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Click on any of the above listed items to go directly to that part of this article!
The boot screen is an image that appears on-screen while the operating system loads. By default this image is the WinXP logo and loading meter. All you need to do is replace the current Ntoskrnl.exe file with a customized version that includes pointers to the new boot screen, and viola you have your own image to appear while the Operating System loads!
First and most importantly.... back up your current Ntoskrnl.exe file in case anything goes wrong. Double-click My Computer, open the Windows drive (the location of where the operating system is installed) and browse through the Windows and System32 folders until you find the file called Ntoskrnl.exe. Right-click this file and select copy. To save the file, browse the My Computer folder to locate a secure drive or folder. Right-click the selected drive or folder, and select paste. The back-up copy has now been saved, and will appear in the drive or folder that you selected.
With the Ntoskrnl.exe file safely backed up its time for you to select a new image to use.
Listed here are some example websites that you may goto to search for your new boot up screen:
Once the download is complete, locate the file on your computer. Note the boot screen file often is a zip file (.zip) that you must decompress on your computer. The easiest way to do this is right-click the file and choose extract all. There will be on-screen instructions to guide you through the process. You can extract the files to any folder except the System32 folder on the Windows drive.
Once the files have been extracted, you should reboot the computer into safe mode. Restart the computer while holding down the F8 key to enter safe mode. When the computer restarts, open My Computer and locate the files you just extracted. Copy and paste them into the System32 folder on the Windows drive. Verify that you want to overwrite the existing file and wait till the process has finished. Again, reboot your computer, to Normal mode. The new boot screen should now appear.
At this point, you can delete the backup copy of the Ntoskrnl.exe file, if your satisified with the performance of the new boot screen. However, you should not move or delete any of the files that are associated with the new boot screen.
Changing the logon screen
Changing the logon screen is as easy as it was to change the boot screen! This time your looking for the Logonui.exe file in the System32 folder. Create a backup copy just as you did with the boot screen. Then visit any of the above listed websites and look for a new logon screen image. Again decompress the file to access the contents. Reboot your computer to safe mode, copy and paste the files into the System32 folder, veryify that you want to replace the old files, and reboot into Normal mode. Once the computer restarts into normal mode, you should now have your new logon screen.
How to customize the colors of the buttons, title bars and more
Right-click the Desktop and select properties from the menu. In the resulting dialog box, choose the Appearance Tab. From the Windows And Buttons drop-down menu, select Windows Classic Style (only the Windows Classic Stye option allows costum colors). Click on the Advanced button to display the advanced options. When you open the item menu, you'll find a list of 15+ customizable Desktop items.
When you've selected colors you like, click OK. If you find a color you really like, and would like to use for several item, add that color to the custom color pallete. Repeat this process for each item that you'd like to change the color on. After you've finished, click OK and close the dialog box. Your new colors will now show!
How to adjust font, size and style of title bars and menus.
You can modify the appearance of the text that appears on menus, title bars, and other elements of the desktop. Again, right-click the desktop and select properties from the menu, choose the appearance tab, and advanced button. Simply select an element in the resulting menu, and you'll now have the option to change the font, text size and text color. The font, size and colour fields present a variety of possible settings. When your happy with the selection, Click OK and close the dialog box. Your new font, size, and colors for each element you change will now appear.
How to use custom icons
When the engineers from Microsoft designed the WinXP interface, most of the desktop icons were moved to the Start menu. Wether or not you leave the icons in the Start menu or move them to the desktop (drag and drop for each item you'd like on your desktop), is all up to you. Either way you choose, you have the option of using custom icons!
First, you'll need some relacement icons saved as .ICO files on your system.
Listed here are some example websites that you may goto to search for your new icons:
After finding and downloading the icons you'd like to use, we suggest storing them in one location on the hard drive. For example, create an Icons folder by clicking on My Computer and double-clicking the Windows drive. Open the File menu and select New, Folder. When the folder appears, name it icons and press ENTER.
Open the Display Properties dialog box and choose the Desktop tab. Click on customize desktop button, general tab. From here you'll see a menu of the five desktop icons
- My Computer
- My Documents
- My Network Places
- Recycle Bin (full)
- Recycle Bin (empty)
Highlight one and click on Change Icon in the dialog box, click browse and locate the custom button you have chose for each item. Select the new icon, and click OK in the Chage Icon dialog box. Repeat the above steps for each icon you want to replace. When your finished, click OK.
How to produce a screensaver slideshow
It used to be that screen savers were used to protect your monitor from having an image burnt in, but todays monitors are not susceptible to burn-in. With that said screen savers are just as popular as ever! WinXP is capable of doing a My Pictures Slideshow, which lets you use a revolving display of selected images as a screen saver. Using the My Pictures Slideshow is easy to use and set up.
First move all of your favorite pictures and images into one folder on the Windows Drive. Open the display properties dialog box and choose the screen saver tab. In the resulting drop down menu, select the My Picture Slideshow option, and click on settings button. An options dialog box will open, click on browse to locate the folder where you've stored the images. highlight the golder in the browse for folder dialog box and click OK to return to the My Pictures Screen Saver Options dialog box.
Review the settings and set them according to your preferences. Click OK to accept your changes and return to the Display Properties dialog box. Click OK again to activate the screen saver.
How to Create a theme.
Once you have all your personal settings set, for font, text size, colors, background images, screen saver, icons and more, you can save the whole thing into a ppersonalized theme. Open the Display Properties dialog box and choose the Themes tab. Click the Save As button to access the Save to theme; the default location is X:\WINDOWS\RESOURCES\THEMES on the Windows drive (with X representing the letter assigned to that drive). Then type a name for the theme in the FOle Name field. Click the Save button to save the theme and return to the Display Properties dialog box. Click OK to activate the theme on your Desktop. If you wish, you can create several themes.
Microsoft Plus! For Widnows XP sells for $29.95 and is available at Microsoft Windows Plus! , offers several preconfigured themes you can import and use on your computer. Or you can by the software directly from Microsoft through its online shop at Microsoft Online Store or by calling (888) 218-5617 or (716) 871-2915.
How to put Web content on your desktop
In Win98, users could display live Internet content on-screen, by using the Active Desktop. Problem was that unless you were using a broadband Internet connection, the active content coming through was a heavy burden of system resources. Windows no longer has the Active Desktop but the feature is still there. If you have broadband Internet access, you may want to try it out. To set it up, open the Display Properties dialog box and choose the Desktop tab. Click the Customize Desktop button and, in the Desktop Items box, choose the Web tab. Click the New button to access the New Desktop Item Wizard. In the location field, type the URL for the content you want to add to the site. Click OK. A verification message will appear, click OK. After you close the Desktop Items box and the Display Properties box, the Web content will appear on the Desktop. Position it anywhere you want on-screen.
How to add an animated background to your desktop
All you need is an animated GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) file. You can find such files online at sites such as:
After you download the file and save it on your computer, open the Display Properties dialog box. Choose the Desktop tab and click the Customize Desktop button. In the Desktop Items dialog box,, choose the Web tab and click the New button. Next, click browse to locate the file on your computer. Once the file is located, highlight it and click the open butto to return to the New Desktop Item Wizard. Click the OK buttons to close the wizard and dialog boxes. The animated file will now appear as a small box on the desktop. Reposition and resize the animation to your preferences. To complete the process, right-click the animation, choose Arage Icons By, and select Lock Web Items On Desktop.
How to alter the start button text
You can change the text on the start button to any combination of five alphanumeric characters.
First thing to do is to backup the Explorer.exe file, which is located in the Windows folder on the Windows drive. The secodn thing to di is obtain a binary file editor also called a hex editor. We recommend Frhed, which can be downloaded for free at Kibria.
After you dowload Frhed to your computer, use it to open the Explorer.exe file. The contents of the file will appear on-screen in hedadecimal format between a list of markers (called offsets) on the left and a translation of the hexadecimal data on the right. Scroll dow the list of offsets until you find the entry that starts with 0412ad (depending on your computers configuration, the actual offset may differ slightly from this). On the far right, you will see a corresponding entry for s.t.a.r.t. Highlight the "s"and type the character that will replace it. Repeat this step until you finish typing five new characters. Open the file menu, click Save As, and then save the file as Explorer1.exe.
Now its time to open the Registry Editor. But first, before you make any changes, be sure to backup the file. To open the Registry Editor, click start, click on Run Command. In the dialog box, type regedit in the Open field and click OK. When the Registry Editor opens, you'll see its contents organized into folders and subfolders. You need to navigate through these folders and subfolders to find the values (settings) that let you set WinXP to use the new Explorer1.exe file insted of the old Explorer.exe file. Browse through the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE_SOFTWARE, Microsoft, Windows NT, and Current Version folders to locate and highlight the Winlogon subfolder. A list of valuses will appear in the right pane of the Registry Editor.
Locate and right-click the Shell value and select Modify. In the resulting dialog box, type explorer1.exe in the Value Data field. Click OK and close the Registry Editor to save the changes. When you reboot your computer, the Start button will have its new name.
How to transform folder icons
Open My Computer, and fild the folder you want to customize. Right -click the foler and select Properties. In the resulitng dialog box, click Customize. A preview area shows you how the image will look on the folder. Click OK to activate the change.
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