How do I open a html page when the user inserts my CD?

ShellExecute is a small program that you can put in your autorun.inf to launch a browser window with your html page.

Use it to automatically open a browser window when your CD with a photo album gets inserted. Or open a PDF file. Or a flash animation. Or something else.

You can download the program here: ShellExecute.exe, it is only 36KB.

The program is free to use; you must read the full license. You can download the LICENSE.txt file to distribute along with the program.

How to use

Put the program with a file called "autorun.inf" in the root of your CD. The autorun.inf file should look like the following:

  [AutoRun]
  OPEN=ShellExecute index.html

You should substitute index.html with the name of your html file if you call it something else (like Start.html). Be careful when you rename the file that it doesn't end up being called something like index.html.html!

ShellExecute has been tested with various versions of MSIE on Windows 2000 Professional and Windows XP. However, it should work fine with other browsers and other versions of Windows (95 and later) too.

Tips & Tricks

You can also specify a URL, like http://develooper.com/code/shellexecute/ instead of a filename.

ShellExecute doesn't include any other features and has no hidden advertising, timed expirations or anything silly like that.

Feedback

Send feedback to ask@develooper.com.

Be aware that I don't use Windows and don't even have a development environment for Windows anymore.