Utitlity for turning Live into your Windows Shell

Discuss music production with Ableton Live.
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sweetjesus
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Utitlity for turning Live into your Windows Shell

Post by sweetjesus » Thu Jan 12, 2006 7:27 am

***************** WARNING - Alpha version of this.. only been tested on my setup (Win XP Home) ********************

Hi all,

Due to popular demand I sat down and wrote this utility today (couldnt find my backup)... but it's for replacing the Windows Explorer shell with Ableton Live.

I need a couple of people to test this out, so if you have a computer where u will be doing a show with in the next few weeks then it's probably not a good idea to try this yet.

http://www.fridge.net.au/utilities/registry.exe

Basically when you run the program it will have 3 buttons

- Choose Shell
This will make a dialog box. You will use this to choose the program (in the case of most people here ..Live) that will replace the windows shell. I didn't hardcode the Live folder so you can choose the version of Live you have installed if you have more than one. Also make sure you choose the EXE.. in my case I selected c:\Program Files\Ableton\Live 5.0.3\Program\Live 5.0.3.exe

- On / Off
With this you can choose if my utulity is active or if the default windows shell is what comes up when you start windows. It will automatically detect what state your config is in and present you with an option.. click "off" to restore windows shell .. click "on" to make this utility active. If you have clicked "on" and you have not yet chosen a shell program, when you start up it will simply open up an instance of Windows Explorer .. but it won't be the full shell as that needs to occur on startup.

- Exit
.. self explanatory

The way it works is, if my utility is turned on and you restart your computer, my program will become the default shell and then it will launch whatever program you chose in the "Choose shell" function and by default it goes to the background so you can turn my utility off after a Live session and go back to normal Windows after a reboot.

If for any reason any problems occur on reboot and you get no shell, you can press ctrl + shift + esc which will bring up the task manager... click file> New Task(Run) and type Regedit in there.. when regedit opens go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon\Shell and change the value to "explorer.exe" and use the same task manager to restart your computer (Shut Down menu).

I've only run this on my computer which has windows XP home, so if any of you have XP pro and are savvy and can bail yourself out of any Shell-loss which may incur, I would be keen to see how this works on XP Pro.

******************* SECOND WARNING ******************
I DO NOT TAKE RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY FUCK UPS THAT MAY OCCUR BY USING THIS PROGRAM.. YOU WILL RUN THIS PROGRAM AT YOUR OWN RISK. ANY TECHNICAL PROBLEMS THAT MAY OCCUR AS A RESULT OF USING THIS PROGRAM ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE USER AND NOT ME **************************************************

.... sorry but due to the fact that this messes with some intrensic registry keys I had to mention that...

cheers,
SJ
Last edited by sweetjesus on Thu May 25, 2006 3:21 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Machinate
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Post by Machinate » Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:02 am

Awesome...

I just ran an initial test, and it ran PERFECTLY!
mbp 2.66, osx 10.6.8, 8GB ram.

Patch
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Post by Patch » Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:15 am

Can you run other programs at the same time when Live is set as the shell? I ask because I use a DM2 - which requires the DM2Midi program running in the background to be usable with Live...

sweetjesus
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Post by sweetjesus » Thu Jan 12, 2006 8:20 am

Patch wrote:Can you run other programs at the same time when Live is set as the shell? I ask because I use a DM2 - which requires the DM2Midi program running in the background to be usable with Live...
Does DM2Midi need to run before Live, or can it be opened after Live?

If it can be run after Live opens, then yea no probs.. you just need to run it via task manager (ctrl + shift + esc).


If it needs to be run before Live then I will think about modifying the program I've made to allow for sequential program execution, however in the meantime you can do this by making a Batch file (.bat) which runs DM2Midi then Live, and getting my program to use that as the Shell.

amo
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Post by amo » Thu Jan 12, 2006 10:14 am

Hi SJ,

Just to clarify for my stupid mind: is your program doing the same as what's described in that thread ?
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... ws+startup
Live 5.0.3 - IBM Thinkpad R51 1.5ghz Centrino - 1,5 Go RAM - 7200 RPM 2nd HDD intern - RME Multiface - Windows XP Pro SP2

forge
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Post by forge » Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:04 pm

OH MY BLOOMIN GOD BEJESUS SHAWN YOU GENIUS MAD EVIL SCIENTIST YOU!

I was seriously thinking of getting XP pro just so I could do this via that tip someone posted that was only under XP pro....this is an amazing thing, thank you SOOOOOOOOO much

If I could I'd have your babies..and if I was a good looking female and that would be in any way an appealing thankyou gift...in fact lets just stick to beer and bloke things, how bout I buy you a beer or 10!

I'm actually writing this booted up this way now - that was a slightly disappointing thing realising it wasnt going to stop me from using the internet while using live, I kind of hoped it would act as a deterrent to wasting whole evenings with shit on the net rather than music.

BTW - I'm guessing norton AV and windows firewall etc arent loaded with this, so does that mean loading up firefox will leave me really open and vulnerable to nasty virusey things??

minimal
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Post by minimal » Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:08 pm

amo wrote:Hi SJ,

Just to clarify for my stupid mind: is your program doing the same as what's described in that thread ?
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... ws+startup
... and another question for us RME users:

will the "total mix" software be usable as well within this application?

Patch
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Post by Patch » Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:15 pm

Does DM2Midi need to run before Live, or can it be opened after Live?
Yes, it does. I thought that might be a problem...

Also, I'm trying to set up 2 DM2s for use in live together - could 2 instances of the DM2midi utility be run before Live?
Last edited by Patch on Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.

forge
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Post by forge » Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:21 pm

also, what about power save settings? will it just default to the power save setting (i.e. always on or max battery etc) I had in windows, or can I change it, if so what's the .exe called to bring up the power meter?

amo
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Post by amo » Thu Jan 12, 2006 12:21 pm

minimal wrote:
amo wrote:Hi SJ,

Just to clarify for my stupid mind: is your program doing the same as what's described in that thread ?
http://www.ableton.com/forum/viewtopic. ... ws+startup
... and another question for us RME users:

will the "total mix" software be usable as well within this application?
Thanks minimal, that was something I should have asked...
Live 5.0.3 - IBM Thinkpad R51 1.5ghz Centrino - 1,5 Go RAM - 7200 RPM 2nd HDD intern - RME Multiface - Windows XP Pro SP2

forge
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Post by forge » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:06 pm

also - I will probably miss having a clock - can the windows one load as a seperate exe or is there a clock one around that I can use

elemental
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Post by elemental » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:10 pm

this looks really useful

got my first gig feb 24th, should be enough time to test it works...

Angstrom
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Post by Angstrom » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:25 pm

forge wrote:also - I will probably miss having a clock - can the windows one load as a seperate exe or is there a clock one around that I can use
I suggest using this
;)

a lot cooler than the windows clock :)

spiderprod
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Post by spiderprod » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:45 pm

your warnings about fucking up the pc is quite scary to try .
anyway , what is the advantage of the shell .

djastroboy
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Post by djastroboy » Thu Jan 12, 2006 1:56 pm

spiderprod wrote: anyway , what is the advantage of the shell .
For those of us with marginal compters, every little bit of computer resource savings counts.

And it's just plain coool.

Is startup time faster? Seems like it aughta be...

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