Mod'ding Windows

[mE_sTiR]

Well, I was playing around with the logon screen and the boot screen.<BR><BR>let me just say that it is a ****************************** if you're changing the bootscreen, and all of sudden, the computer freezes at "invalid ntoskrnl.exe" message at boot. and just hit any button to restart the cmputer...<BR>well lemmie just say, that its not hard to fix from there.<BR><BR>if you want to learn how to mod the boot screen using a pre-made boot screen... goto somewhere like <a href="http://www.themexp.org" target="_blank">ThemeXP</A> and find one that you like. and once you have the .zip downloaded, extract it, and rename the "ntoskrnl.exe" or "ntoskrnlSP1.exe" to "NTOSBOOT.EXE" than put it in your "%Windir%System32"<BR>when thats done. back up your boot.ini. put it somewhere safe. edit your "C:oot.ini" and at the very last line you should have something like:<BR><BR>multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Professional Edition" /fastdetect<BR><BR>or something like that.<BR>add an exact duplicate of that line, but at the end throw in a /KERNEL=NTOSBOOT.EXE so the line looks like:<BR>multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)Windows="Windows XP Bootlogo" /fastdetect /KERNEL=NTOSBOOT.EXE<BR><BR>that way, when you restart, it lets you choose a seperate "OS", its the same OS, just a different bootscreen. the problem is, if it dont work, it tells you, and freezes. but, good thing you backed everything up, AND you left the original long line of multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)Windows="blah" /fastdetect<BR>so you can just load with the original logo, and set things right. BUT if it works, than hurah, go delete the original line, and leave the /KERNEL=NTOSBOOT.EXE so you're bootscreen will forever be what you downloaded (untill you change it).<BR><BR>say, you're bored of your new logo and want to change it to something else you like, but you neglect the safety procedures, "cause you've done this before, and know what you're doing" (like i did), and than it says "NTOSKRNL.EXE not valid"... what now? hit a key, and it restarts your computer. pretty much a wash-rinse-repeat thing goin on. there is a way to recover w/o re-installing windows. but yo ustill need your winxp install CD. just pop it in the drive, make sure your bios is set on boot from CDROM. let the setup wizard do its magic. but when given the choice to "repair windows XP" or "install Windows XP" hit "R"<BR>it will give you something much like the old MSDOS... just a little naked DOS. just type "bootcfg /rebuild" and specify that you want the identifyer as "fixed windows" and a tag to be "/fastdetect" its like re-creating your original bootscreen. now you can boot into your windows, and hopefully scrounge up that old original boot.ini that i told you to back up earliar. and just replace the edited one with the original backed up one.<BR><BR>if there are ayn questions about what i just said (which im sure i WASNT clear enough, and i KNOW im confusing) feel free to post em.

[bluegreenshxt]

stir..your doing it wrong <img src="i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif" border="0"> ..LOL...your supposed to reboot into safe mode..then replace the ntoskrnl.exe with the new ntoskrnl.exe that your downloaded or made...then reboot normally...that way it will work exactly like normal except that you get the boot screen and it wont look like multiboot..

[mE_sTiR]

the way im explaining it, is so if something DOES go wrong, you can have the choice.<BR><BR>this is the way i did it, and the first time it worked, and the second time it didnt. <BR><BR>also, I just wanted to make sure that if somebody did do something that screwed up their system, i wanted to explain how to fix it.

[bluegreenshxt]

hhaha..ok then..i was plannin on shoving the xp cd in and choosing the repair option or reformatting if my bootscreen thing failed..LOL

[mE_sTiR]

Yea, LoL<BR>i REALLY didnt want to do that... it just takes too long..

[BAM!]

on a side note here... ****VERY IMPORTANT **** XP users. if you have SP1 installed or planning on installing SP1 DO NOT i repeat DO NOT apply the bootscreen mod. it will definitely not boot. you have to go through a hell lot just to recover it.. it's not worth it. apparently SP1 fixes many problems however, there is a downside to that. it also eliminates your ability to modifies some of the features in the OS. so boot screen mod is not for SP1 users!

[roy]

Woah that sucks. I want a new bootscreen.

[mE_sTiR]

no no no,<BR>it just depends on how you apply it... ihave SP1 and it works just fine... except that one time... which is why i had to fix it. and for a solution, this is how i fixed it... just so everybody would know.<BR><BR>but, yea, SP1 does change things... you cant apply a bootscreen if it was built for a non-SP1... but there ARE some SP1 bootscreens. just make sure that the bootscreen file is called "ntoskrnlSP1.exe", and just replace that... but BE ABSOLUTELY SURE that you back all files up before you change or overwrite something.

[BAM!]

i think it's more of a hassle to go through all that. it's just not worth it. sure there's a way around everything. but i would just tell people DON"T do it. going through all the complications and long article around this and that all just for a bootscreen especially a high risk task like this which can really messe up your OS cause your to reinstall windows.. i think this post would do more good to warn people not to do it than confusing them and cause more trouble later on!