CODEWITHSUNDEEP
windows
McKeene
McKeene

Reputation: 285

Windows - Auto play video and image in fullscreen

I am currently working with a projector at a museum, where the server, running Windows XP, automatically should play a video upon startup in fullscreen. Furthermore, at 2PM and 4PM the projector have to show an image instead for an hour or so in fullscreen as well. Is this possible to do with Task Scheduler or do I have to make an AutoHotkey script or similar?

Upvotes: 0

Views: 5399

Answers (1)

Handy
Handy

Reputation: 48

You can accomplish this with a couple tools including VLC Media player. I don't have XP here to test this with, but the following should work.

  1. Copy the VLC Media Player shortcut into Startup.
  2. Edit the Target to be something like the following:

"C:\Program Files\VideoLAN\VLC\vlc.exe" "c:\path-to-video\example.mp4" --fullscreen --loop"

  1. To close VLC on a schedule, create a Scheduled Task.

    • Click next. See if taskkill is in the list. If not browse to it (should be in the system32 folder).
    • Select Daily for the frequency and give it a name.
    • Set 2PM for the time. Click Next.
    • Check Open Advanced properties for this task when I click finish and click finish
    • Enter the following for the Run command.

"C:\Windows\System32\taskkill.exe /F /IM vlc.exe /T"

  • Save the Task.

  • Repeat the above tasks but set the time to 4PM

    1. Now you just need to create the tasks to open the images. Basically use the process above with a couple key differences:

      • Select for your program you're running.
      • When you open the advanced options for that task set the target to be something like this:

"explorer.exe" "C:\path-to-file.jpg"

I can't test this one, so I'm not sure it will work. You may have to play with it a little to get it opening an image full screen. Once you have it figured out via the command prompt, just place it in the target box and you should be good to go.

Make sure you create two of these at 2PM and 4PM. You could make it 2:01 and 4:01 if you want to be sure VLC is closed first. Or you could try setting their names to something that is after your first set of tasks alphabetically. I'm not sure how primacy is calculated.

That should be it. Hopefully this will at least get you started.

Upvotes: 1

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