders so I can load into Toast according to your instructions? Should I be setting all of these pieces up on the desktop, without any folders? Duh. The answer to this is going to be extremely simple, you know. 🙂

Scott, Pete,

Here’s what I found : First, it’s not so easy, because you need to know to whom your sending it (rather, what operating system they have and their CD-ROM drive designation).

The AUTORUN.INF file needs to contain those two lines :

[autorun]
open=c:\program files\internet explorer\iexplore.exe e:\index.htm

In this case, I’m running Windows XP and it stores Internet Explorer in C:\PROGRAM FILES\INTERNET EXPLORER.
Next, E:\index.htm, where E:\ is my CD-ROM drive letter, and index.htm is the main file for the Web Gallery created by Photoshop Elements 2.0

Now, I’ll research more into this AUTORUN.INF file, what options are opened to have it seek Internet
Explorer (or the current default browser) and the first CD-ROM drive (on my system, I have two hard drives, C and D, and two CD-ROM, E and F).

I’ll post again as soon as I find something,

Ray

Hmmm… Toast has an option for a hybrid Mac Volume/ISO CD but I couldn’t get windows to run the AutoRun.INF file. My first try resulted in a CD that I could mount in Windows and if I double clicked the index.html file IE would open but all the links were broken in the gallery (gallery was created with Mac PSE2 not Windows). My second try resulted in a CD that made Windows (2000 btw) return this message <http://homepage.mac.com/josephhenry/error.jpg> upon insertion of the CD and then this message <http://homepage.mac.com/josephhenry/error1.jpg> when I tried to access the CD from My Computer.

This was the text I entered in the AUTORUN file:

[AutoRun]
open=c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE\e:\index.html

Any Windows folks want to take a shot at what’s wrong here? Ray, Chuck, Bueller, anyone? Should I not have put the "\" between the IEXPLORE.EXE and the e:?

Joe

Joe,

open=c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE\e:\index.html

Should have read :

open=c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE e:\index.html

(replace the \ between IEXPLORE.EXE and e:\index.html with a blank space)

I know very, very, very little about Windows 2000 (asside from the Start button… !), so I can’t help here with those error messages.

Also, on PSE 2.0 for Windows, the web gallery’s main file in index.htm, not html.

Finally, e:\ is the drive letter for *my* CD-ROM. You can’t use it, it’s mine.. (kidding..) Usually, systems are set up that C:\ is the hard drive and D:\ is the CD-ROM drive. In my case, I got a bizarre machine and I have two hard drives, two CD-ROMs (well, 1 CD-DVD ROM and 1 CD burner). So, basically, on a typical machine, you should use d:\index.htm

HTH 🙂

Ray

Thanks Ray, I’ll give that a try. BTW the CD Rom drive on my VPC/Windows 2000 machine is E as well. Your machine might not be so bizarre after all. 🙂

I’ll try changing the index.html to just htm to see if that helps. I suspect I just have to get a Windows copy of PSE to create the web gallery. I’ve been using my Macintosh PSE generated web gallery, burning it with Toast as a hybrid CD and hoping for the best. I was hoping that a html file generated by PSE would be cross platform but maybe it’s not.

Joe

Joe, I CAN run my Mac generated Web Gallery on XP Pro, but the only way I could get it to work was to set it up so the person viewing would have to double click on the index.htm doc. I burned as a Mac/PC hybrid. It didn’t work the first time I burned, because I had some file names that the Mac would accept but the Win machine wouldn’t. That was causing the index.htm to open, but it all of the links were broken. ??? You don’t suppose? I also found that I HAD to have the index.htm in one folder along with all of the various gallery folders, and I had to load the whole thing as a "package". It’s getting late (for me), so what I said might not make sense! I’ll try again tomorrow. 🙂

Joe, don’t forget that both versions are on your cd. I wonder if installing in virtual pc constitutes another computer? Let me know how it runs there.

Barb,

don’t forget that both versions are on your cd

I didn’t even think to look! What a maroon I am sometimes. Fortunatly I didn’t have to go to the trouble of installing it in VPC (although I think I will anyway just to see how it runs). Thanks to Beth who got me thinking about naming conventions, and Ray who figured out the proper text for my AUTORUN file, I got the hybrid CD to auto launch the gallery in both Windows and Mac. Woohoo!

The key to the broken links thing was a single setting in Toast. I’d went back and renamed all of my images with short names after Beth suggested it. That still didn’t help and the really weird thing was that elements of the html that PSE created, the antique paper boarder for example, where showing up as broken links as well as my images. Not all, just some. I’d get an index page like this. <http://homepage.mac.com/josephhenry/windows.jpg> Notice only some of the antique paper images are missing. Well that got me to thinking that the problem had to be a setting in Toast.

When creating an ISO CD with Toast you can specify the file naming convention. Well the default in Toast is "Allow MS-Dos Naming". That looked good to me (what do I know about Windows anyway) so I just left it set on the default. What I needed was to choose "Joliet MS-Dos Naming", which appearently allows longer file names. After I chose that setting the auto launch worked like a charm. The best thing is, I only had to burn 6 coasters before I figured it out! 🙂

Beth, I’ll post specific instructions on how to do all this tomorrow. It’s late and I need some sleep.

Joe

"Ray" wrote in message

open=c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE\e:\index.html

Should have read :

open=c:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE e:\index.html
(replace the \ between IEXPLORE.EXE and e:\index.html with a blank space)

Actually, that will only work on a specific computer.

However, Windows has enough information to work with that it doesn’t need most of the text being suggested.

The path to Internet Explorer is a) unnecessary, since Windows knows where it is, and b) probably not desired anyway, since some people may have removed it and/or prefer using a different browser.

Also, the path to index.html is unnecessary. Windows will look in the same directory as the autorun.inf file for the file listed. So, all you really need is:

open=index.html

This will use whatever the default browser installed on the user’s system is to open the index.html file found in the same directory with the autorun.inf file. It will also allow your CD to work on ANY machine, not just one with the CD drive assigned to a specific drive letter.

Pete

Pete,

Sorry to say but this doesn’t work. Not at my end actually (Windows XP, IE 6.0). If I do this, I get a message like "E:\ is not a valid Win32 application"

I’ve tried several times with different things before I posted the final solution (burn 6 or 7 tries
on a CD-RW actually!)

Unless you tell me you’ve tried and it works at your end, the other solution with the full path is still the only way to make it run.

Ray

open=index.html

This will use whatever the default browser installed on the user’s system is to open the index.html file found in the same directory with the autorun.inf file. It will also allow your CD to work on ANY machine, not just one with the CD drive assigned to a specific drive letter.

Pete

Peter, (& thanks Ray also)

Great. It does work and with just the open=index.html

One thing I am going to try also is placing this command in the "Thumbnail index" folder because when I placed it in the main folder it opens to the main folder. (and then you have to open that folder to get to the index pages to open the gallery).

But this is exactly what I was after, and judging to the posts on this thread a lot of others want it too.

PeteD

Oh well! I told you, I have a bizarre computer 🙂

Ray

Ray

Just read your post. Did you see mine? The one I just put up?

Ray,

Concerning my post:

I don’t think moving that command to the thumbnail folder will open the index page because if it in that folder it won’t be read by windows….right? or wrong?

PeteD

Pete D,

AUTORUN.INF, as far as I can tell, needs to be at the root (i.e. E:\) of your CD. Windows will not seek it if it’s in a subfolder. Pete (the other one) seems to be more knowledgeable about that, so perhaps he has something else to say about it?

Ray

Ray,

Where did you go? You understand this cr.. ahhh stuff.

There must be some command to add to the open=index.html that will direct it to the thumbnail page or the first image?

PeteD

Oops.

You were writing when I was.

So you agree that placing the command "in" the thumbnail folder will make it so that windows does not recognize it?

I would just try it and see but I have 6 of these darn Cd’s sitting here already:-)

PeteD (Ray, I guess I am going to use the PeteD so you know who I am)

PeteD,

If you want to open a particular folder on your CD-ROM, change the index.html to the right path, like open=gallery\index.htm (substitute with what you want to show).

What gallery did you choose? I will replicate it here. I took the Lace design and it starts with a
thumbnail view at first.

Ray

If you want to open a particular folder on your CD-ROM, change the

index.html to the right path,

like open=gallery\index.htm (substitute with what you want to show).
What gallery did you choose? I will replicate it here. I took the Lace

design and it starts with a

thumbnail view at first.

Ray

I used the one titled "vacation". The one with the palm trees.

PeteD

PeteD, Pete D or Ray,

Also, the path to index.html is unnecessary. Windows will look in the same directory as the autorun.inf file for the file listed. So, all you really need is: open=index.html

So do I need to also include [AutoRun] in the text of my AUTORUN.INF file? I just assumed that I did and so included it with the open=index.htm text. I got the same message as Ray did:

E:\ is not a valid Win32 application Except I think my message listed the C drive instead?

I’m on coaster 8 now so if you all can be of help before I burn another that’d be great. Otherwise I guess I’ll have to go back to using all the text Ray suggested. That did work for me.

Joe

Joe,

It would appear that there’s one more than one road to get there. You use what you works for you. I know on my system, the full path is required (just rechecked this morning with Pete’s suggestion, it didn’t work again).

Ray

PeteD,

When I created a web gallery with this theme, I’m automatically showed the thumbnail view as the main page. You have something different when you first opened it ?

Ray

Ray,

It would appear that there’s one more than one road to get there. You use what you works for you. I know on my system, the full path is required (just rechecked this morning with Pete’s suggestion, it didn’t work again).

Well that’d be ok except I like the idea of making the slide show autolaunchable for any version of Windows. Pete (one of them) had a point that if you specify the location of Internet Explorer you doom yourself to failure if the disk is used on a system that differs from the one you prepared the disk for.

So I’m hoping I can figure out how to get the "generic" AUTORUN.INF file to work. Both my brothers use XP, my sister uses 98se, my aunt uses 2000, another relie uses ME, etc. You see where I’m going with this don’t you? As the family archivist I need to be able to distribute photo galleries to everyone and I’m the only Mac user in the bunch. So if I can get this to work with the generic version that’d be the best solution.

Joe

When I created a web gallery with this theme, I’m automatically showed the

thumbnail view as the

main page. You have something different when you first opened it ?

Ray, …yes, It did open in the first page of thumbnails automatically (on my computer) after creating it.

Now that I have saved it I can click on the index page file (there is also index2, 3, 4, and 5) and open to the thumbnails. And the same for the CD I burned. I have to go to where the file is stored and click on the index folder.
________________________________________________

So Here is the folders and files that are "in" the main (parent?) folder:

FOLDERS – (3) :
Images
pages
thumbnails

FILES – (8):
(E files….Explorer);
Index
Index2
Index3
Index4
Index5
ThumbnailFrame (any of these open Explorer and the corresponding thumbnails)
(open=index.html) This is also the file I made in "notepad" (this automatically opens the main folder when the CD is inserted and you can see all these files and folders).
Txt file named "User Selections" (This folder is here I believe because I specified a custom size of the pictures).

____________________________________________________

So I understand that I need to add a path. Here is what I tried: open=thumbnails\index.html

But that did not open the thumbnails folder, just the same window that shows all the files and folders.

Pete

Pete,

I’m not sure that I’m following you but when you use open=index.html, does it show you the Internet Explorer Web Page or a Windows Explorer with all your files (file browser, not web browser)? If it’s a Windows Explorer, that’s because Windows XP automatically launches the explorer when it recognizes certain files types (like JPG, AVI, etc). So when you said earlier that it worked, I assume now that you meant a Windows Explorer window, not an Internet Explorer Web Page.

First, the main page for your gallery is called index.htm, (not index.html, when created under Photoshop Elements 2.0) So if you check in the folder where you created the gallery and find an index.html, then there is something strange going on.

Next, read this : http://www.autorun.co.uk/autoruninf.htm It says that open = index.htm will not work. Though it may on some computers, there’s no guarantee that it will on all computer. But, make sure that "it works" means that an Internet Explorer window
opens, not a Windows Explorer (for browsing files).

Finally, there is no way I have found so far to make an auto play CD with an html page, using the AUTORUN.INF file, without making some code (a small program) to query the system on what browser it uses, where it sits, what Windows version is there, etc. The only way to make it work is to use the
full path or my next suggestion.

Side note : Other Pete, please provide some explanations here as how you were able to auto-play the HTML gallery. It would be greatly appreciated.

Back to PeteD, if your targeted audience is Windows XP, then use this command instead of open.

shellexecute = index.htm

This command uses Windows’ fille associations to check what default application is linked with the parameter (in our case, index.htm) and calls it. So, if your viewers are using Netscape, no problem! Even AOL. It looks at the filename (.htm) and launches the default browser. Though Microsoft’s knowledge base is confusing on this issue, it might work with Windows 98, but it will only if the user has Intertnet Explorer 5.0 or later.

Ray

I’m not sure that I’m following you but when you use open=index.html, does

it show you the Internet

Explorer Web Page or a Windows Explorer with all your files (file browser,

not web browser)?

Ray

Windows Explorer File browser.

So, in a sense, it doesn’t work, because I think you’d better want your viewers to see this in an Internet Explorer windows… ?

Wait until the other Pete comes back and comment on this. He might have another idea.

However, shellexecute=index.htm
will work.

So, the whole AUTORUN.INF file should be :

[autorun]
shellexecute=index.htm

Ray

Ray

Good deal. Trying it right now.

(thanks)

Pete,

"Ray" wrote in message

Sorry to say but this doesn’t work. Not at my end actually (Windows XP,

IE 6.0). If I do this, I

get a message like "E:\ is not a valid Win32 application"

What doesn’t work? I’m saying you shouldn’t have "E:\" anywhere in the autorun.inf file. Where is Windows getting "E:\" from?

Unless you tell me you’ve tried and it works at your end, the other

solution with the full path is

still the only way to make it run.

I do this all the time. I’ve been using the "Autorun" feature off and on since it first appeared in Windows 95. Using a full path is a sure-fire way to make it NOT work on all but a few computers, if the drive letter is included. This goes doubly so if the path to the web browser is included.

Pete

Pete,

If simply put open=index.htm, nothing works. It won’t start. However, if I put shellexecute=index.htm, it will. The gallery will open in Internet Explorer. But you put open=index.htm and it shows a gallery in a web browser?

Ray

But you put open=index.htm and it shows a gallery in a web browser?

No it opens a Windows Browser.

"Ray" wrote in message

If simply put open=index.htm, nothing works. It won’t start. However, if

I put

shellexecute=index.htm, it will. The gallery will open in Internet

Explorer.

But you put open=index.htm and it shows a gallery in a web browser?

Sorry…I was confused about what you were saying. I thought you were saying you needed to use the drive letter in the path.

As far as the difference between "open" and "shellexecute", you are exactly right. Only "shellexecute" respects file associations. In fact, all "open" does is open the containing folder for the filename given.

I need to dig up some of my old CD’s. I think that I figured out a way to get the "open" command to use the defined file extensions without adding another program to the CD, but I can’t recall how I did it. As you say, it would have had to have depended on some program already installed or copied to the CD, since providing a path by itself only opens a Windows Explorer window.

IMHO, using the Windows XP "shellexecute" line is a better bet anyway. It also should work on Windows 2000 (since that’s actually the first incarnation of Windows v5.0).

Pete

"Joe Henry1000" wrote in message

[…]
So I’m hoping I can figure out how to get the "generic" AUTORUN.INF file to work. Both my brothers use XP, my sister uses 98se, my aunt uses 2000, another relie uses ME, etc.

Okay, the basic problem is that the "open" autorun.inf command doesn’t use file associations. They added the "shellexecute" command, but that’s not going to help on versions of Windows prior to v5.0 (i.e. Windows 2000).

I wrote a *really* simple program that should address the problem. All it does is pass the filename you give it to the "ShellExecute" Windows function. It does very little error checking, but since you’re going to use it on a CD that you create yourself, and have complete control over how the program is used, that shouldn’t be a problem.

You can get the program here:
http://www.nwlink.com/~peted/shex.exe
(With Internet Explorer, right-click on the link, choose "Save As…" to save the program wherever you want…with a Mac browser, you should able to do something similar).

In the autorun.inf file, you’ll use it like this:

open=shex.exe index.htm

Making sure, of course, that the shex.exe program is in the root directory of the CD.

Someone else (actually, I’m sure many others have) has written something similar, but with a lot more functionality. I found this using Google: http://www.phdcc.com/shellrun/versions.htm

Finally, for those interested in more detail about the autorun.inf file for Windows, look here:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?L51C22784

(Long version of the link:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/e n-us/shellcc/pla tform/shell/programmersguide/shell_basics/shell_basics_exten ding/autorun/aut oplay_cmds.asp)

Hope that does it. 🙂

Pete

p.s. My memory hasn’t been serving me well lately. My recollection is that the "ShellExecute" Windows function has been around a long time. But if that recollection is wrong, the program I wrote isn’t going to work on any version of Windows prior to when the function was introduced. My apologies in advance if this is the case.

Peter,

Nice of you to program something 🙂

I’ve checked with Microsoft a few moments ago and shellexecute is not supported prior to Windows XP (or IE 5.0, but it’s a bit confusing), but Joe wanted something that would work with Win98.

Is this a Visual Basic program ? If so, you might also tell us what version so that users will be able to download the matching VBRUNxxx required files.

Ray

Good grief; I’ve been trying to follow all of this, but since I run a Mac it hasn’t been easy. Could someone please prepare a summary report?!

Where are we in terms of creating a CD that will autorun in any web browser from either a Mac or Win? 🙂 Do we have an answer yet?

Beth,

The problem is that Microsoft has changed the specifications for auto-starting CDs since they first introduced it, and they made it partially dependent on Internet Explorer (only God know why!). As for Mac, I don’t know how you can make an auto executable CD, so I can’t help (yet…)

Ray

"Ray" wrote in message

Nice of you to program something 🙂

Hardly worth mentioning. Like I said, it’s basically just one line. 🙂 Took all of ten minutes, and that includes "testing" it and copying to my ISP’s web server.

I’ve checked with Microsoft a few moments ago and shellexecute is not

supported prior to Windows XP

(or IE 5.0, but it’s a bit confusing), but Joe wanted something that would

work with Win98.

The "shellexecute" command in the autorun.inf file isn’t supported prior to v5.0 of IE. However, the "ShellExecute" Windows operating system function has been around long before that.

I just tried my "shex.exe" program on the last remaining Windows 98 computer in my house, and it works fine.

Is this a Visual Basic program ? If so, you might also tell us what

version so that users will be

able to download the matching VBRUNxxx required files.

It’s a compiled C program. It will run standalone, without any other files.

Pete

"Beth Haney" wrote in message

Good grief; I’ve been trying to follow all of this, but since I run a Mac it hasn’t been easy. Could someone please prepare a
summary report?!

Unfortunately, we haven’t even gotten to how this works on the Mac. 🙂

Where are we in terms of creating a CD that will autorun in any web browser from either a Mac or Win? 🙂 Do we have an answer yet?

Halfway there. Now all we need is someone to post the technique required for the Mac.

For Windows, the CD needs:

* an "autorun.inf" file
* in that file, a line that reads "open=<program> <filename>" where <program> is something like the "shex.exe" program I wrote and <filename> is the name of the HTML file you want opened
* OR (if you only want to work on more recent versions of Windows), a line that reads "shellexecute=<filename>" where <filename> is the name of the HTML file you want opened.

All filenames are relative to the root directory of the CD. You may include the initial "\" if it makes you feel better, but you should NOT include the drive letter and colon, since doing so will make it so that it only works on computers where the CD drive being used to play the CD has been assigned the same drive letter you picked.

Pete

"Ray" wrote in message

The problem is that Microsoft has changed the specifications for auto-starting CDs since they first introduced it, and they made it partially dependent on Internet Explorer (only God know why!).

Well, they didn’t change the old functionality, as far as I know. They just added functionality.

As for the tie-in to the browser, that’s because Microsoft has been gradually making the shell (that is, Windows Explorer) and the browser (that is, Internet Explorer) the same. When new features are added to the shell, they are delivered via the browser. The shell is what handles the Autorun functionality.

In some respects, this is due to the technical reasoning that an integrated OS is better and in some respects, it’s simply fallout from Netscape’s "hey, you shouldn’t be allowed to give your browser away" whining.

Pete

By the way, PeteD, why not make this a feature request, i.e. an auto-playing CD created from within PSE 3.0, on both Mac and Win machines ? 🙂

On MS Knowledge base, they said that the shellexecute autorun command has been implemented from version 5.0 of shlwapi.dll (or whatever the name is), and that prior version don’t have it. Hence my statement that Microsoft has changed the specs for this thing, the Autorun command.

But, it’ll soon stop being a concern for me, as I am moving from Win to Mac within a few months!

Ray

But, it’ll soon stop being a concern for me, as I am moving from Win to Mac within a few months!

Ray, you lucky dog! 🙂

Joe

Hey, Joe, if you decide to try Elements in virtual pc, I’d be curious to know how well it works, if at all. If you do try it, would you mind posting the results here?

Hi Barb,

I did install it in VPC. As for results, it worked ok. Like everything else in emulation it’s pretty slow but not as bad as i’d imagined. For instance, I performed a water color filter on a 5.5mb tif and it took just over 30 seconds. On my G4/533 running OS X the same filter on the same image took 6 seconds. It’s usable in VPC. If you want me to try something specific post back.

I got to thinking, though, why would anyone want to run it in VPC. If the program comes on the CD in both Windows and Mac versions I would’nt think you’d ever need to use it in VPC. I guess I was just sort of curious on what kind of performance I could get, and it was acceptable. I supose you could extrapolate these results to the full version of PhotoShop (that doesn’t come with both versions on the CD does it?) and get an idea on how that would perform. I don’t know.

Joe

Hi, Joe. I was mostly curious because everyone always says that the only way to make virtual pc run at tolerable speeds to to completely shut off all graphics. So I was wondering what would happen running not just screen graphics but an actual graphics program with it.

BTW, could you email me at bbATfloridaharp.com when you have a minute? Thanks.

I just emailed you Barb.

The big issue with VPC is that, from what I understand, it can’t access the video card directly. That’s why game graphics don’t do well with VPC. With PSE or the like, I don’t think that’s as much of an issue. But what do I know?;-)
Joe

Thanks, Joe.

Peter Duniho,

Look below. I don’t know if anyone has had success with this and I am still trying to get the CD to open at the index page or page one of the gallery.

I wrote a *really* simple program that should address the problem. All it does is pass the filename you give it to the "ShellExecute" Windows function. It does very little error checking, but since you’re going to

use

it on a CD that you create yourself, and have complete control over how

the

program is used, that shouldn’t be a problem.

You can get the program here:
http://www.nwlink.com/~peted/shex.exe
(With Internet Explorer, right-click on the link, choose "Save As…" to save the program wherever you want…with a Mac browser, you should able

to

do something similar).

In the autorun.inf file, you’ll use it like this:

open=shex.exe index.htm

Making sure, of course, that the shex.exe program is in the root directory of the CD.

So I added the shex.exe to list of files to go on CD. Then I added (saving from notepad) open=shex.exe index.htm

It still opens in a windows explorer screen where you can see all the files and folders and have to double click one of the index files to get it open.

Here are the contents that show:

3 folders.
images
pages
thumbnails

9 files
autoruninf ……. [autorun] open=shex.exe index.htm
index
index2
index3
index4
index5
shex program as copied from the download
thumbnail frame
user selections

OK. So what is wrong? The Shex is there,… the autorun is there.

PeteD

"Pete D" <Miatapete no spam @Yahoo.com> wrote in message

OK. So what is wrong? The Shex is there,… the autorun is there.

I dunno. What OS are you using? It works fine here. What happens if you try running shex.exe from a command prompt, using the full pathname to a file on your PC? Using the full pathname to a file on your CD? What happens if you copy shex.exe to the same directory as an HTML file on your PC, change directory (using the "cd" command) in a command prompt, and run shex.exe without the full pathname to the file that’s in the same directory with shex.exe?

I can’t guarantee that the answers to those questions will provide a solution, but they ought to get us closer to one.

Have you looked at the freeware program to which I provided a link?

Pete

Beth,

Just to let you know, I’m still working on this and will post back when/if I figure it out. I’m working a strech of swing shifts so I don’t get to hang out around or play with my Mac very much. I’ve been following the 2 Petes postings so hopefully we’ll (they’ll) get it figured out. Like I said in a previous post, I did get the CD to open to the gallery but used the long file path method. It worked on my Win2K VPC installation but not on my brother’s XP machine.

Joe

Joe,

I think I am done here because both Ray and the other Pete say it works on their computers but not on my XP machine, OR a neighbors Win98 machine OR another’s ME machine.

They saw nothing wrong in the wording or placement of the command and exe so maybe this belongs on one of the MS boards. I don’t think most of the PSE users are getting much out of this now but maybe at the beginning it did cause some to use or at least look at the web gallery feature.

PeteD

Ok Beth, I finally finished and I think I got it figured out (thanks to you, Pete, Pete and Ray). I posted it to my iDisk. Just click here <http://homepage.mac.com/josephhenry/hybridcd.pdf> to download the instructions in pdf. The pdf is fairly big that’s why I didn’t just attach it to an e-mail. Let me know if you’d prefer that I e-mail it to you.

Joe

Pete D,

I got the hybrid to work in Windows 98 and 2000 but I haven’t had the opportunity to try it in XP. I’m going to do that ASAP. I posted a link to my instructions in my previous post, but they probably wouldn’t help you as they are geared toward a Mac user creating the CD.

BTW I used Pete D’s shex.exe program to get it to work.

Joe

Joe, that is like TOTALLY COOL! You did a great job with the instructions. Burning one of these looks like something even I might be able to do.

If any Mac owners think they might be interested in doing this, I suggest you download Joe’s PDF file.

Now the frustrating part. Company is due in a few minutes and I don’t have time to play. Dang. And it’s a rainy Sunday afternoon (finally!) and it would be a great day to try this out. 🙁 I really appreciate all the time you put into this and your willingness to share. Thank you!!

No problems Beth. I love a challenge, especially those that I might find useful. This will work great for distributing photo’s to all my Window’s using relatives, although it’d be a lot easier and simpler if they would all just get Macs!

BTW, I tested the disk on my brothers Dell running XP and it worked like a charm.

Joe

Hey, Joe. Someone was asking how to do this over at apple earlier today. Do you mind if I post a link?

Go right ahead Barb.

Joe

Thanks, Joe!

Actually Barb, it might be easier to just post a link to my iDisk, then people wouldn’t have to wade through this lengthly thread to find that link? If you haven’t already posted the link, give them this: < http://homepage.mac.com/josephhenry/download/FileSharing42.h tml>

Joe

Thanks, Joe. Actually I just looked at the page source and found it that way. I appreciate this.

Barb,

The link I just posted actually goes to the File Sharing page of my .Mac site where folks can see how big the file is and choose whether or not to download it. The other link, the one I posted a few posts back, will just automatically download the pdf. I don’t know if that’s good, bad or indiferent.

Joe

Oh, yeah, I didn’t think about that. Of course, I suppose that anyone who’s making slideshows is probably not going to be concerned about 500K or so, but I’ll go back and change to the other link, thanks.

indiferent.

Geez, I wish I could spell sometimes! 😉

Just out of curiosity, where was the thread you posted in over at Apple.

Joe

Gee, Joe, I’d link it if I could, but it was in the private forum for the helpers. Let me see if I can figure out a way…

Don’t worry about it Barb. I don’t want you to break any rules or get in trouble!

Joe

Well, it’s not that so much as that I don’t think it would let you in. We have another forum that shows up down at the bottom of the main page right above the announcements, and if we lose the cookie or whatever the sniffer is looking for, it disappears and we have to email someone to ask the mods to let us back in again.

I know this is old but I would still like to get this working right. I get the same and indicated below. I am using windows XP. Has any one got this woring right yet?

Scott

I know this is old but I would still like to get this working right. I get the same and indicated below. I am using windows XP. Has any one got this woring right yet?

Scott
I get the same as Pete D
Here are the contents that show:

3 folders.
images
pages
thumbnails

9 files
autoruninf ……. [autorun] open=shex.exe index.htm
index
index2
index3
index4
index5
shex program as copied from the download
thumbnail frame
user selections

OK. So what is wrong? The Shex is there,… the autorun is there.

I’m not going to be any help, but when I tried doing this XP Pro was the ONLY OS I could get it to run on besides Mac! I’ve given up on autorun for the time being. I haven’t found anything yet where I could get predictable results from one try to the next.

Thanks Beth,
It seems there should be an answer for this one.
It’s a great idea to be able to do this.
Scott

Actually, Scott, I downloaded a demo version of some software from an Austrian site that was slick as can be. It’s Win only, though, so it wasn’t worth the $40 for me to buy it for a couple of different reasons. If you want the link, e-mail me

The software has to be edited on a Win machine, but it did a perfect CD that went into autostart on Mac, Win 98, and the XP Pro systems. It just so happened their demo version will start an "index.html". 🙂

Hi Beth,

Would you post the link here? Or just email me with it.

Thanks,

Joe

Hi, Joe! Here’s the link. I’m on Jaguar and don’t have your address in this mail folder yet.

<http://www.startertool.com/en/en_index.html>

Thanks Beth! Did you see the google add’s along the right side of the startertool page? There was a link to <http://www.autorun-cd.com/default.asp?ppc=google1_5> that seemed to be the same kind of deal but only $14.95.

I’m going to download both trials and give em a shot.

Joe

Joe or Beth,
Have either of you tried this program
with the web gallery?
Soott

Not yet Scott, but intend to this week when I get some extra time.

Joe

I haven’t tried the one from Joe’s link, just the demo of startertool.