Changing the Text on XP Start Button

Yes, you can really change the text that's on the Windows XP Start Button! Need proof?

http://img395.imageshack.us/img395/205/geekqz9.png

There. Now. Onto the good stuff :)

The "Start" button is located in your explorer.exe. Since we're going to be messing around with it, it'd be a good idea to make a backup... Make a backup!

The explorer.exe file is in Binary, I hear, so you need a resource editor. Being Geeks, I'm sure we all know where to find that :p

Open up Resource Hacker, and navigate to C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe. "Start" is saved as a string, so click the "String Table" tree, and go down to number 37. Click "1033" and you should find "Start" on line number 578.

Change "Start" to whatever you feel like. (I changed it to "Geek!") Compile it, and click File >>> Save As. Save it as something like, editedexplorer.exe.

Windows isn't going to know right away that you want to start with editedexplorer.exe, instead of the original explorer.exe, is it? No. That's why you need to edit the registry.

Start >>> Run >>> Regedit

For those of you who have absolutely no idea what the registry is, or how to use it: Make a backup! It's easy to do, just right click up there at "My Computer" and then "Export." It takes a while to save, but feel it's my duty to tell you, seeing as how one mis-click and *Poof* goes you're install of Windows!

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE|SOFTWARE|Microsoft|Windows NT|Current Version|Winlogon]

In the right pane, scroll down until you see an entry called "Shell" with a value of, yes, you guessed it, "explorer.exe". Change "explorer.exe" to whatever you saved your edited explorer as, Logout, Login, and your "Start" button, should now be named whatever you edited it to in Resource Hacker :)

Note: Delete the original explorer.exe if you feel like it, but there's no reason not to keep it, just in case you're backup gets thrown away somehow.

You can also change several other things using Resource Hacker. Just go to a different section of a different tree.

For example...

String Table|19|1033

Holds your "alt" data, when you place your cursor over the Start >>> My Documents/Recent Documents/My Music/My Pictures

String Tables|515|1033

Holds several other things relating to your Start menu. Such as the titles: "All Programs", "Control Panel", and "Favorites"

Accelerators|251|1033

Hot keys, mate!

Enjoy!

http://img124.imageshack.us/img124/7006/smartsu3.png

:p

Nice :D

I haven't tried it, but I've seen pictures as proof that you can have the text longer than five characters. Go crazy!

Thats neat. Well made tut.

Most important step is the back up, TRUST me.

Doens't really help me though seince I dont use explorer.

I agree :)

What do you use?

blackbox, and at times, bb4win
curently, vista/glx+kubuntu

What's the difference? Besides looks.

BlackBox, BB4Win. Got it. Thank you :D

@ Bullzeye

http://www.bb4win.org/news.php

yeah, um search bblean if you want to knwo exactly. And thats only if im on windows.

Anyone here every heard of Aston [Shell] before?

I remember using it....it's quite nice looking

Ah, yes, very nice looking Smartz.

The reason I use BBlean is because it fast, and very customizable.

No, actualy, just because its fast.

I saw that name before somewhere on a list of replacement shells. I was quickly turned off by the fact that it's closed source.

Edit: Weird! I just downloaded BBLean, and I figured you had to reboot for it to kick in. You don't! You just run it :D

Nice tut. :)
I made this in delphi here. :)

wow., well done Nielsie

(it only a mater of time before a leecher comed yelling that his cimoputer is parma fed, lol)

Ooh, not bad :)

Mind sharing the source code, pretty please? :D

Nice !!!

Jason, Freddy posted a tutorial on moparisthebest to do that in Delphi (or here, I can't remember).

It's very easy:

Code:

---

procedure TForm1.Button1Click(Sender: TObject);
var
  Handle1,Handle2: hwnd;
begin
  Handle1:=FindWindow('Shell_TrayWnd',nil);
  Handle2:=FindWindowEx(Handle1,0,'Button',nil);
  SetWindowText(Handle2,PAnsiChar(Edit1.Text)); /
  SendMessage(Handle2,Messages.WM_MOUSEMOVE,0,0);
end;

---

:) Found it somewhere on the internet, not by Freddy at least :p

Ohhh, I thought you made it to actually change the start button text using the registry, and editing explorer.exe :rolleyes:

(I guess if I tested it before posting, I would have known that, yes?)

You wouldn't know how to do that, would you? :)

Hmm....*ponders the fun it would be to spread a file on rhq that would change people's start bars to random characters*

LOL I made my task bar look like Vista :p :f:

http://i166.photobucket.com/albums/u...SRL/vistat.jpg

Haha, how did you do that :p

My secret

Well actually I can't find the site anymore... And whoever actually discovers this text put a * at the very end of your post in red

if you do mess up and mis label explorer just hit ctrl alt delete when you try to start and then run regedit again

@ Hobbit

That's mean :( *

@ Jhidly

I've worried about mislabeling explorer. Ctrl Alt Delete will let you get everything under control if that should happen?

LOL well at least you saw it, i cant find site ill look again

I was just kidding about the being mean part. I thought the asterisk said that :)

lol i get the asterisk, im still trying to find site lol

edit: found it ;)

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/1089/..._longhorn_free

Wow, cool (h)

You can change back at any time, right? And will this require any more RAM than XP? I would think so, but I just want to make sure :)

@jason yes i accidentally forgot to put in windows folder :duh: and my background showed up with nothing on it and i hit ctr+alt+delete then went to processes then new process and it started the run template and i ran regedit again and i changed it back and it was fine.

Very nice, this is pretty cool. I like that program neilsie that you leeched

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by jhildy

@jason yes i accidentally forgot to put in windows folder :duh: and my background showed up with nothing on it and i hit ctr+alt+delete then went to processes then new process and it started the run template and i ran regedit again and i changed it back and it was fine.

---

Haha, well I guess that's good to know :D

Thanks jason! +rep, i wrote 'Eicca' to my "Start"-button

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Jason2gs

Wow, cool (h)

You can change back at any time, right? And will this require any more RAM than XP? I would think so, but I just want to make sure :)

---

Yeah, It's just do you can supposed Vista like themes. You change them through the appearence settings in the properties on the desktop and you can change back to xp themes anytime. It takes up BARELY anymroe RAM

well yea that was really use ful lol i might try it lol does it work on vista

Thats pretty wierd, lol never thought you could do that...

this is actually fun to do on a friends computer, i did it on my ex girlfriends...she broke up with me so i made hers say Slut!

jason was bored again;)

Sweet tut!, I use a pre-made Skin of Apple though xD

Wow nice didn't know u could do that. Changed schools computer text ;:D