Hello Stephen, Thanks for the prompt response!
>How would you, a human being, determine if the program was being run directly >after startup? I'm not going to claim that I am a computer systems expert; I don't know a whole lot about what goes on in the Windows start up. I know services and programs are started, Internet connections are made, and connections to devices on your computer are tested. However, these are all things that could happen at any time (programs: obviously; Internet could disconnect; unplugging or plugging in a mouse, for example). That's why I came here. Maybe someone knew something I didn't. I know you're trying to get me to come to my own conclusion of my own accord, but I have been attacking this problem for 8 hours. If the answer was within my knowledge, I believe would have discovered it by now. >What counts as "directly"? Within 10 seconds? Before any other program with a >GUI? Before *any* other program, including background processes? Before the >Windows desktop loads? Maybe I should have made my purpose clearer. What I want the program to do is perform its normal function (ie: swap your wallpaper with a random one from a given directory) automatically after Windows completely starts up, and then exit so as not to remain in memory. With this new information, the answer to all of these questions should be obvious. Since it depends on calls to the Windows API, this program should be one of the last things to start, if not THE last thing. >As far as you know, it SHOULD work? How about trying it and finding out? Again, I probably should have been clearer. This functionality DOES work. The program will swap the wallpapers, then exit. The only thing I haven't tested is if it will work at start up, which would have required a reboot of my computer, something I really didn't want to have to do. I was in the process of coding other, more critical features with around 20 different tabs opened in Firefox, as well as participating communications with someone who was designing a logo for me. I will be testing it next time I boot my computer. >In any case, it sounds to me that what you need is two programs, one which >automatically sets the wallpaper at startup, and a second that is a GUI. Yes, that is an option. However, my previous wallpaper cycler was able to do what I am describing without two separate programs and I have just discovered how. It was a switch on the executable that isn't present when you try to run the program normally. This was probably the first thing I should have looked into and I don't know why I did not. As long as I can pass variables through a command line when executing a Python script, I see no reason why this shouldn't work. This technically isn't the system letting the program know that it is running after a start up, but rather a user telling a program that "I am running you after a start up." Little bit of a different approach, but hey, whatever works right? -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
