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Everyone wants to customize their XP boot screen, but be careful it
could cause your system to become unstable if you truly decide to do
this and don't follow instructions!
"The theme file formats are not public;
Microsoft retains the design control for themes, to
allow a consistent user interface and ensure design continuity. A
theme developer's kit will not be available with
Windows
XP."
-- Microsoft
Fortunately, the theme API has been flushed out and now anyone can
make a full-blown theme. Themes can consist of many different
components ("visual style" window settings, wallpapers, sounds,
screensavers, icons, cursors, even Windows Media Player skins), but
they currently focus on the visual styles and wallpapers.
Follow the directions below or if you would like to download a new
boot screen, visit
http://www.themexp.org or to
make
your own follow this link.
- Backup (copy) the file %windir%\system32\ntoskrnl.exe (most
likely C:\windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe - the boot screen) to
another directory on your disk drive
- Download the above .zip to your computer (important: Be sure
to get the right version, XP or XP SP1)
- Extract ntoskrnl.exe to a directory other than %windir%\system32
(most likely
C:\windows\system32)
- Reboot your computer into Safe Mode (hit F8 after restarting
your computer and before the boot screen then choose Safe Mode
from the menu of choices) or into true DOS if your using FAT32
from a boot disk.
- Make sure and verify you copied to a backup folder the
ntoskml.exe file.
- Overwrite the file %windir%\system32\ntoskrnl.exe (which you
should have backed up) with the extracted exe.
- Reboot your computer as you normally would.
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