Cross Platform Autorun CD Creation
dmcdougall (5 points) | Thu, 2005-10-20 03:34I hope to get some assistance. I have created a html format recruitment CD for a local hospital and I need to have both Mac and PC, plus Linux if possiable to auto run the index.html. I have no issues with formating and icons for the CD on the Mac side with a nice window background but the PC side lacks and I have the CD icon created for the PC side but do not know how to go about attaching to the PC CD or creating the autorun of the index.html. I have the latest Toast and when I create the sudo disk image, I have both mac and PC cd mount my desktop, I hope the same does not happen on the PC side. I am at a loss and when looking in google, al I see is old OS9 info. Please help steer me a in right direction.
Many thank
Dennis.
me with crayon make picture pretty.
A few months ago, I tried to burn a cross platform (Windows/Mac) autorun cd to launch a local website and, after some searches and tests, I gave up the idea. Here are the reasons why:
1/ An autorun for PC is not able to open an .html file.
To make an autorun for PC, you just need to put (in the root of the cd) a simple text-based configuration file (Autorun.inf) that tells the operating system which executable to start, which icon to use, and which additional menu commands to make available. Here is a simple Autorun.inf example:
[autorun]
open=example.exe
icon=example.ico
As you see, an autorun is only able to start an executable (.exe). So, it will not work with an .html file. You will absolutely need to create a .exe to launch the .html file.
2/ The autorun is not allowed anymore in Mac OS X. Essentially for security reasons. That's the reason why you only found OS 9 infos concerning autorun on Mac.
I suppose that you now understand why I gave up the idea to create this cd? It will not work on Mac OS X and is hard to do for Windows. Thus, here is what I've done: I put the homepage in the root of the cd (a good idea is to call it please_begin_here.html for example), put all the other files in a folder (you could also hide this folder). When people insert the cd, they only see the .html file and they know that they need to open it. Not as fun but more efficient.
Finally, concerning the PC icon, you will need to create a PC icon (.ico), put the file on the root of the cd and tell in the autorun which icon to use (the 3rd line in my example).
Hope this helps.