Automate Media Center Slideshow after auto reboot

[cwrig]

I have a Kiosk setup (Windows 7 PC attached to an HDTV) to display a set of photos in a public lobby. The set of photos is controlled by several people who save the photos into a predetermined directory each night. The idea is that the PC reads this predetermined folder and displays the photos on the HDTV all day.

It generally works; but if I have media center set to play a slideshow from this Folder, it does not seem to relook at the folder unless I restart it. In other words; if people put new photos in the folder, they are not shown in the slideshow until someone manyally starts and stops the media center slideshow.

So; My idea is to use windows task scheduler to reboot the PC every morning at 5am, and then have it start media center and start the photo slideshow pointing to this folder.

I have found lots of tutorials on how to use windows task scheduler to restart or reboot a pc on a schedule, but I dont know how to tell it to start media center slideshow looking at a specific directory.

Does anyone have any ideas to solve my problem. Maybe I am missing a much easier solution. I just want this PC to play a full scrreen slideshow from a specific folder and have to refresh the slidewshow if new images are put in the folder; with no human intervention on the PC running the kiosk.

 

[mikinho]

Have Media Center startup with the below command line. Just make sure the folder you want played is setup as a "favorite"

%SystemRoot%\ehome\ehshell.exe /playfavslideshow /mediamode /noshutdownui /nostartupanimation