Windows - Read only?

[slowcade]

Do you know any way to modify Windows (XP or 7) so that it runs in read only mode?
I don't want to have to shut down the computer safely, I want to power it on and off like my other cabinets. But if I do that, Windows discovers that I have done something wrong.

I've been looking at the Enhanced Write Filter (EWF) from Windows Embedded, but I wasn't able to make it work properly in Windows XP. Now I get the Windows did not shut down successfully message when booting, every time. And that is exactly what I'm trying to avoid.
I have read about SteadyState and other such tools, but didn't test them yet.

Do anyone of you have experience with this? What do you use? I don't want to make a separate button to turn off the PC, especially in candy cabs.

 

[RygarR]

Don't know about this. But what you can do, if you run MAME through a frontend like MALA, is tick the box to automatically shut down on exit, which can be assigned to the jpac shortcut for 'escape'. That way, you just have to wait a few seconds after 'escaping' before pulling the plug. To ease the pain of start up, change your PC BIOS settings to reboot after power failure, which means auto start when you flick the on switch. Depending on your motherboard, you might have to remove a jumper to do this. By setting Window to boot straight to MALA, you get a pretty smooth start up.

 

[DanP]

I did look into something like this a while back. I think it's easier to do with Linux than windows. I guess it would be possible to use a ramdisk if you had enough ram in your PC. Trouble is Windows constantly needs to write stuff *somewhere* when it's running.

The short version is that it's just much quicker and easier to run windows and have a frontend with either an auto shutdown on exit or key sequence to shutdown. I run my two MAME cabs like this, you just get used to shutting them down before powering them off.

Before I did this my two cabs were running DOS and could just be powered off like a normal cab. Happy days...

If you find a solution I'd be happy to read about it too

Dan

 

[slowcade]

Ok, I'll test some more and let you know if I find anything.

I have been looking into both DOS and Linux, and they work perfectly. The trouble is, I am going to use this to emulate Asteroids. I don't have an XY monitor, and I doubt that I ever will.

I couldn't find any non-Windows emulators which support vector glow and such effects, only AAE and the newest MAME versions for Windows.