AutoRunning Your CD Projects
Copyright 2004 Ed Zivkovic
Five Easy Steps to Creating an Autorun CD
If you distribute products on CD, it always looks impressive if the
CD will autorun when inserted into the drive. In this article we will
cover one of the many ways to autorun html, exe and most other file
types. (.pdf .mov .qtif .mpeg and others)
To create an autorun CD we will use a program which enables the CD
to autostart from the CD ROM drive. There are many of these types of
free programs available for download on the Internet. The one we will
be working with here is called AutorunPro. AutorunPro is a Freeware
program which you can use with your CD projects.
If you do not yet have a copy, you can go to the developers download
page here.
The AutorunPro download link is right at the bottom of the article
under the sub-heading "Updated Utility".
AutorunPro has the capacity to autorun multiple files at once and can
also autorun applications already installed on the users computer like
the system clock or Internet Explorer with your website displayed. This
magic freeware application was created by Mark Trescowthick with Ross
Mack
at GUI Computing.
Step One
Unzip AutorunPro.zip to a folder. Keep this folder which contains the
files autorun.inf and AutorunPro.exe as your original. You might like
to name this folder something like autorun tools (optional).
Step Two
Copy autorun.inf and AutorunPro.exe into the folder which contains the
file you want to autostart. This will be the root directory of the CD.
Step Three
Open autorun.inf with Notepad. Just double-click it and Notepad should
open it. Edit the file so that it looks like the example below:
[Autorun]
open=AutoRunPro.exe /s
[AutorunPro]
Run1=yourfile.exe
Replace yourfile.exe with the actual name of your file and
save it.
Step Four
Test to see if the project works correctly by double
clicking on AutorunPro.exe. This will start yourfile.
Step 5
Now open your burning software and drag autorun.inf, AutorunPro.exe
and yourfile into the root directory of the CD and burn it onto a blank
CD.
Congratulations! You have just created an autorun CD.
How To Autorun HTML
It is a good idea to name the HTML file you want autostarted to index.html
or index.htm. The procedure to autorun html files is the same procedure
used to autorun exe files except step three is different. All you have
to do is modify the .inf file as follows.
Edit or create an inf file with Notepad and insert the following code:
[Autorun]
open=AutoRunPro.exe /s
[AutorunPro]
Run1=index.html
How to Add an Icon
If you want your CD to have it's own icon displayed in the My Computer
window as the CD drive, add an extra line of code so that the autorun
inf file looks like the example
below:
[Autorun]
open=AutoRunPro.exe /s
icon=youricon.ico
[AutorunPro]
Run1=index.html
Replace youricon.ico with the actual name of your icon and ensure that
the icon is in the root directory.
Note: You do not need to add the icon= parameter when autorunning exe
files because the application will already have an icon and it will
be displayed.
Free Icon Editor:
If you would like to create your own icons, you can get a freeware
icon editor called IconEdit32 here.
Iconedit is pretty straight forward to use, but if you need some help,
there is an online tutorial here.
Free Autorun CD Menu
If you distribute software and ebooks Offline on a CD, you might like
to add a HTML menu to your project. The menu is a HTML page that can
be edited with Notepad or any old HTML editor: http://www.ezau.com/latest/articles/0119.shtml.
Free Slideshow Software
While we are talking about autorunning stuff, why not play around with
your digital photos and create a slideshow CD with music. Burn your
pictures to a CD along with AutorunPro, some MP3's and this cool freeware
Slideshow program called LPJ-Slideshow 1.7.6. Your friends and family
will be impressed! Find the download link here.
About the Author:
The author, Ed Zivkovic is a self-taught webmaster.
Hiswebsite contains articles with all sorts of tips for work
at home webmasters. Here is the site: http://www.ezau.com
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