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I want a program to run after the POST test, but before windows begins to load. I know this can be acheived with batch files, but how? How do i get a batch file to run when you turn the computer on? (besides going into dos mode and typing in the command) If i can just edit an existing batch file that'd be fine too, all i need to do is insert a command to run a program. thanks for any help you can give me.
On win 3.x, 95 & 98, just stick it into autoexec.bat.
Don't know about NT, ME, 2K & XP although ME might be the same as 98.
Me is exactly the same as 98 in this regard. Unfortunately, for NT/2000/XP, there's not much you can do. In Win9x, after POST, DOS is loaded, and the autoexec.bat is run, which contains a line to load Windows. NT/2000/XP have no underlying DOS layer. This means that after POST, the first and only thing that gets loaded is Windows itself. I'm not sure if there's a way to supercede this or not; you may want to try a question in a Windows programming forum for more specialized people to help you.
thanks for all the feedback, i knew it was autoexec.bat, however i wasn't sure because if i did a windows search for the file, opening it actually atempted to run the batch file, not edit it. But the little light bulb turned on so i went to dos prompt and typed EDIT autoexec.bat and did what i needed. Just one question though, should I load my program first before any other commands or not?
I don't think it matters whether your program is run first or not: as long as it returns. If it doesn't return, windows will not boot up. If it is just a TSR installation, it doesn't matter when it is executed.
In WinNT / 2K / XP you can write a service and make it load at boot time. This is not exactly before everything else, but depending on what you want to do it might be OK.
It is not simple service, it's kernel driver (driver service).
Only kernel drivers can be successfully loaded at boot time. It can not use for exemple win32-subsystem calls because at boot time win32-subsystem also not loaded.