# autoexecutable cd



## electra (Nov 18, 2004)

Hi,

I have Mac osx and I have been trying to make an autoexecutable CD and it seems imposible.  Can it be done in Mac osx?  If not, is there some other way to make it?

Also, how can I put my own icon to a folder?

Thanks.


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## Natobasso (Nov 28, 2004)

I think you may need to check out Macromedia Director in order to make an autoexecutable CD. What sort of content are you trying to run? Movies? Flash? A link to web?


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## Natobasso (Nov 28, 2004)

Here's another forum on the subject:
http://www.videohelp.com/forum/archive/t177943.html


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## Natobasso (Nov 28, 2004)

Adding an icon to a folder is easy as cake. Just "Get Info" on the icon you want to copy, then hit tab. The icon should light up in that window. Then go to the folder you want to add the icon to and Get Info again. Paste the icon there after hitting tab (make the icon light up).


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## wicky (Nov 30, 2004)

I'm no authority on this subject, but I made similar equiries a while ago and was told that making an auto run cd is a non starter for OSx. 

Apparently, it has to do with security/permissions... you can assign apps such as the DVD player to autorun a relevant disk, but you can't get a disk to automatically run, overriding user and system pref's.


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## brianleahy (Nov 30, 2004)

That's interesting; I once bought an OS Pack for VPC6, and I'm nearly certain that disk 1 did an auto-launch when inserted...


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## Natobasso (Nov 30, 2004)

Well, at the very least you can make a Director presentation and have the user double click a "start" link. That would get around any pref or security issues.


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## wicky (Nov 30, 2004)

Yup, you could certainly do that... but then that's not exactly automatic is it?

As I said Brian, I am no expert with this topic. The way it was described to me made quite a lot of sense (given that it was explained much better than I have explained it here). The point seemed to be that this is probably the easiest way to transfer malicious code, and so Apple deliberately avoided support for this feature. 

Personally, I am yet to come across a disk that does successfully auto-run in OSx, but if it's possible, I'd love to know how. Do you still have the disk??


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## brianleahy (Nov 30, 2004)

I do have it, but since VPC6 won't run on my G5, I've loaned it to my sister (she has an iMac)

You can bet that when I get it back, I'm going to take a close look at it


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## Natobasso (Nov 30, 2004)

wicky said:
			
		

> Yup, you could certainly do that... but then that's not exactly automatic is it?



As you say, though, it's not possible to do an autoexecuting cd so I provided an answerwouldn't you say?


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## brianleahy (Nov 30, 2004)

Actually, with a little cooperation from users, you could probably use this mechanism to do it:

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=150842

This link shows how you can set your Mac to run a specific script when a disc is inserted.  However, it doesn't appear you can just tell this feature to run a script on the newly-inserted disc.

Instead, you'd have to create a script (called something like "Check4Auto") on your hard drive that would search the new disc for a file with an agreed-upon name (like maybe "autorun.scpt") and execute it if found.  

Then use the procedure described at the above link to run "Check4Auto" when a disc is inserted.


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## wicky (Dec 1, 2004)

Natobasso said:
			
		

> As you say, though, it's not possible to do an autoexecuting cd so I provided an answerwouldn't you say?



OOooppss, excuse my sarcasm!! Didn't mean to tread on your toe there Nato, I was just trying to keep it relevant to the question... y'know. Yes you're perfectly correct, however if you require the user to double click then you have many options available to you.


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## wicky (Dec 1, 2004)

Natobasso said:
			
		

> As you say, though, it's not possible to do an autoexecuting cd so I provided an answerwouldn't you say?



OOooppss, excuse my sarcasm!! Didn't mean to tread on your toe there Nato, I was just trying to keep it relevant to the question... y'know. Yes you're perfectly correct, however, if you require the user to double click then you have many options available to you.


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## btoth (Dec 1, 2004)

I believe you can have a CD (or disk image) auto-open its window on insert... I think it's a matter of "ejecting" the disk image in writable mode with the window open before making it read-only... it then saves the window size and position in the .DS_STORE file.

Also, if you want to add an icon to the disk or a background image to the folder, you need to have the image on the disk, usually in a hidden file.


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