[phizzlecom]

Greetings C Gurus,

Me and my friend are trying to learn C++, and we've stumbled upon our first project. It will run on the Windows platform, and the idea is to have the program run the second the user logs in. It will prompt the user, and ask them a question, "What is 1+1?". The user will have to enter "2" before all other processes continue. Before we start writing the code, can someone help us figure out some of these general ideas?

Will we need to edit the boot.ini file? Can a C++ program do this? How complicated is this? I guess this will, in theory, work like a "password" program. So I guess my big question is what's involved in doing this, and how do we make a program run itself at login?

Thanks.

[digioz]

Although I think this is a bit difficult for a first project, here is how to do what you want. To make your application run at login for All versions of Windows, you will need to add the following Registry entry:

For all users:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curr entVersion\Run

For current user:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\Curre ntVersion\Run

There is two ways to do this:

a. Manually:

- Click "Start > Run" and type "regedit" in the box provided.
- Browse to the desired location shown above through the explorer style interface on the left side of the screen.
- Right Click on the right area, and select "New > String Value".
- Specify a name for your application such as "MyApplication" and hit enter.
- Select the newly created registry entry, and choose "Modify".
- Enter the path to the location on the machine, where your actual application (exe file) is locatated and hit "OK".

b. Using Code:

There is a C++ Class that you can download here:

www.codeproject.com/system/windows_startup.asp

This class will do the same for you as described above using C++ code, but that's assuming that you know how to use that code already.

Enjoy, and best of luck learning C++.


Pete