AutoHotkey Community

[r0lZ]

Hi!

I've recently bought a new Medion PC, pre-installed with Windows Vista and the Windows Media Center. I've noticed that there are now two hardware buttons to turn the computer on: the regular button that starts Vista, and a new button that starts Vista and then automatically launches the Media Center. That's a great improvement if you want to use your PC as a multimedia center connected to your TV. The new button can also be used when Vista is already running to launch the Media Center.

After some googling, I've found that this new hardware button is tied to the Vista "HotStart" function. More info here: http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/platform/firmware/hotstart.mspx.

Since I am a programmer and I hate Vista, I have installed XP on another partition, and now my system boots XP by default. I would like to take advantage of the new HotStart button under XP. Currently, that button does nothing, but I wonder if a little AHK script could intercept it, and do whatever I would like to bind to the button. Also, it would be nice if the script could recognize when the computer has been powered on with the HotStart button, to launch an application directly at startup. (Of course, the script should be added in the All Programs\Startup folder for this to work.)

Any suggestion? Is this HotStart button working like a regular key? If it's the case, what is its key name? Otherwise, could it be implemented in future versions of AHK?

Thanks in advance!
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r0lZ

[lilalurl.T32]

You could give a try to the HID functions to see if it generates an event that can be intercepted.
However, I guess the button is managed at the BIOS level since you can start your computer from it and that is probably too much low-level for AHK to detect.

http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=41397
http://www.autohotkey.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=6367
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Mercedes-benz w120/121

[r0lZ]

Thanks for your reply.

Unfortunately, I think you're right. The HID scripts I've downloaded from your first link do not seem to detect that button.
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r0lZ