Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

I need to write an autorun file(s) for Windows and Linux CDROMs.

When a game CDROM gets put into a Linux machine, Windows senses it and executes an intended executable. I need to write whatever it takes to make the same thing happen for an application that I wrote. I need to have it work on windows and on linux.

For windows, from my searches and tests, and views of game maker's cdroms, I take it that the files
* AUTOSTART.EXE * AUTORUN.INF * AUTOSTART.INI have to do with this, but I cannot find information dealing with it directly, and my current tests fail. Surely someone has gone this way before in Perl land.
Any perl scripts available?
Does someone know where "out there" the Windows documentation on creating the needed files (emphasis on "creating" ... there is plenty on "using")?

Same questions for Linux.

Thanks

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re: Windows and Linux CDROM Autostart help
by tachyon (Chancellor) on Oct 18, 2004 at 23:19 UTC

    For Windows see this M$ tutorial For linux see autorun In either case system settings may disable autorunning of CDs so you would be wise to include file called something like START_WIN32.EXE and START_LINUX for example to make manual starts simple. On Win32 it is AUTORUN.INF that gets automatically parsed, on Linux autorun (lowercase) that gets executed. These files need to be in the root of your CDROM. 

    AUTORUN.INF (for Win32)
----------------------------
[autorun]
Open=CmdLine
Icon=IconPathName, IconIndex
----------------------------

autorun (for Linux)
----------------------------
#!/bin/sh
exec CmdLine
----------------------------

    [download]

    Often all the two autorun files do is call their respective manual start widgets.

    cheers

    tachyon

[reply]
[d/l]
      This was exactly what I needed. Thanks.
[reply]

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