A challenge...I cant figure it out.

Control panel, sound settings, change sound scheme ......

Playing at boot is simple but closing the avi player of your choice is difficult unless the player has an option to close when the avi playing is complete.

I've never heard of anything that could play an avi file on bootup and then shut itself off...
Don't think it can be done.
IMHO

I have an idea... i don't know if this will work... but make a batch file... you can use the command start... and the file name... it should play... or enter the wmplayer exe file in the command line... but of course the parameters will be the file you want to play... and put a link to that batch file in your start up folder... hmmm... as for closing it... hmmm..... that's a hard one... unless xp has some way to do it... confusing...

my point exactly.....

Not worth wasting a lot of hours trying to make it happen...
What's more important is that your computer starts up faithfully
and does what you need it to do.

Ok... here ya go

Make a batch file(.bat) that includes this line in it, and place it in your 'Startup' folder.

mplayer2 /play /close /fullscreen thepath\filename.avi

example:

mplayer2 /play /close /fullscreen c:\windows\clock.avi

This will basically play your avi fullscreen when XP starts and exit it automatically when it is finished playing.

Please note that it only works with Windows Media Player 6.0 hence using the mplayer2.exe - but this file comes with XP.

I have just (in the last 5-10 mins) created an app that can take a filename as a parameter and display that AVI file full screen closing after it has played once. It would be trivial to extend this to accept window size settings/positions. It simply runs a timer in the background to check if the current position is at the end of the clip. If it is it closes itself. It's not very pretty but it would hopefully do the job. Will try to put it on my website later if you are interested.

im interested.
also, how do i make a batch file?

ok
i found out how to make a batch file
and i found that mplayer2.exe /play /close /fullscreen C:\Alex\Movies\f.avi works in the run command prompt. but putting it into a batch file doesnt do nothing, it just brings up a dos prompt for 2 seconds.

Ok, forget the batch file - just make a shortcut to "C:\Program Files\Windows Media Player\mplayer2.exe" /play /close /fullscreen c:\windows\clock.avi

and put that in your startup folder