now if I could just find a way to bypass the need to select "Audio".. oh well, better quit while I'm ahead.
You can do this.
MC can be started via command line and you can then tell it to go directly into Theater View > Audio.
The MC command lines commands are:
mc16.exe /mode theater
mc16.exe /mcc 22001,3
Unfortunately, MC seems to miss the second command during its startup, so you have to delay a bit. Since recent Windows don't come with a
sleep command, we can use a trick to place a delay between the two commands. We'll ping for 2 seconds:
mc16.exe /mode theater
ping -n 2 127.0.0.1 > NUL 2>&1
mc16.exe /mcc 22001,3
Now, you can either place this into a .bat file and execute it:
@echo off
mc16.exe /mode theater
ping -n 2 127.0.0.1 > NUL 2>&1
mc16.exe /mcc 22001,3
or issue it all one a single command line:
mc16.exe /mode theater&&ping -n 2 127.0.0.1 > NUL 2>&1&&mc16.exe /mcc 22001,3
You're probably be more interested in the former.
Create a text file, call it, for example
Start MC.bat. Place the 4 lines from above into the file. (Note: if you have not already changed Windows to not hide common file extensions, go to
Control Panel > Folder Options and go to the
View tab, uncheck
Hide extensions for known file types. Rename the file to remove the text file's .txt suffix, leaving just the .bat suffix). Save the file.
Now, you can double click the .bat file to launch MC, and it will quickly thereafter jump into Theater View > Audio.
You'll find that a command window opens. If you want to prevent that, create a Shortcut to that .bat file, and right-click the shortcut and select
Properties. In the Shortcut tab, select Minimized under the
Run pull-down. OK the window, and now use the shortcut to start MC.