Is it possible to do this in Windows XP...

[mmace]

I've been asked by my boss to create some sort of pop up message everytime someone starts up any of our PC's (we have a few thousand in the company). It'll be some policies & procedures about using the PC & the internet etc. It needs to pop up every time and may need some graphics (doesn't have to though). It may also need to close after a set amount of time (e.g. 15 secs) but I think a button (OK, cancel etc) may be OK if this isn't possible.
I've written an HTML page that I have put in the startup folder that resizes & positions itself but I have 2 problems, I cannot get rid of the scrollbards, menubar etc and when it tries to close itself it comes up with a warning saying "The Webpage you are viewing is trying to close the page
Do You want to close this window
Yes No"
but I need it to close without a warning.

Is there any other way than HTML that I can do this?
anything built into Windows (some sort of warning or notification system?)

any help would be greatly appreciated

[Neo]

Messenger will be ideal for this, but you would need to send this out manaully...

[mmace]

What's messenger & how do I use it?

can I set a message to appear each time the PC is started up? (this is when the message has to display)

[emailrob]

You could just put a winword document in the startup list, this would open when the user logs in.
Otherwise messenger would be a good option.
How about you set their homepage in IE to that of your policy? This would cover the internet side at least.
However this would all be ignored pretty quickly, that's the problem.

[TierraDelFuego]

don't ask me how please :) but I know at an old company they used a java popup which was very similar to this. Just added a line to the batch file on bootup to run the java app when loaded, pointing to the app on a server.

[richskie]

if it's a fairly short message you can just create a shortcut in the startup folder with the following command net send pcname message where pcname is the name of that pc & message is the text you want to send.

[kyle5077]

Something like THIS? (http://home.comcast.net/~kyle5077/startupessage.exe)

Gimme some text and ill paste it in. Assuming all the comps have VB6 runtimes installed (which they should) you can just place this into the startup.
If needed I can also disable the X and OK button for the 15secs.

HTH

[Ogs]

@kyle

can u do me one of those plz

text to be said:

Warning! This Computer Is Being Monitored By The Administrator
Please Do Not Mess Around With Settings etc.

Admin

also could you add the 15sec timeout and the !warning sign as used as my post icon

thanx alot

Oggy

[kyle5077]

Np man.
HERE (http://home.comcast.net/~kyle5077/message.exe) ya go.
If ya need anything tweaked just lmk, im kinda in a rush right now.
Ill also post the source if ya want...its only a few lines of code.

[mmace]

Something like THIS? (http://home.comcast.net/~kyle5077/startupessage.exe)

Gimme some text and ill paste it in. Assuming all the comps have VB6 runtimes installed (which they should) you can just place this into the startup.
If needed I can also disable the X and OK button for the 15secs.

HTH
This is exactly what we'd need (with the disabled buttons for 15 seconds & a little graphic).
If you could let me have the code that would be even better cos I have VB software lying around somewhere but I have never used it cos I wouldn't have a clue, but I'd work on it!
I don't know what the text is going to be yet as we are waiting for our US HQ to tell us.


thanks a million m8

[Ogs]

thats great m8

itll do the job nicely :bigthump:
thanx

[Roger The Shrubber]

Sounds like you've got the answer but if your looking for another solution you could try this. Launch regedit and go to the following key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - Software - Microsoft - Windows NT - Current Version - Winlogon
look for the entry "legal notice text"
double click on it and type in what you want the message to say. You can also put in a caption in the LegalNoticeCaption key.

[mmace]

Sounds like you've got the answer but if your looking for another solution you could try this. Launch regedit and go to the following key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE - Software - Microsoft - Windows NT - Current Version - Winlogon
look for the entry "legal notice text"
double click on it and type in what you want the message to say. You can also put in a caption in the LegalNoticeCaption key.If I do this, when would the text appear?
What sort of window would it be in?

I don't wanna mess around with the registry unless it will work

cheers

[Roger The Shrubber]

It brings up a window after you've pressed ctrl+alt+del with your message in it. It has an OK button to press then it will let you log in.

I'll try to get a screen print posted here this weekend. I'll have to do it on a virtual machine since screen print doesn't work before you log in.

[QWERTY]

Here's a simple 2 line VBS program you can put into the startup group. It should pop up when the system reaches the desktop and will close automatically after 15 seconds or if they click the OK button.


Set WshShell = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
WshShell.PopUp "Your message goes here.", 15, "Your caption goes here"


Just cut-n-paste those two lines into notepad, edit the text the way you want it and save it with a .VBS extension (i.e. MESSAGE.VBS). Then put a shortcut to it in your startup group.

[Roger The Shrubber]

This is the message window that pops up before you can logon. You can also put a message in the title bar

http://users.easystreet.com/stuhler/notice.gif