I have a PC that is pretty much dedicated to Kodi, I installed a new SSD so I went ahead and upgraded to Windows 10 at the same time. Previously I had Windows 7 and had it set up so you saw very little of the OS before Kodi came up. It seems I am having a bit of an issue doing the same with Windows 10.
A run down of how it was basically set up.
Enable "No GUI Boot" in MSConfig, you don't see the Windows logo loading screen.
Disable the need to log in/logon automatically.
Replace the logon background and desktop with a black image. At this point all you see is "Welcome" for a second or two before it loads the Shell.
Using Launcher4Kodi to make Kodi the Shell and stop Explorer from loading, I use that tool so I can also load EventGhost in the background.
So from someone turning on the PC, all they see is a "Welcome" then Kodi's loading screen then they are at the Home Screen for the skin. It was all very simple, very clean. For some reason Windows 10 doesn't want to be this simple. While much of it is the same, some things are not how I want them and I can't figure out how to deal with it.
The first problem is Windows 10 doesn't seem to care about the No GUI Boot option, still shows the Windows logo and a loading icon. While it is only there for a second or two, it is nice to have one less thing appear but at the same time if there is nothing I can do about this, I'll live. The second issue is kind of the same though it has to do with the change of what Windows 10 shows from Windows 7 showed. Instead of the "Welcome" you would get after logging onto a user in Windows it now shows your account icon, the name under it and a loading icon. I want none of this, or at minimal just the loading icon. It is ugly, pulls away from a simple and clean home theater set up and make it feel like it takes longer to load. No matter how much I look online I can't find anything hinting at a way to hide this and I have run out of search terms to use.
To the best of my knowledge, that is ALL going to be within Windows and I don't believe you can do anything to change the logon screen. I def know that Win 10 doesn't give two shits about no-gui-boot.
If you're just going to use this box for Kodi then do yourself a favour and ditch Windows altogether and install OpenELEC. Much better experience.
http://kodi.wiki/view/OpenELEC
(2015-10-01, 20:42)Dangelus Wrote: [ -> ]If you're just going to use this box for Kodi then do yourself a favour and ditch Windows altogether and install OpenELEC. Much better experience.
http://kodi.wiki/view/OpenELEC
I don't use it just for Kodi is the thing, its why I made it a point to say "pretty much dedicated to Kodi." What I mean by that is almost every time that machine is used it is for Kodi but that is not all it is for, I do also have Steam installed and a good collection of couch multiplayer games on there. That is pretty much the second half of the reasoning for going with Windows 10, the other half is that it is faster and uses less memory and hard drive space. (Nearly half the space for the Windows directory! And on a small SSD that is a lot.)
I'm currently using Win 8.1 pro which boots directly to Kodi. I'm presently using a custom user interface which I defined in policy editor (gpedit.msc). Essentially, I use gpedit.msc to launch a script which in turn runs a bat file to launch Kodi and some other programs at start up. The screen is black until the Kodi interface appears. I'm planning to play with Win 10 this weekend and will report back on how this method works with that OS.
I attempted using gpedit real quick to see how it would do with Windows 10. I again pointed to Launcher4Kodi as the Custom User Interface (User Configuration>Administrative Templates>System and edt Custom User Interface?) but it does the same thing. I am guessing no matter what, if it has to log into a user account first it is going to force that Welcome/Loading screen with the user icon and name. As I said before, this is technically the same screen I saw with Windows 7, it just has more clutter on it than I would like. Come this weekend if I can not find another alternative I might just look into modifying the content of that screen to remove as much as I can from it, much like I did when I changed the background to black on Windows 7.
I should also state that I pointed it to Launcher4Kodi instead of Kodi because not only does it load other programs (I use Event Ghost to run a script when I hit a series of buttons on my remote to force close and reload Kodi when it locks up.) but I can load the Explorer easily with Win+E when I need to do things on the system such as running updates or install something.
In Win 8.1, I have auto login configured which bypasses the login screen
(2015-10-02, 10:40)MadScientist Wrote: [ -> ]In Win 8.1, I have auto login configured which bypasses the login screen
Did you not read what I said and the OP said....Windows 10. Windows 10 is different from 8.1
Yes.. so do I, using netplwiz. It still technically uses the login screen, the screen you'd see right after you enter your password and it's loading the desktop. Windows never fully bypasses the login screen. Auto-login ≠ Completely bypassing the login screen, it just makes it so you don't have to enter it by hand. Hence the problem I am having Windows 10 ... repeating myself, they changed what it looks like and it intrudes more on a dedicated use of Windows.
Sorry I misread your initial post. Just tried Win 10 for myself and appreciate the problem. I'm going to stick with Win 8 for the time being as not only is it seamless, it's faster.
(2015-10-02, 04:22)CharredChar Wrote: [ -> ] (2015-10-01, 20:42)Dangelus Wrote: [ -> ]If you're just going to use this box for Kodi then do yourself a favour and ditch Windows altogether and install OpenELEC. Much better experience.
http://kodi.wiki/view/OpenELEC
I don't use it just for Kodi is the thing, its why I made it a point to say "pretty much dedicated to Kodi." What I mean by that is almost every time that machine is used it is for Kodi but that is not all it is for, I do also have Steam installed and a good collection of couch multiplayer games on there. That is pretty much the second half of the reasoning for going with Windows 10, the other half is that it is faster and uses less memory and hard drive space. (Nearly half the space for the Windows directory! And on a small SSD that is a lot.)
If you're saying that windows 10 is faster and uses less memory and hd space than openelec, that's just not true.
I’ve been playing with the Custom User Interface and found something interesting.
If you visit the Explorer shell and configure the Custom User Interface, when you boot up again, it shows the log-in screen before the Kodi menu appears. But, if you boot again - no log-in screen and it’s the same on all subsequent boots. Visit the Explorer shell and the log-in screen appears but as before, only on the first boot-up. I’ve tested this 4 times with my set-up so it appears to be consistent behaviour. YMMD.
(2015-10-03, 15:10)MadScientist Wrote: [ -> ]I’ve been playing with the Custom User Interface and found something interesting.
If you visit the Explorer shell and configure the Custom User Interface, when you boot up again, it shows the log-in screen before the Kodi menu appears. But, if you boot again - no log-in screen and it’s the same on all subsequent boots. Visit the Explorer shell and the log-in screen appears but as before, only on the first boot-up. I’ve tested this 4 times with my set-up so it appears to be consistent behaviour. YMMD.
Interesting, will give it a go later today!
What the heck? Just get Kodi to auto start at boot, and use netplwiz to automatically log in. Works flawlessly for me. Windows 10 also has a dedicated app for Netflix so that's a big plus over a linux based distribution.