Various tools and tips to set up a Windows 10 pc with Chrome and Firefox in Kiosk mode.This document contains:
My laptop is the following model: Inspiron 15R SE 7520 I've trying for days now to disable the edge swipe function. There is no option within.
- Setup automatic login
- Setup nightly reboots
- Prevent the screen from going black or enter screen saver
- Disable lock screen
- Disable Edge Swipe and Pinch Zoom
- Prepare Chrome startup script
- Prepare Firefox startup script
Setup automatic login
You will need to have two (preferably local) users: one administrator (for setting things up) and one non-administrator (for auto-login). Once you have this, do the following:
- As administrator, press the Windows key and type 'regedit' and Enter.You will have to either change or create new entries depending on whether they already exist or not.
- Under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem
:- Change
LocalAccountTokenFilterPolicy
(32-bit DWORD) to 1 (hex or dec is the same).
- Change
- Under
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESoftwareMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon
:- Set
AutoAdminLogon
(STRING) to 1. - Set
DefaultDomainName
(STRING) to the computer name. - Set
DefaultUserName
(STRING) to the name of your non-administrator user. - Set
DefaultPassword
(STRING) to the password of your non-administrator user. - Delete
AutoLogonCount
if it exists.
- Set
Setup nightly reboots
It can be a good idea to do a reboot every night (or every week if you like), to ensure updates are run and so on.To schedule this, do the following:
- As administrator, press the Windows key and type
Task Scheduler
and Enter. - In the right panel, click on
Create Basic Task
. - Give it a name (like
Automatic restart every night
) and click Next. - When asked
When do you want the task to start?
, select Daily. Click Next. - Select some time in the night, like
05:00:00
- Clicking Next will bring you to the Action page. Enter 'powershell.exe' under 'Program/script',and the path to your copy of the restart-computer.ps1 under 'Add arguments (optional)'. If it's not working, seethis guidefor info about setting execution policy.
- Click Next to review all and finally click Finish.
Prevent the screen from going black or enter screen saver
Prevent screen from going black:
- Click on the Windows-icon on the start menu and type
Power Options
- Click on Change Plan Setting-link for Balanced and set both
Turn off the display
andPut the computer to sleep
toNever
.
Turn off screen saver:
- Make sure you are logged in as administrator, and click on the Windows-icon on the start menu and type regedit
- Go to
HKEY_USERS.DEFAULTControl PanelDesktop
- Set
ScreenSaveActive
string value to 0 (you might need to create this entry if it doesn't exist).ForWindows 10 Pro
, go here to find a useful instruction: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/6567-enable-disable-lock-screen-windows-10-a.html#option2
Disable lock screen
There are different tips on how to disable the lock screen. None of these worked for us, since it's enforced by policy (the central IT administration has promised us a different policy for kiosk screens, but it hasn't materialized yet), so we have to do the 'powerpoint trick'.. Yes, the computer will not lock while a presentation is running, so we start a Powerpoint presentation before starting Chrome.
Disable Edge Swipe and Pinch Zoom
For touch screens:
- Disable Edge swipe i Windows 10: https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/48507-enable-disable-edge-swipe-screen-windows-10-a.html2- Disable Pinch Zoom option in Windows 10: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-desktop-winpc/how-to-disable-pinch-zoom-option-in-windows-10/91124309-3177-4c7d-a52a-087f6e34772c
- Disable right click in Windows 10: Open
Pen and Touch
, then go toPress and Hold
andSettings
, uncheckEnable press and hold for right-clicking
.Right clicking can also be disabled in the web page by javascript:document.addEventListener('contextmenu', function(e) { e.preventDefault(); }, true);
Prepare Chrome startup script
See start-chrome-kiosk.ps1 for an example startup script for Chrome.
The most important flag is the --kiosk
flag, but there's also some more that are useful. Unfortunately, the flags tend to change from version to version without much notice, so alway scheck with the updated list of working flags here: https://peter.sh/experiments/chromium-command-line-switches/
Useful flags:
--kiosk
: Enable kiosk mode (fullscreen with no menus)--noerrdialogs
: Prevent error dialogs.--disable-infobars
: Prevent the yellow information bars.
There used to be a flag called --disable-session-crashed-bubble
for disabling the restore dialog that is shown if Chrome did not exit cleanly. After the flag was removed, the only way to avoid the restore dialog seems to be to manually alter the Preferences file (or lock it).In the start-chrome-kiosk.ps1 script, we are manually altering the file.
Prepare Firefox startup script
Todo
Devspar: Wouldn't it be easier to just create a tutorial campaign? So we listened and went with that. When we made SPG1, we had tutorial campaign and people went nuts, raging at us that they just want a textual tutorial they can open when they want. Now on to the beginner's guide!!!!!!I will be pretty active on this forum and I'm playing the game since day 1 of Early Access on Steam so I will try to help you with any questions you might have.Don't hesitate to ask and fly safe!:). I'll try my hand at the open ended campaign first, but the continuous deaths has been.
Hiding the mouse cursor
On Windows 7, the cursor starts out visible in the middle of the screen upon boot, so we used to use AutoHideMouseCursor to hide it after a short delay, say 5 seocnds.
On Windows 10, the cursor starts out hidden upon boot, and does not become visible before it's moved. This is perfect for kiosk screens.