Restrict Users from Launching Apps in XP

This tweak is a great way to keep certain users on the system from launching certain apps. For example, your kid shouldn't be launching AIM since he got caught abusing it last week. Or you've got a community computer and you don't trust certain folks to leave your settings alone in Photoshop. Whatever your reasoning, wouldn't it be nice to know that Joe and Bob can't launch that app, even when you wander off?

Check out this WinGuides article for the steps. Make sure you read it carefully, as it relates to making both key and value registry edits. And never, ever edit your registry without making a nice backup first!

Keep in mind that this tweak will only apply to the current user logged in as you perform the tweak, which can be quite inconvenient if you're working on the down low or don't know their user/pass. As long as you're an admin, check out Daniel Petri's page for a tutorial on editing the registry for other users.

Later!
:)
s

Mumble Grumble...

You may have noticed some of my older downloads and windows tweaks popping up amidst my personal drivel here at sarah.word. It's really not a perfect system, but it's the best I can do for those of you who want to access my old Screen Savers articles. The new G4TechTV web team is working hard to make that happen as soon as possible, but in the meantime I'll post the good stuff here. The process is rather cumbersome, so try to bear with me as I add a few each week.

Your best bet? Check my "Download of the Day Archive" or "Windows Tweak Archive" sections under the Categories column. That's where all my TSS articles will live. That way, you'll at least be in the right place if the article gets bumped off the front page. Or click the appropriate title under "Recent Posts" if you see the exact article you're looking for.

I'm finding that a blog format is not really ideal in a situation like this. If anyone has a better idea, I'm all ears! Right now though, I just want to keep the content alive. Do you have any idea how many hours I've spent carefully writing out registry steps? An embarrassing amount. I can't let go now!

Question for you TypePad bloggers... has anyone figured out how to send a new post straight to a designated category archive, without it also being posted at the top of the main page? Whoever comments the answer first gets a free Gmail account, and my undying gratitude.

To all my fans and supporters, thank you so much for sticking with me through a very interesting transitional period. Good times, man.
:)
s

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

Hack Your XP Boot Screen

Maybe you really like the "Windows XP Pro/Home" screen that appears when WinXP boots up, but I doubt it. Jeez. You know what OS you run. You know Microsoft made it. Does it really need to remind you at every startup? No. Allow me to show you how to make the currently obvious (and boring) boot screen say whatever you want. You have two options.

1. Use a boot screen changing program that walks you through the process.
2. Hack your boot screen.

Boot screen programs

I really like Stardock's BootSkin, a free program that works with Windows 2000/XP. Plus, you don't have to mess with the Windows kernel, which can really suck if you do something wrong. I like another good program called Screen Booty even better. It works with Windows 95/98/ME/2000/XP, but you'll need to pay $18 when the 60-day free trial period ends.

Hacking = more fun

I never like doing things the easy way, so I'm going to explain how to hack your WinXP boot screen by modifying the Windows kernel in Resource Hacker. Modifying the kernel is really risky, and if you mess things up, Windows may not even start. Please be careful. No, onto the danger! Start by getting the tools you need.

Every smart Windows tweaker needs Resource Hacker. Download it.

You'll also need an image editor that can import palettes such as Photoshop or Paint Shop Pro. I'm using Paint Shop Pro's free trial edition.

The step-by-step

1. Locate ntoskrnl.exe in your \Windows\System32 folder. You might have to unhide the folder.

2. Make a copy of your ntoskrnl.exe and rename it ntoskrnl.bak for backup safety.

3. Launch Resource Hacker and open ntoskrnl.exe.

4. In the left hand you will see a list of resources to edit. Open the first tree called Bitmaps and you'll see numbers 1 through 12. The Windows XP Pro bitmaps are numbers 1, 8, and 10. Windows XP Home bitmaps are numbered 1, 7, and 9. The bitmaps are slightly different shapes and sizes based on the graphics and text for each. In this tutorial we'll work with Windows XP Pro. If you use Home, substitute the numbers for your OS.

5. Select No. 1. The bitmap will appear completely black, but it really isn't. For some reason Microsoft removed the color palette from the logo to another location in Windows XP. We'll fix it later in our image editor.

6. Go to the Action Menu and choose "Save Bitmap." You can save the bitmap wherever you want, but remember where you put them for later. Repeat this process for numbers 8 and 10.

7. Open your image editor (my steps are for Paint Shop Pro 8, but you Photoshop experts can go that route). Open all three of your saved bitmap images. When opened, they should appear totally black.

8. We'll have to import the palette to see the actual images. Save the following file to Program Files\Jasc\Paintshoppro\Palettes.

Download Paint Shop Pro Color Palette

Side note: you might need to right-click and "Save Target As" if your browser tries to open the file as a bunch of numbers. Make sure you rename the file with the extention ".PSPpalette" if that's not the extention by default.

9. In Paint Shop Pro, make sure the bitmap 1 window is active and press Shift + O to import your palette. If you have multiple palettes available, select your new one to import the colors used in the original boot screen.

Important: Make sure to select Maintain Indexes in the bottom options before importing. If you've already got all three images open at once in your canvas, you will need to apply the palette to bitmaps 8 and 10 as well with the steps above to make the images visible.

10. Modify the bitmaps however you like and save them over the existing bitmaps 1,8, and 10. They will make up your new boot screen.

11. Open Resource Hacker again, and reopen the ntoskrnl.exe. Under the Action menu, choose "Replace Bitmap." Select Bitmap to Replace for bitmap 1, then click "Open file with new Bitmap" and find your edited image. Click replace. Follow the same steps with bitmap 8 and 10.

12. Once you replace all 3 bitmaps, choose Save As and save your new ntoskrnl.exe to a directory other then the system32 directory. You don't want to overwrite the original while it's in use. Saving it to your desktop is fine.

13. You have the option to test out your new boot screen before totally overwriting the original. First, name your new ntoskrnl.exe something different (like ntsarah.exe). In boot.ini, locate this string:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

Add a line just above it with this string:
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="My new boot screen" /fastdetect\kernel=ntsarah.exe (or whatever you named your new ntoskrnl.exe)

Now, move your new and renamed ntoskrnl.exe back into your system32 folder. This will allow you to choose which kernel you boot into before Windows starts.

Now go ahead and restart. When you get to the prompt, choose "My new boot screen" and see if you like it. If you're happy, go back into boot.ini and delete the string you added.

14. You don't want to keep multiple booting options in your boot.ini. When Windows has critical updates or other updates it needs to install on your system, it only updates what it considers the original kernel, the ntoskrl.exe. Basically, you want to overwrite the original ntoskrnl.exe file so you only have one copy in the System32 folder. Remember, you did make a backup of the true original before at the very start of this exercise, so you can always revert back if you absolutely have to.

In order to overwrite properly, Windows File Protection makes you reboot into safe mode (reboot and hit F8 before the boot screen appears). You could also boot off a DOS bootdisk to overwrite the original ntoskrnl.exe in the System32 folder. Once you overwrite the file, reboot. Your new screen should appear!

If you're still with me, I commend you. I found this exercise really fun. Hopefully you did too.

XO,
Sarah

Hack Browser Titles in IE and Firefox

This is a perfect tweak for those of us who love to put our own original stamp on things. In this case, it's our Internet Explorer or Firefox browser title. Allow me to clarify: when you open up your browser window, the upper left corner displays the current page, followed by "Microsoft Internet Explorer" or "Mozilla Firefox". Follow my directions to make it say whatever you like. I've tested this tweak successfully on XP and Win98 systems.

Steps for IE

<warning> Before you mess with the registry, please back it up so that if you make a mistake, you don't get screwed. </warning>

1. Open up Regedit (Start>Run>Regedit).

2. Navigate to this string: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main

3. Create a new string value (Right-click "Main" key folder, select New>String Value).

4. Rename the value "Window Title" without the quotes (Right-click value, choose Rename).

5. Right-click "Window Title" and choose Modify. In the value data section, type your title of choice. Mine says "Elect Sarah in 2004!"

6. Now, launch a new instance of IE and marvel at your clever changes!

Steps for Firefox 0.9 and up

Wouldn't you know it... there aren't really any complicated steps to do this. Just download an extension called Titlebar Tweaks and you'll be good to go.

:)
s