https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/ en Fri, 10 Dec 2010 06:35:33 +0000 hourly 1 FeedWriter https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126918 Fri, 10 Dec 2010 01:35:33 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126918 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126917 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 20:22:28 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126917 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126916 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 19:40:04 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126916 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126915 after I prompted them multiple times to stop sending me the offer mails. I even had to register as a member to prompt them to quit, and still, the spam kept coming. No thanks to another Ashampoo product.]]> Thu, 09 Dec 2010 18:36:48 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126915 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126914 "My question (I purchased this program from Ashampoo months ago) is whether anyone has had it work as an Automenu (not requiring any other selections) on a USB stick with Windows 7? I have never had it work!" If Autoplay is turned on in Windows 7, when you insert a CD/DVD/BD disc or USB stick by default you'll get a menu with several choices -- the choices are made up of: 1) the software you've installed that's added itself to the autoplay menu for that type of media, 2) Windows Explorer, & 3) if there's an autorun.inf, the program it refers to will show up. The autoplay menu also has a checkbox to always repeat the same choice, or you can set the default app in the properties dialog for the drive. If autoplay's turned off you won't get the menu, & it won't open with any app automatically... In those situations all you can do is assume that the user looks at the contents in Windows Explorer, & either sees a readme.txt file you've included with instructions, &/or spots an .exe file that's an easy choice to double-click. Beyond that there's not much you or anyone else can do, except maybe include a physical note somewhere. * * * #27: "Downloaded at 8:30 this morning. Still no email with reg info" Then something's wrong -- do it again. the web page showed the key before I bothered checking for the e-mail.]]> Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:31:48 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126914 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126913 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:27:17 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126913 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126912 [let's say you created a slideshow using the very recent Wondershare GOTD] you have to hope the host PC/laptop can play it. You've no idea what app owns that file type on someone else's PC/laptop, if it's configured properly, or even if it works. Normally you'd get around that by supplying your own player, adding your video to the start command, but you can't. In fact, to open anything in any app you included it seems you'd have to use the MyAutoplay Menu to open another autoplay app, which makes the MyAutoplay Menu kind of senseless. [I wish it weren't so, & really tried many work-a-rounds, but sadly none seemed to work]. And while I used a video example, the same thing applies to most all types of files -- when you in effect double-click any file on an unknown PC/laptop, you don't know what's going to happen, & the person viewing your menu may not appreciate you opening P/Shop for an image, or their MP3 cataloging app etc. What MyAutoplay Menu will do is create a stand-a-lone app that can show a Splash Screen you design/create, leading to a menu or set of menus you again design/create. If you choose the HTML option you get an autorun.inf file pointing to an html page it creates -- IMHO if that's what you're after you're better off using a regular HTML editor, & writing the .inf file in Notepad. MyAutoplay Menu has some decent tools for setting up your menus, & you're able to import images etc. or use what's included, but a good html editor/web page design app just easily outclasses it. That said, MyAutoplay Menu seems to have very low system requirements, so it should behave well on lower powered PCs/laptops. It's not portable, but it relies on just 5 new registry keys, & it takes up ~55 MB in 759 files, 15 folders -- don't think that because there are 759 files it comes with huge amounts of content, as 276 are flags for things like the language selection dialog, & another 195 files are for different, available languages. Overall I think Ashampoo MyAutoplay Menu is a nice app to create menus for limited projects where you keep any ambition fully in check. I could see using it to jot down a quick note, maybe with a greeting card background, & when you click on buttons it opens some folders of holiday-themed mp3 files for example on the CD -- one button for classics, one for rock etc., leaving it up to the viewer to decide what if anything to do with them. If you used an app to turn video files into .exe files [or Flash video into self contained .exe players], that should work. Beyond that sort of thing I'm hesitant to say use MyAutoplay Menu to just open files [with no idea what will happen] because by creating/including a menu you're now responsible for it working well on someone else's PC/laptop -- in effect you own the experience -- & IMHO you're often better off just giving them the files to play however they want... that way you'll avoid the calls for tech support, perhaps the occasional comment that you don't know what you're doing, & maybe even blame if something goes wrong with someone's PC within the next month's timeframe.]]> Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:06:37 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126912 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126911 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:02:06 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126911 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126910 Traditionally, Dianne, autoplay menu setups have been used for software install discs. Condescending much, Mike(#15)? ("Traditionally" - heh!). AutoRun and AutoPlay are not the same feature. AutoPlay scans removable media for music and video files, then offers to open them with one of the apps that are already installed on your computer. AutoRun runs an app that is included on the removable media itself. Despite its name, Ashampoo MyAutoplay Menu creates AutoRun apps, just as Ashraf(#1) and mike(#15) described. It has been exploited by the SillyFDC worm that infested US Defense Department computers, by the Conficker worm that prompted Microsoft to recommend disabling AutoRun (after finally fix the bug that had prevented it from being disabled), and by the Stuxnet worm that has infested industrial computers worldwide via infected PCs. So, yeah, AutoRun is evil, just as Jo Bleaux(#8) said. (And even Microsoft confuses AutoPlay with AutoRun. Maybe that's because MS still includes the AutoRun app as an AutoPlay option if AutoPlay is disabled.) You only need this, Diane(#6), if you're creating a CD to distribute apps that are buried somewhere an end user isn't likely to look for them, or if you're distributing web pages that include script to end users who will browse it with Internet Explorer. Otherwise, keep the CD directory structure tidy, keep the good stuff near the top of the hierarchy, and label the files clearly or include a readme. (An early IE "feature" allowed Javascript stored on a local drive to run as a shell script, able to read and write the filesystem and to run other programs. Javascript loaded from the Internet is much less privileged, able to change only the web page that loaded it. If that web page is saved along with its Javascript, though, that toothless Javascript from "out there" will have the power of a shell script when the saved page is opened in IE. Oops! Instead of fixing the security hole, Microsoft preserved the feature by instead displaying a warning whenever a local web page loads a script, leaving it up to the end user to decide which scripts were safe. Other browsers don't share this defect.) @mike(#15): (1) Only IE has this particular problem displaying local web pages, and it only affects pages with embedded script or which load scripts; (2) An organization that has blocked HTML scripts on removable media as a security measure won't likely permit execution of an unsigned app on that same media; (3) The default cluster size for NTFS or a typical FAT32-formatted flash drive is 4096 bytes. Unless your flash drive is FAT16-formatted (like the 5 MB drive on the IBM XT), small files do not take up any more space on a "USB stick" than on a HDD.]]> Thu, 09 Dec 2010 16:01:41 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126910 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126909 Thu, 09 Dec 2010 15:03:43 -0500 https://www.giveawayoftheday.com/ashampoo-myautoplay-menu/#comment-126909