Dell Media Direct With Inspiron Lid Closed and Vista SHot Off

Hello!
I do hope I get a clear answer here as my post in Dell Support was not satisfactory.
Anyway I have a new Instpiron 640m with Vista Home Basic installed.Media Direct works with the lid closed when I am in the Vista environment. This means if I play music after opening media direct while in windows and close the lid the music will still play.I can also use WMP and iTunes with the lid closed.
what I am asking is that if Vista is shut off and I open media direct from the front button.how do I set media direct so that when I close the lid music will keep on playing.As of now the media direct shuts off when I close the lid.
Note that under Vista all pertaining to "lid Closed" are set to "Do Nothing".
Thanks

 

This is a long shot, but might work since MediaDirect is just a CyberLink MCE application running on a special edition of Windows XP. If you can tap in to the power configuration options of the OS, you may be able to do what you want. This is something that came to my mind just now, therefore I can't guarantee anything, but you can try it anyways.

First you have to copy the taskmgr.exe to the hidden MD Windows installation’s Windows\System32 directory. Refer to this post on how to do it. This is done so you can execute an application under MD.

Afterwards, load MD and press crtl+shift+esc , this will open up the task manager as in normal windows. Then run cmd.exe and launch either powercfg.cpl from the command prompt or use the powercfg.exe command line tool to change the power configuration of MediaDirect Windows. If powercfg.cpl and powercfg.exe cannot be found under System32 directory, then you will have to copy those files from a normal Windows installation as you did with the task manager (and any additional files you might need to load up the power configurator, but I'm guessing powercfg.exe should work independently). As I said before this may or may not work.

However I don’t know whether it’s a good idea even if you can do it, because since the MD button is outside the notebook (for 640m), what if you accidentally press it while inside a bagpack ? I don't know whether MD loads when you press the button while the lid is closed; but if it does then you are taking away some sort of a failsafe by meddling with the power management settings. Just a thought….

Good luck

 

Thanks for the prompt response.
You are right the MD button works while lid is closed but momentary only-I mean the blue light goes on and I see some activity in the HD indicator at the hinges but it goes off after a few seconds.
Hacking the MD OS might result in the laptop accidentally going on while carrying it. And yes I do use a backpack....

 

Yup. MediaDirect is set to go into Standby when the lid is closed. I followed the procedure here to add Taskmgr.exe. Works for MD3 also.