Autoplay - Autostart HTML file automatically

Have you created a nice looking photo album on CD or a presentation based on html web pages? Would you like to make it auto run on Windows machines when it is inserted?
Well, here is the solution. Use this free Autoplay program to launch local web sites automatically. All what you need is explained below.

Windows 95 and newer versions have a feature to launch a program after inserting a new medium like CD-ROM or DVD into the drive.

To use this feature Windows looks for a file named autorun.inf in the root folder of the drive. This file contains information which program has to be launched and which icon is assigned to this particular medium. Here is a sample autorun.inf file:

[autorun]
open=cdstart.exe
icon=icon.ico

The program and the icon file, in this example cdstart.exe and icon.ico are located in the root folder of the medium. The autorun feature works well for executable files but it is not possible to open a html document in that way by changing the second text line to open=index.htm.

The solution is to have a small program that launches the default web browser together with the given html document. This is the purpose of Autoplay. With Autoplay the specified html document is displayed automatically when the medium is insterted. The user doesn't have to find out how to start the photo album or presentation.

How to use Autoplay

First create all your CD content and html documents. Make sure the start document of your presentation is located in the root folder of your CD-ROM. In the example below the file name of the start document is index.htm. If the file name of your start document is different you must change the name (e.g. open=autoplay.exe start.html).

Place the autorun.inf file and the autoplay.exe in the root folder of the CD or DVD you want to burn. If you have an icon file to represent the CD in the Explore window place it there too. Use a simple text editor like Notepad and replace the name icon.ico with your particular icon file name. Here is the content of the autorun.inf file:

[autorun]
open=autplay.exe index.htm
icon=icon.ico

If you don't want to use a special icon you can delete the icon line from the file. Then Windows will use the default system icon that is assigned to the drive type.

The screen shot below shows the content of a CD named Summer Trip with the necessary files.

Content of the CD-ROM

Download Autoplay, it's free

autoplay.exe, (5,632 bytes) the program that launches the default web browser.

autorun.inf, (53 bytes) a sample file for easy editing.

icon.ico, (766 bytes) a sample icon file. Use also any other icon file of your choice.

All files can be used without unpacking after the download.
Autoplay runs on Windows 95, 98, Me, 2000, XP and Vista x86.