Thread: noob needs help (what else is new)

hey m8 your doing a VERY similar thing to what i did
what i have is winamp ( far better to WMP) booting up on startup with a nice little key control plug in that sets it playing where it left off ( like a tape would, if you remember those lol) ( i think it is called key control V4.0)
so it boots and plays, i have a keyboard attached so that i can skip forward a track ( like a cd player) or back a track by pushing 1 or 3 on keypad. 5 pauses and plays, 0 stops ( all this on the number pad) this can be done with the key control plug in

i would also recomend u get hold of a copy of 98 lite ( it is MUCH smaller and u dont actually NEED anything but what it takes to boot into winamp do u? so stip it out BIG STYLE take away internet explorer and outlook express nd all that crap) PLUS get the MINIMAL version of winamp you dont even need half the crap that comes with the newer versions you could if you are feeling VERY strict get an old version of winamp

i had ALL of that in under 65 meg TOTAL and it booted in under 30 seconds from power on to music

literally the only thing u need on is networking to get files accross ( network neighbourhood should do)

You could go with DOS, MPXplay, a 4x20 character LCD, and an IRman, or something like that. Fast boot times. My dos comp would go from POST to playin' in about 3 seconds. I had an amd k6-2 380 and 128mb ram. I'm sure it will work no prob with your hardware, except maybe sound card. That's a little touchy. You can set it up to network thru dos too. And MPXplay supports soft (atx) shutdown. So you hit a key, saves where it's at in the song, and shuts down. It was a sweet setup.

Right on. Winamp with a keypad plugin is just what the doc ordered. Make a monster playlist of all your songs, and set that to run when the system boots.
Also, be sure the boot the box one last time connected to a monitor without a mouse hooked up, so that you won't get stuck with that "Windows did not detect a mouse" warning when you boot in the car.

You might also want to install TweakUI and disable "Run scandisk on bad reboot" so the box isn't trying to scan the drive everytime you shut it down hard, instead of doing the Start>Shutdown dance.
Incidentally, if you are concerned about the hard drive going south by shutting the system down hard like that, don't be. Windows 98, and especially 98Lite, can take it again and again without a problem whatsoever. I've done it for years, and the drive is now doing active duty in one of my home machines without a single complaint or sign of wear (bad sectors etc).

Why go Windows? With no screen, just boot to dos. MPXplay already supports navigation with a keypad. No messing with ****ty windows 98. You can get dos to do almost everything your 98 would with no monitor.

2 points
1) windows is easier to play with for a newbie much more commonly known to play with ( for networking and the such)
2) dos is a pain to get hold of

if he just wants something to work go with what i sed if u want to faff about with dos feel free
( windows networking is a god send for that kind of thing all u do is plug in and transfer files, DOS sucks *** at networking)

Dos is a pain to get a hold of?! I just used good ol' win 98 and took off the windows, left me with Dos 7.something I think. As far as Dos networking goes, if you know what you're doin' it's really easy. Or, if you know somebody (hint, hint) that knows how to do it, no problems. Once it's set up, it's foolproof man...

well u see i have XP ( you try and get dos from that, if u can ur a better man than most, cos it aint in it)

but i see your point, but really if he wants to do it all himself he CANT go rong with windows really can he? but DOS is DEAD easy to rong with