Launch Steam Big Picture at startup without explorer.exe

[MrMister]

Hello, I made a HTPC for Steam BP and I wanted to give it a 'console look' when I boot it up.
What I mean is, at the present moment, each time I boot my HTPC, I gotta get my mouse, click on steam, then click big picture. What I want to do is boot my computer, then when the boot is complete, it automaticaly opens Steam in Big Picture mode without seeing the explorer.exe interface. Like that, it's more simple to pick up and play. Also, without the explorer.exe UI, it's cleaner looking and smoother to launch. I've looked online a bit but it's in a whole different context and not optimized for that type of thing. Any advice on how to do it?

I run Windows 7

Thank You

[Dana Lexa]

I think there was a thread a while back with a way to replace explorer.exe with steam.exe, let me see if I can find it....

Yep, here you go.

However, it sounds like the person that posted that hasn't actually tested it himself, so take it with a grain of salt and make backups first.

Alternatively, just put the shortcut into the "startup" folder in your start menu. You'll still see explorer.exe starting up first, but then it will load Steam and open BP when it's done.

[MrMister]

Thanks for finding this. I wonder if anybody tried this because that is exactly what I want to do!

[Dana Lexa]

I'm curious to know if it works, please let me know if you try it.

Unless it just makes Windows unbootable and you're unable to reach the forum as a result. Then, I guess, I won't hear from you.

[MrMister]

I made a restore point, i will try it, tweak it a bit and tell you if it works

[MrMister]

I'm having some problems. In theorie it works, I even uses one or you code from the thread :
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/bigpicture/discussions/1/882960163772490356/
for auto open and auto shutdown. But i'm running in a problem here. When Steam BP launches, it says it wasnt able to connect and ask me to go offline mode. I read this article:
http://blog.regs79.com/2012/09/17/boot-directly-into-steam-big-picture-mode/
Since I have a SSD, it boots up before it starts to connect to the internet, hence the message to go offline or connect online.

When I press Go Online, Steam crashes.... Thats where I'm in a dead end. It's a bug, So basicaly, I boot up, Steam launches in its Shell, ask me to go offline or online and when I press online, Steam crashes.

So for the past hour i've been looking a way to delay the launch of the shell, a bit like the 2nd article did but this was launching Steam after explorer was up.

Any help?

[Keavon]

Steam > Settings > Interface has the options to start Steam at startup and run Big Picture at startup. You might be able to find a hack to stop explorer.exe from launching, or just hide the task bar.

[Dana Lexa]

Huh... didn't expect that to be a problem. That's actually kind of cool. To execute the batch file instead of steam.exe, you could try replacing the command in the registry with:

cmd /K "<path to batch file>"

That should let you execute a batch like the second article described without starting explorer.exe first. So the first thing Windows will do when it starts is open a command window to follow the instructions in the bat file, which will wait 7 seconds then launch Steam.

Originally posted by Keavon:

Steam > Settings > Interface has the options to start Steam at startup and run Big Picture at startup. You might be able to find a hack to stop explorer.exe from launching, or just hide the task bar.

To be honest, this sounds a lot less elaborate, and it's not like you're going to see the task bar or desktop once Big Picture starts up anyway.

[MrMister]

For those who wants to go with Keavon's way, heres a way to hide the taskbar with 2 easy .exe
http://www.sevenforums.com/customization/79667-remove-taskbar-100-a.html#post696027
And hide the icons on your desktop after.
But so far, if you want to launch it as a Shell, without explorer.exe, we will have to wait till Steam fix the bug or has an integrated feature

[MR2_MKI]

If Steam is set to start with Windows (that's one of the options in Steam), I've found that while it starts minimized to the tray, if you have the Xbox 360 controller you can just hold the center X button for about 3 seconds, and big picture mode launches.

[dmnc]

Another simple solution is creating (or changing) shell string value in the registry
for current user:

HKCU\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

or globally:

HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

I'm calling this batch instead of steam.exe, it will logout Windows session after exiting Steam:

@echo off
start /WAIT steam.exe -bigpicture
shutdown /l /f

TIP: add tsdiscon command as a non-steam game into your library for user switching

WARNING: Do not close Big Picture (switch Steam to the desktop mode) until some shell (explorer.exe) is not running, for emergency case, press CTRL+ALT+DEL and choose Task Manager to call explorer.exe (you can run any command here).


Please DON'T DO ANYTHING if you have no clue what I'm writing about !!!