Building my first HTPC - suggestions needed

[haisaikat]

However, the cabinet is very stupidly designed. In order to just screw a hdd, had to remove the entire front cover and the metal casing and even removing them wasn't that easy either.

This is the same case for my zebronics genesis slim cabinet . I would say its more or less photo copy of the one you posted. Probably sourced from the same design

Can any one tell me which is the best way to set up a direct boot for xbmc?

HOW-TO:Make Windows boot directly to XBMC (as a shell) - Kodi follow point 1 and 2 only of the group policy editor option.

Congrats for the setup

 

[RMCWS]

HOW-TO:Make Windows boot directly to XBMC (as a shell) - Kodi follow point 1 and 2 only of the group policy editor option.

Thank you for the info. I have followed point 1 and 2.

1. Setting up your user account to log in automatically
Log in as administrator.
Open the start menu, and type in the search box: netplwiz <ENTER>.
Uncheck Users must enter a user name and password to use this computer and hit Apply.
A window will pop up asking for the user name and password of the user account which should log in automatically. Supply all the information and hit OK.
Next time you restart, the account selected in step 1 will log on automatically. Now you can setup this account to use XBMC as shell instead of Explorer:
If you want to use EventGhost then skip step 2.
2. Set XBMC as shell for a specific user account
Log in as administrator.
Open the start menu, and type in the search box: mmc <ENTER>.
Choose File -> Add/Remove Snap-in....
Select Group Policy Object Editor and hit Add.
In the wizard that pops up, hit Browse..., go to tab Users, select your user account (the one that you set up to log on automatically in step 1) and hit OK.
Make sure that the checkbox in the wizard is Unchecked, and hit Finish.
Hit OK in the Add/Remove Snap-ins window.
In the User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> System folder, open Custom User Interface.
Select Enabled and enter the full path (including XBMC.exe and any switches that you may use) in the Interface file name textbox.
Hit OK and reboot your system. It should now log in and start XBMC automatically without showing the start menu and icons first

I can start the system directly and it boots directly to xbmc. However, whenever, I am clicking the shutdown button of xbmc, the xbmc is getting closed and the screen is remaining blank (black colour) but the HTPC is not shutting down though.

Another query, is that how do I use this pc normally if I don't want to directly boot it?

 

[manniraj]

Thank you for the info. I have followed point 1 and 2.



I can start the system directly and it boots directly to xbmc. However, whenever, I am clicking the shutdown button of xbmc, the xbmc is getting closed and the screen is remaining blank (black colour) but the HTPC is not shutting down though.

Another query, is that how do I use this pc normally if I don't want to directly boot it?

I think you need to change the settings under XBMC for the menu of "Quit" to "Shutdown" the system. This way when you say shutdown/quit the XBMC it will shutdown your PC as well.

 

[haisaikat]

Regarding the shutdown, I was never aware that at least until v 13.2 you needed to alter Quit for Shutdown. I will take a look later on in my setup too, but for now I can suggest you to see if enabling Advanced user mode from Settings is allowing you to see 5-6 options like Exit, Shutdown, Reboot, etc on pressing the XBMC power button from which you can select the Shutdown. If advanced mode is already enabled and yet you are still getting the old behavior then I do not have much clue about what is going on, may be your keyboard or remote is sending 2 consecutive Return hits on pressing once that is taking the default option under shutdown menu which is Exit, again this is my wild guess only.

On using this as a desktop, if you have keyboard and mouse always connected to it then Exit xbmc and in the black screen hit ctrl+alt+del and bring the task manager, from where do a new task and type explorer and hit enter to enter into normal desktop.
Otherwise just create a new user account so that one is for xbmc auto start and another for normal remote desktop (this is what I do).

 

[RMCWS]

I think you need to change the settings under XBMC for the menu of "Quit" to "Shutdown" the system. This way when you say shutdown/quit the XBMC it will shutdown your PC as well.

Thank you very much. It worked. :yahoo:

 

[RMCWS]

Regarding the shutdown, I was never aware that at least until v 13.2 you needed to alter Quit for Shutdown. I will take a look later on in my setup too, but for now I can suggest you to see if enabling Advanced user mode from Settings is allowing you to see 5-6 options like Exit, Shutdown, Reboot, etc on pressing the XBMC power button from which you can select the Shutdown. If advanced mode is already enabled and yet you are still getting the old behavior then I do not have much clue about what is going on, may be your keyboard or remote is sending 2 consecutive Return hits on pressing once that is taking the default option under shutdown menu which is Exit, again this is my wild guess only.

On using this as a desktop, if you have keyboard and mouse always connected to it then Exit xbmc and in the black screen hit ctrl+alt+del and bring the task manager, from where do a new task and type explorer and hit enter to enter into normal desktop.
Otherwise just create a new user account so that one is for xbmc auto start and another for normal remote desktop (this is what I do).

Thank you very much bro. I have enable the shutdown mode directly from xbmc.

And regarding using this pc normally, I am going by Clr+alt+del and then clicking "explorer' button. :yahoo::clapping:

 

[manniraj]

Thank you very much bro. I have enable the shutdown mode directly from xbmc.

And regarding using this pc normally, I am going by Clr+alt+del and then clicking "explorer' button. :yahoo::clapping:

I think even this can be automated in XBMC with adding a menu option under Aeon MQ theme by giving a program under "Advanced Launcher". Just give the path as "explorer.exe", I think by choosing this option within XBMC it should launch the windows explorer. I have not tried it but there are lots of threads online on how to do it, try it out will make life much easier than Ctrl+Alt+Del :lol:.