jsmorley wrote: ↑December 20th, 2018, 4:35 am
Rainmeter doesn't set anything in the registry for starting the application with Windows.
It simply places a shortcut to Rainmeter in: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
All Rainmeter does when it is installed in "normal" mode is:
1) Creates an entry in the Registry for the uninstaller, (uninst.exe) so Windows "Add or remove programs" can properly deal with it.
2) Creates an "open with" file association between .rmskin and SkinInstaller.exe
3) Creates a shortcut to Rainmeter in C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
If you install Rainmeter in "portable" mode, none of the above is done. In order to get a portable installation to load with Windows, you will need to place a shortcut to Rainmeter in: C:\Users\YourName\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup.
Yes, I had that already figured it out, that's how I eliminated the "default" Startup instance that didn't work. Thing is, it's not "normal" that the approach you guys use to make it start with Windows to not work - that's why I said you should look into it a little bit. The user (me, in this case) shouldn't use workarounds for it, whether these are placing it in another startup location or installing it in portable mode. I know you didn't technically do anything wrong and went by the book with your approach, but it "should" work. For me personally, it's generally not enough to make something work using a workaround, I want to know
why it didn't work the first time (that's the programmer in me talking, LOL).
I have two more questions to better understand this:
- does the shortcut you create at installation have the 'run as administrator' set? Because the shortcut I deleted had that set, and I just want to know if that was "by design" (I would understand the reason for it)
- why when placing Rainmeter in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run key yields the same negative result as making the shortcut you mentioned (aka doesn't make the application start with Windows)? Shouldn't this key be for 64-bit software (like Rainmeter apparently is) and the working
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Wow6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run location be reserved for 32-bit software? I'm asking this because I tried placing Rainmeter in the former location (for x64) and it didn't work, but when I placed it in the latter (for x86) it worked? Shouldn't this be the other way around (if Rainmeter is a "true" 64-bit application, that is)?
P.S. As I already said, I tried making a Rainmeter shortcut in
C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup (the all users equivalent of the path you mentioned) and that didn't work either, and I can't figure out why...
UPDATE: Out of curiosity I tried placing the shortcut of another 64-bit application (Notepad++) in the
C:\Users\[user]\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup folder, and it didn't work. So I can now safely say that it's not a Rainmeter problem, but maybe a Windows 10 1803 bug or a folder permission issue (although the latter is illogical, since those were folders created by Windows itself).