preloading applications behind the scenes?

[Graz73]

Hi,
I'm launching PPT files from a CD-based Projector interface.
It's using Northcode's proxy.exe to hide the bat files and it's working OK.

BUT when I load some of these presentations, they take a while. Maybe it's the CD spinning up, but I think its partially related to the ppt viewer application having to load from the CD.

I would like to pre-load pptview.exe from the main interface before the user tries to load any of my presentations. The problem is, ppt viewer will launch an "open file" dialog box if I open it without selecting a file to open.

I know this is not directly flash based, but it is still a problem with these CD based interfaces.

Any ideas?
thanks!

[Northcode]

The most likely culprit is the CD spin up speed so even if you could preload the applications how would you know when they were done loading and ready to display? Not all drives are going to spin up at the same rate, they might still be spinning sometimes, so the delay is going to be pretty random. Even a tiny PPT file will take a long time load if the real delay is the spin up time. You can't read from the CD drive until it's spinning at the desired speed.

[slinky2000]

plus the application itself could take an age to load even when the file is brought fromt he cd-rom