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A simple, small program that allows to make your auto-running CD-ROM in Windows 9x/NT/2000.

The issue

Almost all people know that CD-ROMs can be auto-run under Windows, just by inserting it into the CD-ROM drive. It's easy: just insert in the file "autorun.inf" in the root directory of the CD-ROM a couple of istructions like these:

[autorun]
open=Program.Exe

Problems arise when one wants to make auto-running CD-ROMs that need to open a "document", not just to launch an executable program. Writing something like:

[autorun]
open=document.html

hoping that a browser window will be automatically opened showing "document.html" doesn't work, because the "standard" autorun mechanism is only able to lanuch executables. If making auto-running CD-ROMs that work on Windows 9x only is enough, one can write:

[autorun]
open=start.exe document.html

but, unfortunately, this technique does NOT work under Windows NT (and under Windows 2000 too, I guess), where the program START.EXE is not available.

Solution

A solution that works with all 32-bit Windows versions is to use a small executable program, called AVVIA.EXE (AVVIA means START in Italian), to be put in the root directory of the CD-ROM; this program just "emulates" the behavior of Win95's START.EXE. In practice, just put in AUTORUN.INF something like this:

[autorun]
open=avvia.exe document.html

and everything runs smoothly, on both Windows 9x and NT; in other words, the system browser will automatically be opened showing "document.html".

Download

AVVIA.EXE and its source code are available for free.

• AVVIA11.ZIP (~15 KB)
• If you want to know how it works, you may download its simple source code: AVVIASRC.ZIP (3 KB) (a C compiler for 32 bit Windows is needed)

License

This software is released under the DWYWWIECYWI (Do Whatever You Want With It Except Claiming You Wrote It) license.

Improvements

Always possible, always welcome: if anyone improves this small piece of software, (s)he can contact me in order to make the improved version available on this page.