Creating an autoplay CD

Everyone and her dog now seems to be burning CDs - from compilation audio CDs through collections of software to games.
A key differentiator of data CDs is that most commercial CDs autoplay when inserted (unless you've disabled autoplay!) and homemade ones don't.

How to create a compact disc that

has a name
has an icon
will auto-start the user's default browser, displaying your startup screen

On the downside, it can be tricky to get software to run on a machine you've never seen, quite possibly running on operating system that wasn't available when you cut the disc.
On the upside, browsers are now the common currency of all systems (and operating systems) so you have immediate access to presentation software of which you can be certain.

This article covers how to create a CD that has an icon, a start-up HTML page and options to run from its right-click, pop-up menu.

You can take advantage of the user's browser to display a welcome screen, a menu or to start an entire application from a starting HTML page. From that first page you can lead the user around the CD, providing single-click links to files on the CD or other resources. Just like a mini-web site, really.
Since you don't know in advance which browser is going to be set as the user's default, it's necessary to force the operating system to launch the right browser: You need to do this without the luxury of being able to code
"C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer\IEXPLORE.EXE" myHTML.htm
or equivalent - You don't know what browser it is or where it's installed.

It's relatively easy to set up the files which make a CD autoplay a HTML page in a browser - To get started it doesn't require any tools beyond a simple text editor like Notepad.

This method has the advantage of requiring no programming in Visual Basic or C++, or in VBScript. It does require a couple of batch files but both of these can be used again and again without modification, so long as your HTML file name remains the same. The example described here - see The files you'll need to include on the CD - uses five files with reasonably reusable names. (OK - Icon.ico would have been better. But less fun.)

It doesn't require any programming, either. If you always use files with the same names you can change the content without worrying about changing the file names you use.

HOW'S IT DONE?

The whole thing is driven by the two batch files, called Run_StartHTML.bat and StartHTML.bat and is tied together by the information in Autorun.inf, as shown below.

The contents of Autorun.inf are

[autorun]
open=Run_StartHTML.bat
ICON=smile.ico
cdname="AutoCD"

Using two .bat files is necessary to get Windows to force the file association of an HTML file with a .htm extension with the user's default browser.

Remember that the HTML file is being opened from a file system and not as a page server by a web server - You can't use any server-side functionality: .ASP pages are right out!

The files you'll need to include on the CD are

An autoplay information file called autorun.inf
Two batch files which are the secret to getting this technique to work: StartHTML.bat, which runs the browser - but which we don't run directly - and Run_StartHTML.bat which does run StartHTML.bat!
An icon file with the name of your choice and a .ico extension. For instance, smile.ico.
An HTML page which you create and give the name of your choice with a .htm extension. For instance, StartUp.htm.
Any image files you might want to include in the HTML page. For example, ALogo.gif and AnArrow.gif.

There's some background information to support this article in Autoplay CDs - Background

How to . . . summary

Create or find an icon and save it in the root folder of the CD layout
Create the HTML page and save it in the root folder
Add the batch files to the root folder
- StartHTML.bat
- Run_StartHTML.bat
Create Autorun.inf and save it in the root folder
Add the rest of the CD contents
Burn the CD
Test it!

TESTING STRATEGIES

Tip

You can set up Iomega Zip drives to autoplay - A Zip drive can be used to emulate removeable media and save on CDs during testing.

The same applies to floppies but their capacity makes them a poor emulator for a 600MB disc.

You need to include all the appropriate autoplay files on the removable disc - a floopy or a Zip disc - and the enable autoplay for that device type.

Enabling and disabling autoplay

The autoplay parameters are stored in Windows' registry and the only way I know to change these settings is to edit the registry. (If you know another way, please let me know!)

After backing up, run regedit and navigate down from the key HKEY_CURRENT_USER, as here:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\
Software\
  Microsoft\
   Windwos\
    Current version\
     Policies\
      Explorer\
       "NoDriveTypeAutoRun"

NoDriveTypeAutoRun is a four byte key but only the first byte is used as a bitmask:

Type	Bit
DRIVE_UNKNOWN	0
DRIVE_NO_ROOT_DIR	1
DRIVE_REMOVABLE	2
DRIVE_FIXED	3
DRIVE_REMOTE	4
DRIVE_CDROM	5
DRIVE_RAMDISK	6

The default is 0x95 which disables autoplay on every device type bar the CD.