Epon
Active Member
Posts: 402
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Post by Epon on Sept 1, 2006 15:42:03 GMT -5
Hey, I dunno if you guys know/remember, but I'm still in the process of making my CarPuter. Software-wise, it's just about done, but I'm interested in making my own little frontend/shell thingy so I dont have to dig thru menus and folders and whatnot.
Is there a way to simply just make Win2K use my own EXE instead of explorer? I'd just make a quick program that has pushbuttons that launch programs for ease.
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Matsrik
Behind The Logo Team 
Gnome
Posts: 1,094
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Post by Matsrik on Sept 1, 2006 15:46:06 GMT -5
Carputer?
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Zebrasputnik
Active Member
im right and ur not, rolfolo
Posts: 296
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Post by Zebrasputnik on Sept 1, 2006 15:53:36 GMT -5
Hey, I dunno if you guys know/remember, but I'm still in the process of making my CarPuter. Software-wise, it's just about done, but I'm interested in making my own little frontend/shell thingy so I dont have to dig thru menus and folders and whatnot. Is there a way to simply just make Win2K use my own EXE instead of explorer? I'd just make a quick program that has pushbuttons that launch programs for ease. I don't know, but it's possible to replace the explorer.exe in Windows 98 with the one from Windows 95 so I think it might work. Anyways, you can always make a frontend which runs OVER explorer.exe... |
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Epon
Active Member
Posts: 402
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Post by Epon on Sept 1, 2006 16:03:27 GMT -5
Yeah, but that's not COOL.
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Epon
Active Member
Posts: 402
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Post by Epon on Sept 1, 2006 16:49:02 GMT -5
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Post by Sz on Sept 1, 2006 17:14:50 GMT -5
Epon: In short, yes. You can definately replace the default explorer.exe with your own program. I'm not exactly sure what you have to worry about as far as programs/Windows crashing and burning if you do that, at least with Windows 2000. I think it should be alright, but I don't know for sure.
In any case, to do so you'll just have to ... overwrite explorer.exe with your program named "explorer.exe".
If you don't have the means to do that, then you might consider just creating a shell program that covers the entirety of the screen (effectively hiding explorer -- and everything) and have it run at startup. Not very efficient, but it'd work.
Lastly, what you want really sounds like an embedded OS, ala XP embedded, etc. I don't know if a decent free version exists, or if you really want to go through the trouble of setting your stuff up to run on a different OS, but embedded operating systems were pretty much made for this sort of limited use thing.
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Epon
Active Member
Posts: 402
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Post by Epon on Sept 1, 2006 19:04:54 GMT -5
I actually have full access to MSDN's downloads; so I can nab Windows XP Embedded w/ SP2. I'm not exactly sure WHAT I could use that for, but I'm fine just running 2k with Meedio (frontend like Media Center, but better.)
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Post by Squiggles the Chao on Sept 1, 2006 20:31:37 GMT -5
You don't have to overwrite explorer.exe. You can set the shell variable in system.ini to any program in the path (though it might be just restricted to the System32 folder. You might have some programs which rely on the functionality of explorer.exe however, so do it at your own risk.
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Post by Sz on Sept 1, 2006 21:28:47 GMT -5
Ah, thanks Squiggs, I stand corrected.
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Epon
Active Member
Posts: 402
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Post by Epon on Sept 2, 2006 18:59:12 GMT -5
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Post by Robert on Sept 3, 2006 0:22:06 GMT -5
Wow. If I had a reason (and a new ... and currently working ... car ...) this would totally be something I'd do. Actually the whole "ton of games" and stuff sounds totally awesome.
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