Automatically Launching Firefox On System Start (Windows 10)
- Matthew Webb
- Mark Fenimore (Unlicensed)
Disclaimer
The information found below should be used in conjunction with security best practices to ensure that by automatically logging into a station, you are not putting your data or devices at risk. Be sure to (at minimum) set proper data access levels for the kiosk user account (i.e. Read Only within Category Services) and secure physical access to the data entry devices where possible (Mouse, Keyboard, Touchscreen, Etc.).
Issue 4: Automatically Launching Firefox On System Start (Windows 10):
As part of an "Auto-Kiosk" type of setup, it could be desirable to launch a web browser automatically in order to display content. When this is used with the other items within the parent article, this could make for a seamless hands-off startup of a kiosk.
This guide is specific to Mozilla Firefox. Other browsers may also work, but they will not be covered in this article.
Step 1: Setting The Default Startup Page In Firefox
- Launch Firefox, and go into "Options". From within "Options" navigate to "General".
- Under the "Home Page" area, type in the path of your Niagara station. This can be either a Domain or IP address.
Step 2 (Optional): Install The "Auto Fullscreen" plugin for Firefox
If you would like your Kiosk to launch in a full screen mode that does not show the address bar, you will need to install a plugin as this functionality is not built into Firefox already.
- Go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/autofullscreen/ from within Firefox. (Note: You must visit this link from within Firefox to install the plugin)
- Click on the "Add to Firefox" button from the page.
- Click on the "Add" button when prompted. This should then turn the current view within your browser to a full screen view. (Note: You can always press F11 to exit full screen mode)
Step 3: Adding Firefox To Windows Startup
In order to complete the Auto-Kiosk, we will need to launch Firefox when Windows is loading up. In order to do this, we will need to place a shortcut for Firefox into the Windows Startup folder.
- From the Windows Start menu, scroll to "Firefox"
- Right click the icon and select "Open file location"
- From the file location, right click on the Firefox shortcut icon and select "Copy"
- On the PC, Press Windows Key + R. From the run menu, enter the following:
- %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
- %appdata%\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup
- When the file location opens, paste the Firefox shortcut from the previous step into this folder.
When you reboot your PC, Firefox should now start up automatically and launch your home page as well.