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Fidelizer 2.1 for autostart and with nagscreen kill

Posted by Thorsten (M) on January 6, 2012 at 12:16:40

Hi Folks,

First, I do very appreciate the work Mr. "Windows X" has put into Fidelizer. And there is no attempt here to take undue advantage of his work or anything of the like.

However, due to the way I am running my Media PC I absolutely cannot live with the Internet Popup and having to press buttons every time I start the system.

This is mainly because it has neither keyboard nor mouse attached, only a small touch screen (7") that works fine using "10 Foot Interface" stuff but is way too fiddly using real windows.

I actually had gotten rid of Fidelizer when I switched to a self-powered async USB interface, as it did not much if any good in this configuration.

I gave my Async USB-> SPDIF box to a friend when I got my own AMR DP-777 (finally - cobblers kids and all), but I had to give my DP back recently as a dealer needed it for an extended Demo and all production is apparently already sold out till the end of the world or some time in 2012 - whichever happens first. I hate it when that happens.

Anyway, back to my trusty old TDA1541 DAC and my passive pre with a 10K Noble Pot. But now with the Motherboard Codec SPDIF (modified out) and not Async USB -> SPDIF. It's bitperfect and quite good with Fidelizer running, less so without.

So I had to sit down and work something out, as despite widespread requests Mr. "Windows X" declines to offer a version of his software that allows itself to be started without having to click this and that and the other and having to close the internet browser. Heck, I and others would probably even pay a modest obolus just to get this feature. If he does not want the money we can donate to the Red Cross or whatever!

Well, anyway, it's his software and his call to do with it as he pleases, but it runs on my Hardware and OS and so I WILL MAKE IT BEHAVE sensibly as I please.

The solution is called "Clickoff":

http://www.johanneshuebner.com/en/clickoff.shtml

Precise use depends on your OS, Webbrowser and other factors, but generally it goes like this (you obviously need Superuser rights for all of this):

1) Install clickoff, it will add itself to the Startup Menu

2) Drag a Fidelizer shortcut to the Windows Startup Menu, if needed make sure that it is set to run with the required privileges (Superuser), this way Fidelizer runs on each startup. You may need to use startup unblocker if you have the User Account Control (UAC) interfering

3) Start Fidelizer from this shortcut

4) Point mouse onto the Fidelize button but DO NOT click

5) Press CTRL+ALT+D to tell Clickoff to press this button as soon as the Fidelizer window appears

6) Watch as ClickOff does precisely this and Fidelizer does it's stuff

7) Now comes the part where your web browser loads to go to thw Windows X page.

I personally always keep IE as default browser because I never use it and I have set the security set to "silly and then some". So anything that tries to run on the internet without asking explicit permission (which is very rude and against the law in some countries BTW) is by default quite crippled from doing harm.

My real webbrowser is something else. Yes, there is a webbrowser for cases where I want to update stuff or such - I then VNC connect to the Media box from my laptop.

You may need a few attempts at this, but as soon as Fidelizer attempts to load the Windows X page point your mouse pointer at the close button and again press CTRL+ALT+D. You should be able to catch the browser with a blank title, before the page loads, this is quickest to get on with things.

8) Make sure your player software is not loaded automatically (it may load before fidelizer is finished), use either some form of remote control option (as I use Mediaportal I use the MP Tray Launcher anyway, so this is no issue to me) or set the Player to start with a significant delay (can be done via registry switches or suitable software.

[Rant Mode On]

It is actually not that hard to reverse engineer what fidelizer does. There are tools that can watch precisely what software does in a sandbox and to then permanently apply these to the registry or by other means, but it takes time I just don't want to spend.

I suspect that Mr. X eventually will peeve off someone enough to do exactly and to make a version of his stuff that works the same, but without all this inconvenience.

Not me though. Life's too short. Hence this rather ugly very quick hack, that does enough to allow my system to start and be usable without having to deal with any of this silly tomfoolery.

My personal recommendation to Mr. "Windows X" would be to include a big splash screen with a long persistence that takes front stage (not that hard to program) and to have a small floating fidelizer icon overlay somewhere on the screen while it is running (again, not hard to program).

With this then allow autostart and otherwise quiet mode for fidelizer and offer a "bootstrap" mode that then starts the player software automatically too, in the right sequence, when fidelizer is finished doing it's stuff.

That way no-one can "rip him off", he gets his moment of glory by appearing on any screen fidelizer runs on AND the users get what they want. He'd probably get way more users this way, way more recommendations and way more reach compared to what he does currently.

But seeing his attitude from various threads on requests on such features I'll not hold my breath and instead will keep clickoff handy.

[Rant Mode Off]

Ciao T

Thor

At 20 bits, you are on the verge of dynamic range covering fly-farts-at-20-feet to intolerable pain. Really, what more could we need?

This post is made possible by the generous support of people like you and our sponsors:

Atma-Sphere Music Systems, Inc.

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