Hack XP's Start Button

I've gotten so many requests on how to change the Windows XP Start button, I'm going to teach you how to hack it to pieces manually.

Before you get started, you might want to print out this page for easy reference.

Change the Start text

1. First of all, make sure you download Resource Hacker. You'll need this puppy to edit resources inside your Windows shell.

2. Locate explorer.exe in your c:\Windows directory. Make a copy of the file in the same directory and rename it explorer.bak.

3. Now launch Resource Hacker. In the File menu, open explorer.exe. You'll now see a bunch of collapsed folders.

4. Expand the String Table folder and then find folder No. 37 (folder No. 38 if you're in Windows Classic mode).

5. Click on resource 1033 and locate the text that says "Start." This is your Start button, and now you've got control over what it says! Change the "Start" text to your text of choice. You don't have a character limit, but the text takes up valuable taskbar space, so don't make it too long.

6. Click on the button labeled Compile Script. This updates the settings for your Start button. But nothing will happen until you complete through step #20, so keep going!

Change your hover text

7. While you're here, why not also change the text that pops up when your mouse hovers over your Start button?

8. Right now it says "Click here to begin." Well, duh! We already know that's where to begin!

9. Open folder No. 34 and click on resource 1033.

10. Find the text that says "Click here to begin" and change it to something cooler. Might I suggest "Click here for a good time, baby."

11. Click on the Compile Script button to update this resource.

Customize your Start icon

12. For an added bonus, you can also change the Windows icon to the left of the text, too.

13. Collapse the String Table folder and expand the Bitmap folder at the top of your folder list.

14. Click on folder No. 143 and click on resource 1033. You should see that familiar Windows icon.

15. Go to the Action Menu and select "Replace bitmap." Select "Open file with new bitmap", and locate the replacement image on your machine. Note: The image must have a .bmp extension and a size of 25 pixels by 20 pixels. Then click the Replace button.

Here's the image I've been using instead of the Windows icon, in case you want to use it.

16. Now that you've made your changes, save the file in your Windows folder with another name, such as newstartbutton.exe. Don't name it Explorer.exe, because that file is already being used by your system. Close all open programs and restart your system.

17. Boot into Safe Mode With Command Prompt by pressing F8 on startup. Then choose Safe Mode in the command prompt.

18. Log on as administrator and enter your password.

19. When the command prompt comes up, make sure you're in the right directory by typing "cd c:\windows" (without the quotes).

20. Now type "copy c:\windows\newstartbutton.exe c:\windows\explorer.exe" (no quotes). Type "yes" (no quotes) to overwrite the existing file, then restart your system by typing "shutdown -r" (no quotes).

When Windows relaunches, you'll see your new Start button in all its glory!

Take care,
Sarah

Comments

[daslick]

Getting windows passwords... with only floppy disk access.I wrote this tutorial for people who didn't know about linux boot disks and ntlm hashes.

http://www.errmess.com/forums/index.php?topic=50.msg198#msg198

[camrin]

this is pretty sweet, i like how you can change the size depending on how much you make it say

[Mikey Smith]

if yall wanna do some really cool editing do these things..get programs called "AwiconsPro", "Resource hacker", and these are all u need..ok now for the file u wanna edit..ill tell u where to find them in a min.Resource Hacker:explorer.exeAWiconsPro:updspapi.dllexplorer.exeok now for the editing and finding..u can find "explorer.exe" in "c:\windows folder"..u can edit "explorer.exe" to make start menu button say what u want. and the picture..open up resource hacker and then click open..now go into ur local hard drive which should be named as "local disk:C" normally..and then click "windows" folder then find and double click on "explorer.exe". and the edit folder #37 and find resource 1033..and edit where it says start..the picture i never rele edit cause windows pic looks cool to me..anyways..Now for AWiconsPro..start up "AWiconsPro" and click "file" tab, then click open library", and goto c:\windows\explorer.exe is all u have to type in..and then open..and after opening what u see is a bunch of icons and stuff.u can edit the picture of folder icons..MyComputer icon..Recycleben icon..etc..when ur done if u have a seconday harddrive or a USB jumpdrive..or a black cd if u prefer..is save it to one of them as "explorer.exe"...ok and the what u do from there is close AWiconsPro..and the reopen it. now for the file "updspapi.dll" found in a bunch of folders and is the same exact file but anyways..make sure all files and folders are unhinden..incase u do not know how to do that here is how u do it..click "start button"..goto "MyComputer"..let load and then click on tab that says "tools" then click on "folder options" then click on the "view" tab, and check the circle saying "show hidden files and folders"..ok then right below that uncheck the boxs that say "Hide extentions for known file types" and "hide protected system operating filed (recomended)" and the click the "yes" on the pop up...ok for finding the file "updspapi.dll" start up AWiconsPro click "file" tab, then click "Open Libray", then goto, "C:\WINDOWS\$MSI31Uninstall_KB893803v2$\spuninst" and then double click "updspapi.dll"..and if u notice it has many icons u can edit...edit and then find a secondary harddrive, cd, or jumpdrive and save as "updspapi.dll"..ok now what u wanna do is restart ur computer in safe mode..for some computers when its starting up ull press F8..some of the other buttons are F2 or F4..but mainly F8...ok and then use keyboard to select safe mode and hit enter..go under administrator..or if like me and u build gameing computer and use an corprate windows..and u dont have admin useprofile then most likey click ur username and its the admin..but then what u do is...hit Ctrl+Alt+Delete buttons...and click on "Processes" tab and the find explorer.exe and right click and click end process and then click file..new task and then goto where u saved ur edited explorer.exe and copy it..and then goto C:\windows folder and paste it and it will ask u if u want replace click yes...but first back up ur original explorer.exe be4 juss incase it doesnt work properly..and then double click explorer.exe and its shoudl start up but u want she ur edits right away..but while ur her in safe mode go ahead and goto where u saved ur "updspapi.dll" file and goto "C:\WINDOWS\$MSI31Uninstall_KB893803v2$\spuninst" and replace the file there..also if u go back to the windows folder ull notice a bunch of "NTUNINSTALLER" folders all of them contain the file "updspapi.dll" in a folder called "spuninst" and replcae all of them with the one that u edited..ok now what u do is restart ur computer..and u should see all of the edits that u have made...if u have questions email me...or aol instant message "mpquagmire" or yahoo mpquagmire@yahoo.com or msn MikeyDangerSmith@msn.com, or bellsouth..Mpquagmire@bellsouth.net...but remember i am not reliable for any damages and there shouldnt be any if u follow what i told ur but if u get a fatal error or anythign juss let me know..lol i deal with all of this crap everyday..so until then have a nice time hackin..and as far as the start button color change goes..i have been workin on that for 2 years now and the only way i figure it out is to juss do what that one guy said about using a program and the do other stuff but oh well...bye

Your Friend,Mikey

[al]

i really hope this helps someone - i had the same problem mentioned above ie. have xp with sp2 and when i tried this all that came back up when i rebooted was my desktop without any icons or taskbar. after trying all the fixes suggested above and none of them working i finally got things back to normal by deleting the "newstartbutton.exe" file i'd created during the original tinkering. (obviously you have to do this through task manager because you don't have any other access to your files). It may have been a combination of this and the fact i'd already tried switching back to the other explorer.exe files in command propmt as suggested above but if you've tried to switch back with no success - try deleting that file. good luck.

[Richie]

The change the green startbutton doesn't work for me when i replace the image in the msstyle file and apply the theme it automatically changes the start button to the classic style and in the appearance secion the windows and button menu is blank.

[Gershom B]

hum you see i have a easy way to do the start menu... downlaod resource hacker open explorer.exe - edit it save as explorer2.exe in the sys32 folder go to run type regedit! shit this will take forever go to my site above for how to tweak xp! i notice with winxp sp2 when i tweak it i get problems like the start menu works yes but when i plug up my flash drive it does not show up lol only when i use default explorer it does anyway sp2 you cant tweak alot keep the tweaking for winxp with out sp or sp1 :D

[prashant shukla]

OH MY GOD.........sooo manyy comments...but beleive me ur suggestions were wonderfull...thanks

[Ahsan Khan]

Hello! Sarah.How are you?I expect that you are fine.I want to clear that it is my first mail message to anyone else.I only send you message,because your tips gave me a lot of information.I am from Pakistan.I want to know about you and your family.I have already wrote my mail address,you can send me mail to my address.I will wait for your reply.Please send me your own real picture pleazzzzzzzzzzz.I shall be very thankful to you and I will wait for your reply.I want to clear that it is my first mail to anyone especially girls,I never met anyone on the net before this.Also send me the procedure of making "Logonui" file in winxp.So that i can easily create my own logonui file not to customize the windows builtin logonui but my own new.With best wishes to you and your family.Allah haafiz and good bye.

[michael]

i tried to edit my start button and ended up deleting my taskbar now i have nothing on my pc that i can get access to !!i think i must have messed up the registry is there any way i can undo this???!!!!!!!!!!!!!HELP!

[S.A.]

Ok here's a way to make alpha channels if you have photo shop 7. May seem long, only because I break the steps down so they are very easy to understand.

- open up your image in photo shop- click on the WAND feature- click the image with the WAND- click the SELECT tab, then select INVERSE- click the EDIT tab, select COPY- click the EDIT tab, select PASTE- look to the lower right hand corner of the screen for a tab stating Layers\Channels\Paths- the Layers tab should be selected, if not select it and you should see 2 images now.- The one on top is the new layer you just created, the one on the bottom is the original picture.- right click on the bottom layer and select delete, select YES to delete background; OR you can just deselect the eye on the bottom layer- now you should be left with the image you want to make the alpha channel with.- click on the FILE tab and select SAVE AS, name it what you want, save as .BMP, then click SAVE, a window will pop up now click on the 32 bit tab, then click OK- close the image, click NO if the save image pop up appears

OK YOU HAVE JUST MADE YOUR IMAGE ALPHA CHANNEL READY.- reopen the image you just saved with Photo Shop 7- the image should have a white background- use the WAND again and click on the image (the white background)- click the SELECT tab and click INVERSE, so only the image is selected- now look to the lower right hand corner for the LAYER\CHANNELS\PATH tab- select the CHANNELS tab- you will see 4 out 5 channels selected, the ALPHA 1 channel will be the one that is not selected- click on the EMPTY box in the ALPHA 1 where the eye should be, like in the other channels. Once you do this the image should get a reddish tint to it.- OK HERE IS THE TRICKY PART, so pay careful attention- DOUBLE CLICK on the black box of the ALPHA 1, a window should appear now- NOW click on the tab stating MASKED AREA, it will already be selected but do it anyways, now click OK- now just hit the DELETE button on your KEYBOARD. the area around your image should still be tinted - and if you look at the ALPHA 1 box, the selected portion you just deleted will be white.- now click on the FILE tab and SAVE.YOUR ALL DONE NOW =)ps. dont forget the largest dimensions for the start button .bmp is 30x30 pixels.

[GxG™]

but what if i'm using an xp theme , where and what should i modify for my start button because what u explained earlier works on xp style and classic ...

regardsGxG™

[Sheeko]

I have paint shop pro 11 but I cant seem to get the alpha channel thing to work ... whenever I save the image it always reverts back to a white background ... can anyone please help me make a transparent background for my image ?

[narendra kumar]

good plese sent thise e-mail change start menu name in figers (or) image plese sent me thank you



narendrawish you happy new year

[Moazum]

good plese sent thise e-mail change start menu name in figers (or) image plese sent me thank you



Moazum Asifwish you happy new year

[kiti]

how do i enter in safe mode???

[rappin05]

something got messed up on mineit doesnt show programs running or the start button anymore!

[Nilpo]

Okay, the article is accurate and there are some good comments, but it's time for an update. If you're running SP2, you'll need to edit/delete Explorer.exe in a few other places as well in order for these changes to take.

%systemroot%\ServicePackFiles\i386\Explorer.exe%systemroot%\LastGood\Explorer.exe

For those trying to change the start button's background graphic:

You don't need to boot into Safe Mode. Just change to Windows Classic, edit the Luna.msstyles file, and then enable Window Classic again. Before that you'll need to kill WFP by deleting or editing:

%systemroot%\System32\dllcache\Luna.mst%systemroot%\ServicePackFiles\i386\Luna.mst%systemroot%\LastGood\Resources\Themes\Luna\Luna.msstyles

As for the "pink" transparency, there's no need to copy in the old image and deal with all of that hassle. The start button background is a standard Windows bitmap. All standard bitmaps use the color Magenta (255,0,255) to identify transparent pixels.

Someone also asked why/how the three images work? The start button background is a tristate image. It displays of one of the three based on the state of the start button. From top to bottom they are Normal, Hover (mouse over or selected), and Active (pressed).

Hope that clears things up. If you have any questions you can contact me on http://forums.devhardware.com. For more tips check out my live article feed at http://www.nilpo.com/feed.xml

Oh, and one final comment for the guy who said editing system files is moronic...what exactly do you think your precious third-party programs are doing? Personally, I'd rather do it myself than trust someone else's programming ;)

[Dialegilus]

This doesn't seem to work for XP 64 bit editions. When you open explorer.exe with Resource Hacker, nothing happens....and yes, I'm sure I'm opening the right file.

[Noki]

Hey im on the step where i use the resoiurce hacker and when i open the file it dosent show anything help plz

[Jonathan]

Hey my question is is it possible to change the color from that ugly green?? I want it to be BLACK background instead of green, how can I do this? Please email me back if this is possible

Thanks,J

[gaul]

Remove the "click here to begin" pop up in Windows XP.Check this out! > > >http://gaul.siteburg.com/StartButtonHackXP/StartButtonHackXP.php

[satya]

i want to rename start button without any software,is it possible?

[Aaron Trainor]

I wanted to remove "Click here to begin" altogether, so deleted the line with Resource Hacker, but you showed me how, and I thank you very much!!!