Windows XP: Audio-visual Gadgets

Everyone likes personal computers - erotic wallpapers for the Desktop with some plastic-silicone Pamela Anderson, sound system events with winged phrases from the movie 'Ivan Vasilievich changes profession', cursors and icons from the favorite adult cartoon 'The Simpsons'.

The humorous people even came up with the replacement of the final Windows screensaver with 'Now you can throw out your computer'. And if you work as a sysadmin, all secretaries and accountants for a screensaver with a three-dimensional virtual aquarium will immediately give you both soul and body (if you can carry, of course). I do not know what it is connected with - perhaps a person quickly gets bored with the monotony of the gray interface of the operating system, and he wants some bright colors to have something to hold his gaze on.

Perhaps it's just an attempt to show one's personality, akin to a ring in the nose or a mohawk on the vertex of a teenager who does not know how to attract the attention of others in another way. And maybe people at work simply have nothing to do, because the one who really earns a living by his computer, quickly ceases to pay attention to all this tinsel (which you can not see behind the application windows) and is more worried about the performance of your machine, on which Even the use of colorful wallpaper negatively affects, not to mention all known programs like Talisman or Window Blinds.

But all that was still possible in terms of re-interface of Windows, by and large, was children's toys. Windows itself did not let fantasy run wild especially, and programs that dramatically changed the appearance of windows and desktops either shamelessly bothered, or "hooked up" most of the system resources, or both at the same time.

This, by the way, gave a serious argument to fans of Linux with its many interfaces in an absolutely stupid and incorrect debate "which is better - Windows or Linux." So it was until the day of 'X', or rather - the day 'XP', October 25, 2001, when the official launch of the new operating system - Windows XP, which has built-in support for replaceable 'skins'.

With the release of the new OS, all users who ventured to switch to it had the opportunity not only to change the color gamut of the interface, but also to redraw almost any GUI element to their liking - from the appearance of the Start button to the modest checkbox.

But the most important thing is that all this grace is carried out at the level of the operating system, and not by any stray programs, so the minimal resources are spent for such makeup on Windows, and glitches, in theory, should not exceed the usual for the 'Mazda' level. And everything would be great if the distribution of the system or, more logically, an additional package MS Plus! XP would have been included at least with half a dozen unusual 'skins', but, to the greatest disappointment, the creators of Windows for some reason did not take care of it.

The maximum that you can enjoy after installing the OS are two types of interface: classic and XP style. Of course, when Windows XP marches in full growth in full growth, the themes for it will proliferate on the Internet as the grebe near Chernobyl, but today there is a good groundwork that allows to mock not only the color of the 'windows', but also to completely change Some other elements of the interface - this I will try to tell.

Start-up screensaver

We'll start from afar, with a change in the starting picture. This, of course, does not in any way affect the new features of Windows XP for managing the interface, but for many it will be very interesting. Only note that all this is undocumented and unauthorized tricks with a rather deep intrusion into the system files, and therefore guarantees that after your experiments Windows will work just as well as before (haha!) No one will give, and so in advance Take care of the ways of retreat - reserve everything and everything.

This screen saver is "protected" in one of the main system files - Windows \ System32 \ ntoskrnl.exe and without special utilities it is impossible to change it. So first of all we download from the Internet the program Resource Hacker (rpi.net.au/~ajohnson/resourcehacker) - this is one of the easiest-to-use utilities for editing executable files, and it's free.

Those who are already familiar with such 'hackers' can take advantage of, for example, their favorite 'sharovornym' Restorator. The second program that we will definitely need is a graphic editor, but not a simple 'vindo' Paint, which is not suitable for us because of the lack of some functions, and the advanced one - Adobe Photoshop or much more accessible Jasc Paint Shop Pro (http: // www .jasc.com).

First, make a backup copy of the file ntoskrnl.exe and another copy, which, in fact, we will edit. Run Resource Hacker and open this last file - it will be most convenient if you put it in the folder of the Resource Hacker. In the left part of the 'hacker' interface we see the resource tree, and in the first branch 'Bitmap' - 12 pictures.

The combination of images with numbers 1, 8 and 10 is added to the intro of the version of XP Pro, and 1, 7 and 9 - the version of Home Edition. We will work with professional Windows. Choose number 1 - this is the screen saver, the rest of the pictures - only its accompanying elements. But it is much more like the 'Black Square' of Malevich, and not the 'vindo' logo, "you will say!

Patience, now everything will become clear. In the 'Action' menu of our 'hacker', select the 'Save Bitmap' command and specify a handy directory for the 'tampered' ntoskrnl.exe bmp file, calling it the same as it is denoted in ntoskrnl.exe itself, i.e. 1. Bmp, so as not to get confused. Repeat the same procedure with pictures 8 and 10.

Now we need to edit them in Paint Shop Pro - we are considering this program, because it is a bit simpler. When you open these images in it, you will see only a solid black - in order to 'show up' this logo, you need to download from the Internet a special palette. For Paint Shop Pro this file

Http://www.thetechguide.com/howto/xpbootlogo/16.pal, and for Adobe Photoshop - http://www.thetechguide.com/howto/xpbootlogo/16.act. After that, in the Paint Shop, press the Shift + O keys and select the 16.pal file in the window that appears - the Maintain Indexes option in this dialog MUST be enabled.

Now we finally see the usual Windows XP logo instead of black, edit and change it and other images as your heart desires, the main thing is to observe the original sizes of these pictures and work with the specified palette.

After saving the converted images, we switch back to the Resource Hacker and in the 'Action' menu select the 'Replace Bitmap' command - in the new dialog we specify which resource should be replaced and what. That is, select the bitmap resource number 1 in the image replacement dialog, click the 'Open file with new bitmap' button and specify the path to the changed logo, then press the 'Replace' button.

Do the same for images 8 and 10 and do not forget to save all changes in the 'hacker' menu (File> Save). It remains to replace the 'native' ntoskrnl.exe with 'hacked'. From Windows, you can not do it - you need to download another OS if Windows XP is installed on the FAT32 drive. If you choose to use the NTFS file system, then access to the disk from DOS or Windows 9x becomes impossible without the use of special programs, so it's best not to search them across the Web, and replace the file in this way:

1. Restart the PC.

2. During boot up, press the F8 button to enter the boot menu of Windows XP.

3. Select the command prompt mode (Command Prompt).

4. Press F8 again.

5. Log in as Administrator.

6. Just like in MS-DOS, go to the folder with the modified file (best if you put it in the root of the system drive) and enter the command 'copy ntoskrnl.exe c: \ windows \ system32 \'.

7. Restart the PC. Now you can "drag yourself" from your own logo.

There is a truth, a more elegant and competent way of changing the logo, down to manual or automatic change of several different screensavers, with full preservation of the original ntoskrnl.exe. In order to use it, make a few 'hacked' files ntoskrnl.exe with different logos, adding to the name of each file a serial number, for example: logo1.exe, logo2.exe, logo3.exe and so on.

Pay attention only, that the file name should correspond to the standard 8.3 (8 letters - name and 3 - extension). At the root of the system drive, locate the hidden boot.ini file and open it in Notepad. If you have two operating systems, you will see something like this:

[Boot loader]

Timeout = 5

Default = C: \

[Operating systems]

C: \ = 'Windows Millennium Edition' multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \ WINNT = 'Windows XP Professional' / fastdetect

Add after the last line: multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \ WINNT = 'Windows XP Professional 1' / fastdetect /kernel=logo1.exe

Multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \ WINNT = 'Windows XP Professional 2' / fastdetect /kernel=logo2.exe

Multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (2) \ WINNT = 'Windows XP Professional 3' / fastdetect /kernel=logo3.exe

Now the desired screensaver can be selected directly in the expanded boot menu, by the corresponding number. And if instead of numbers you put the names corresponding to the themes of the screensavers, then their choice will be made even easier.

At the same time, the possibility of loading and untouched by the wizard ntoskrnl.exe will be preserved.

Automating the same choice of screensavers, or rather, changing the file boot.ini, will help a small utility LWD Kernel Selector, which can be found at http://www.littlewhitedog.com/images/reviews/other/00025/lwdkernel.zip.

To randomly change the screensavers, just put more numbered 'hacked' files ntoskrnl.exe into the Windows \ System32 folder, the LWDKernel.exe program itself, and load the start-up shortcut to LWDKernel.exe with the '-random' option. True, this program is damp and, in the case of multiboot systems, it does not edit the boot.ini file correctly, so do not forget about the backup.

Logon screen

Immediately after the initial screen saver, the user meets the registration screen - Welcome Screen. If several people work at the computer, then it is here that you need to select your account and enter the password. If the user is one, then the operating system will only greet him and the registration will happen automatically.

By the way, if you really want to, in addition to the user account was offered to still log in to the system and under the name of the Administrator, then just add to the registry key

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows

NT \ CurrentVersion \ Winlogon \ SpecialAccounts \ UserList

Parameter 'Administrator' = dword: 00000001, and one more field will appear on the screen - 'Administrator'. But it's better not to violate the pleasant design of this dialog, but to 'log in' with the administrator, by calling the usual Windows logon dialog.

For this, when Welcome Screen appears, just press Ctrl + Alt + Del twice - an old good window will appear to enter the user name and password. But we digress from the main thing - how to redraw the Welcome Screen? And to redraw it is also not very simple and even more difficult than the initial splash, since it is also cunningly coded inside one of the system files, namely Windows \ System32 \ logonui.exe.

The technology of its change is as follows. Again, we copy the file into two different daddies - in one we save its original version, so that it can be put back into place in case of failure without problems, and in the other we leave the file, which we will dissect. Take the already well-known program Resource Hacker and open it prepared for the execution of logonui.exe. Yes! Completely forgot!

Before you start the operation, you need to imagine what you want, or better yet, to take a screenshot of this dialog and change it in some graphical editor the way you intended. Note only that to begin with, there are no serious alterations to be planned - the overall structure of the picture should be preserved. And this is a wide strip on top, separated from the main background by a narrow multicolored ribbon and the same strip with a ribbon from below, plus a picture in the upper left corner of the screen - in the original version it is something of the type of weak illumination.

It is these elements that we will try to change. Then, when you thoroughly understand how all this is coded in logonui.exe, you can already move away from the original template, including changing the standard labels in the user registration and shutdown dialog - you will find them in the branch 'String Table' of the Resource Hacker . So, in the Resource Hacker, open the branch \ UIFILE \ 1000 \ 1033 (the last digit can be different) and in the right part of the program window move the scroll bar down until the first lines of code appear instead of the white field: