Changing Your Windows XP Boot Screen

Changing Your Windows XP Boot Screen

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Changing Your Windows XP Boot Screen

By BlackAce227

This article will teach you how to change that boring boot screen to something a little more exciting like whatever you want. Interested? I thought so.

***Note: This can prevent your computer from booting if you do this incorrectly. It is highly unlikely, but you should make a system restore point or something to that affect before you begin with this. Also I am not responsible if you can�t follow directions, so don�t blame me if your computer won�t start! ***

So you wanted to change that boring boot screen, but didn�t know where to start? Well, I will tell you. Our first order of business is to make a system restore point just in case you screw up somewhere and are unable to reboot your computer. You can do this by going to my computer and pushing the change a setting button. From there go to Performance and Maintenance and click on the system restore button. It only takes a second to do this so I would highly recommend doing this before you go any further. Follow the directions and then we can proceed to the next step.

You have two options when it comes to boot screens. You can construct you own boot screen from an existing picture by using a 3rd party application like www.bootXP.net or you could manually do it. Since BootXP is shareware and a nice big �BUY THIS SOFTWARE, ONLY 7.95!� in the corner of your Boot Screen picture, I chose to learn how to do it manually and so can you. You could also comb through Google for a free program to do everything for you, but that would be a little Script Kiddyish wouldn�t it? There are many different boot screens to choose from at www.themexp.org. Most of these boot screens were made by professionals so all you have to do is replace them with the old Boot Screen by following the steps below. 

Be aware that the Boot Screens are zipped when they are put on the site so there are readme�s and TWO different versions of the Boot Screens. The first version of the Boot Screen works only with Windows XP WITHOUT the Service Pack 1 installed. The other version does. You can check by going to my computer and clicking �View System Information.� You can see if you have installed the service pack 1 by looking at the general tab. The files look like this: ntoskrnl.exe and ntoskrnlSP.exe. I hope you can tell the difference. Simple right? Also be aware that because these Boot Screens are all .exe so they hog a lot of space on the site so do not think that the link is broken or something. These Boot Screens are all free and I have not found one that was defective.

Your Current Boot Screen

The Boot Screen is located in the C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder and is called ntoskrnl.exe. So you must be thinking, �Ok, so I just delete my old ntoskrnl.exe and replace it with the new one, right?� Um�..NO! Ntoskrnl.exe is a system file so you cannot delete it while Windows is running. You must do restart your computer and immediately press the F8 button. This will let you boot your computer in �Safe Mode�. Once you are in safe mode, login as you would regularly do and then open the C:\WINDOWS\system32 folder and the folder you put your new Boot Screen. Scroll though the System32 folder and look for the ntoskrnl.exe file. Now the smart thing to do would be to save the file or back it up somewhere instead of deleting it in case you want to change it back or something goes wrong. Now switch your old boot screen with your new one and put the old boot screen somewhere safe. NOTE: if you do have Service Pack 1 installed and you chose the ntoskrnlSP.exe file from the .zip file change the file from ntoskrnlSP.exe to ntoskrnl.exe before you reboot your computer.

An Example of Your New Boot Screen!

Now, when you are finished with all of that, close out of all of the windows and reboot your computer. You should now see the Boot Screen of your choosing instead of the old boring Boot Screen. Enjoy!!!

BLACKACE227

Submitted by BlackAce227 on December 05 2004 - 00:54:31