Signage Screen Software

[DalekSec]

Hi Guys and Girls,

 

I'm trying to find the best way to setup the signage screens in our office (4 of them). Ideally free.

 

I've tried using W11 in Kiosk mode managed via Intune but seem to have to login every time no matter what regedits i do.

 

Don't mind what OS, have a ton of spare desktops to use for them

[Frodo_Baggins]

Not used it in a while but used to use Chrome Sign Builder which looks to a google slide - If you don't use Google admin then not much point looking at this.

Always hear about Xibo on these threads!

[LeMarchand]

If it's just the logon that's holding things up, have you tried the Sysinternals utility? Not tried it on W11 and I suspect that it just does the reg hack for you, but may be worth a go. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autologon

[ITGuyNW]

I currently use Xibo but I'm looking to move away from it because every version they release seems to make installation and running more complicated(docker on linux now preferred method??). Plus it doesn't work properly with PHP8+ at the moment either.

[DalekSec]

If it's just the logon that's holding things up, have you tried the Sysinternals utility? Not tried it on W11 and I suspect that it just does the reg hack for you, but may be worth a go. https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/downloads/autologon

 

Yepp tried that, no luck!

 

 

Xibo ive heard of but normally not good things! Trying Pisignage currently, as you can run it on other devices running Debian

[rush_tech]

We used Pi's with screenly on them or Anthias as it's called now

[Cat_Jam148]

We use Xibo here and it does the job - sits on a Ubuntu box and just hums away.

 

Never really had any complaints. Installation is a bit of a faff, but the guides are pretty comprehensive and the support on their forums is pretty decent. We side load the client app on Amazon Fire sticks here and use those to drive the displays, but it's available on a whole host of platforms

[DalekSec]

We used Pi's with screenly on them or Anthias as it's called now

 

Ooo that looks like might do that job. Will give it a try after testing the pisignage

[p858snake]

If you just want to display power points, There is the ShowPoint tool, but they changed it so now you need to spam, sorry "promoting and sharing the website" to get a license.

[DalekSec]

3 are displaying webpages the other is displaying software

[dhicks]

We used Pi's with screenly on them or Anthias as it's called now

 

We use Pi 3s, which can manage to power themselves from the USB port of a modern smart TV, so the Pi turns on and boots up when the TV is turned on. I just have them load Chrome browser in kiosk mode and point at a Google Slides slideshow - nothing fancy, but it does make it nice and easy for users to edit the content.

[3s-gtech]

Mine are on Windows 10 still ,but just have autoadminlogon set in the registry with a local user, then Xibo set in the Startup items. This has been basically foolproof for something like 15 years here, but I have frozen the Xibo version as 1.7 does everything I want.

[DalekSec]

Pulling my hair out with this today.

 

Anthias doesnt let you login to webpages so thats out

 

Tried screenly instead as this does, but requires a Pi on each screen, dont have the dollar to buy one for every screen

 

Xibo doesn't let me use the internal URL as it times out from the CMS and doesn't let me add it....

[dhicks]

Tried screenly instead as this does, but requires a Pi on each screen, dont have the dollar to buy one for every screen

 

But if you have a bunch of old desktop PCs, you can install Raspbian on them (based on Debian) and configure them as kiosks. If it's any help, I put the configuation I used into a script:

 

https://github.com/dhicks6345789/device-config

 

I think I put in configuration for Raspbian on both the actual Pi and Intel devices (a couple of config files wind up in different places on different platforms for no good reason), and I think the example given still works, although it's been a little while since I set up the devices and things might be a bit out of date.

[Rob_D]

If it's just loading a webpage, can't you just get chrome to run automatically at login? Maybe have an autoit script to handle logging in?

[DalekSec]

But if you have a bunch of old desktop PCs, you can install Raspbian on them (based on Debian) and configure them as kiosks.

I tried this and running the the screenly script but no luck, didnt get it working.

 

I need as 0 user input as possible. Just want to set and forget.

[LeMarchand]

Are you only displaying a webpage? How about Porteus Kiosk: Porteus Kiosk - free and open source kiosk software for web terminals.

 

I used to use it as a "Library OS", locked down so that it would open at Libresoft and that was it. (When it was a Windows machine it would get used for "other stuff"). Moving towards a Windows kiosk app I found now as at least the underlying OS will auto-update (you have to pay for that in Porteus) but if you're having problems with autologon...

 

P.S. Have just remembered that my HTPC at home is W11 22H2 Pro and automatically logs on (probably via Sysinternals) so it could be a GPO or something blocking that.

Edited March 15, 2023 by LeMarchand

[Garacesh]

AutoAdminLogon and a shortcut in shell:startup should do the trick

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Value name: AutoAdminLogon, Value type: REG_SZ, Value data: 1

Value name: DefaultPassword, Value type: REG_SZ, Value data: $YourAccountPassword

Value name: DefaultUserName, Value type: REG_SZ, Value data: $YourAccountUsername

(probably want to pair this with disabling balloon/toast notifications)

 

Then stick a shortcut to "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "YourURLGoesHere" --start-fullscreen in shell:startup for that user account

Edit: Or the shortcut to the software you want running on that one

 

Of course, this does mean you've got account credentials in cleartext in the machine's registry, so make sure the machine is locked down appropriately.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Garacesh

[DalekSec]

AutoAdminLogon and a shortcut in shell:startup should do the trick

 

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

Value name: AutoAdminLogon, Value type: REG_SZ, Value data: 1

Value name: DefaultPassword, Value type: REG_SZ, Value data: $YourAccountPassword

Value name: DefaultUserName, Value type: REG_SZ, Value data: $YourAccountUsername

(probably want to pair this with disabling balloon/toast notifications)

 

Then stick a shortcut to "C:\Program Files\Google\Chrome\Application\chrome.exe" "YourURLGoesHere" --start-fullscreen in shell:startup for that user account

Edit: Or the shortcut to the software you want running on that one

 

Of course, this does mean you've got account credentials in cleartext in the machine's registry, so make sure the machine is locked down appropriately.

 

 

Done the trick, ideally wanted central managed but seems to be lacking with 0 budget!

 

Had to change the script to a task scheduler due to several reasons but it works!

[Squelch]

We've been using https://www.digitalsignage.com/ for years. It's free and works well. The client auto starts with windows.