Hands on: How to change the Windows startup screen

Many people have been changing the Windows startup (or splash) screen since the days of Windows 3 screen.

You may also get a Bios splash screen when your PC boots up, but that’s not what we are talking about.

Under Windows 3, the trick was to create a suitable RLE (run-length encoded) graphics file (16 colours and less than 55KB), then recompile the Windows loader – win.com – to incorporate the new graphic.

In Windows 95 – and subsequently 98 and ME – it became somewhat easier. You created a 256-colour bitmap (bmp) file, 320pixels wide by 400 high (it stretched to 640pixels wide when displayed) and saved this to the root of the boot drive as logo.sys.

Those of you with very long memories may recall that we also discussed a way of enabling the colour-cycled ‘animation’ back in April 1997, using an image processor with palette-editing capabilities, a hex editor and a sturdy anorak.

XP does things differently. The good news is that you can use a 640 x 480 bmp file, but the bad news is you are limited to 16 colours. However, if you just want to replace the screen with a still image, you don’t have to mess with the ntoskrnl.exe file – the core of the XP operating system.

First create your bitmap. You’ll need something a little more sophisticated than Windows Paint or the Picture and Fax viewer – we’ve used Paint Shop Pro (any version) or the freeware Irfanview.

Whatever you use, you will need to resize the image to 640 x 480pixels, and reduce the colour depth to 16 colours. Save the file in the Windows folder as boot.bmp and close the imaging program.

Now is a good time to create a system restore point. Having done that, you need to edit the boot.ini file to enable your new screen.

The easiest way is to go to System Properties, either through Control Panel or by right-clicking on ‘My Computer’ on the Desktop and choosing ‘Properties’ or, if you want to be ultra cool – and have the necessary keys – pressing the Windows key and Pause/Break.

Turn to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button in the Startup and Recovery section.

In the following dialogue, make a note of the ‘Default operating system’, then click on the Edit button. Boot.ini will then load into Notepad. Identify the default OS (if there is a choice) – this will be of the form:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)4 partition(1)\WINDOWS=” Microsoft Windows XP Professional” /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

where the text after WINDOWS= is what you saw in the default OS box in the previous dialogue.

Now add /bootlogo /noguiboot to the end of the line; watch out for the Notepad word-wrap. Save the file and exit Notepad.

Restart, and you should see the new boot screen.

You won’t get the animated ‘progress bar’, but this is just an illusion designed to reassure you that something is happening; if you really need this then you’ll need a utility such as Xplash, but be warned that this does use an alternate kernel file.

Finally, should something go wrong and you have trouble booting, reboot and press F8 so you can choose to start XP in safe mode.

Here you can go back to the system restore point you made or continue in safe mode to remove your additions to the boot.ini file.