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All of these tips apply to Microsoft Windows 98 but most also apply to other versions of Windows, (noted where applicable). How to change your start button text How to change your login screen wallpaper without replacing the "clouds" wallpaper How to change your startup/shutdown screens How to speed up your computer How to change file associations quickly How to shutdown Windows from an icon How to restart Windows from an icon How to put your screensaver on hold How to clean up your control panel How to change the registered owner How to remove programs from the 'add/remove programs' list How to change a forgotten Windows password How to customize folders Change Start button text - (All Windows Editions) (Top) This is an easy trick to customise your desktop, you can change the start button from the word "start" to a letter of your choice. E.g. 
For this tip you need a good hex editor, i suggest this one.
First of all copy the file called Explorer.exe in your root folder (probably C:/windows). Copy it to a place that you can remember, e.g to "C:\my documents". Now open up this file with your hex editor (this can be done by clicking once on the file and holding "shift" and right clicking the file, choose Open With. Search for the word "Start" (or whatever your start button has on it). There will be a few words called "start" in this file. The one you want is before the phrase stating "There was an internal error and one of the windows you were using has been closed." Change the word "Start" to the word that you want as your start button and save the file. Now you need to copy the file to your root folder, however as the explorer.exe file is always being used by your computer whilst windows is running it has to be done by MsDOS. Close all your files and go to "Start", "Shut down" and choose "Restart in MS-DOS mode". A black screen should appear with a blinking cursor, you can now copy the file to C:\windows by using the following command (this uses my previous example). /Copy C:/"my documents"/explorer.exe C:/windows A message should be displayed asking you if you want to replace the file. Choose "y" (for yes) and press enter. Now enter the command: exit and choose yes to restart windows with your new start menu text! How to change your login screen (without replacing the clouds wallpaper) -(All Windows Editions) (Top) This handy tricks enables you to change your login background to a picture of your choice. You can use a picture that i have created here. The picture that you want to use has to be saved as a windows bitmap file. If you are not sure, open it up in the standard Paint program and choose save. To set this picture as your login background go to "Start" then "Run". Enter the word "Regedit". Expand the folder called "HKEY_USERS" then ".DEFAULT", "CONTROL PANEL" and click once on "DESKTOP". A list of strings should appear on the right side of your screen. Right click on the string called Wallpaper and choose "Modify". Then in the value data field, change the value to your file name, e.g. "C:\my documents\login.bmp" How to change your startup/shutdown screen -(Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP) (Top) This tip helps you to change the annoying Windows logo you usually see when you startup or shutdown your computer. You can create your own screens BUT they need to be made to very exact specifications. Each screen needs to be a Windows Bitmap file with a width of 320px and height of 400px. They need to be saved as 8bit (256 color) bitmaps and have an eventual file size of 126kb. A bit complicated! I have created some startup and shutdown screens which you can download here for free. Once you have some pictures they need to renamed. If you have downloaded the files they will probably already be the right file type. If your pictures and still bitmap files you need to rename them to .sys files. If you cannot see the .bmp extensions on your files go to "View" and "Folder Options". Choose the "View" tab and uncheck the "Hide file extensions for known file types". Also change the radio button to "Show all files" as this will be useful later on. Once this is done make sure your files are named properly. The file you want to be your startup screen has to be named "logo.sys" and the shutdown screen needs to be called "logow.sys" Now just copy these files into your root folder (C:\windows) and replace the existing files. You are done. (for Windows 95 you need to copy the files to your "C:\" folder instead). Speed up your computer -(All Windows Editions) (Top) This speeds up your computer by reducing the number of useless processes running. It is very easy but you need to know what processes are what. You can find out by going here. All you need to do is go to "Start" then "Run" and enter "msconfig". Choose the "Startup" tab and uncheck the processes you dont need. How to change file associations quickly -(All Windows Editions) (Top) In explorer select a file of the type you want to change. Hold down Shift & Right click the selection. Choose "Open With". Select the program to open the file type. In the dialog box check the Always use this program to open this file. Click OK The association are now made. How to shutdown Windows from an icon -(All Windows Editions) (Top) It is very easy Simply create a shortcut to: rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindows How to restart Windows from an icon -(All Windows Editions) (Top) Again, it is very easy. This time create a shortcut to: rundll.exe user.exe,exitwindowsexec How to put your screensaver on hold -(All Windows Editions) (Top) Simply bring your start menu up, your screensaver will never play whilst the start menu is up. How to clean up your control panel -(All Windows Editions) (Top) If your Control Panel is cluttered with icons you don't need, here's how to clean it up. In the C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory, you'll find a CPL file that corresponds to each Control Panel item. Move the ones you don't want to a safe place on your hard disk. Now, when you open Control Panel, those icons are gone. How to change the registered owner -(All Windows Editions) (Top) Go to Start, then Run and enter 'Regedit' Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion From there you can edit the name in the Registered Owner key How to remove programs from the 'add/remove programs' list -(All Windows Editions) (Top) If you remove an installed program and its files by deleting the files, it may still show up in the Add/Remove programs list through the control panel. In order to remove it from the list (so you don't need to re-install in order to just remove it again). Start the Registry Editor (Go to Start, then Run and enter Regedit) Open HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE / SOFTWARE / Microsoft / Windows / CurrentVersion / Uninstall Delete any programs here. This will only delete them from the list, not delete the actual programs. Only programs designed for Windows will show up here in the first place. How to change a forgotten Windows password -(All Windows Editions) (Top) If you forget your Windows password, just hit Escape at the password box, launch the MS DOS Prompt and enter dir *.PWL in the WINDOWS directory to find your PWL files. Delete the one with your name in front of it. Restart your system and enter a new password when prompted (Windows will ask you to verify it). How to customize folders -(Windows98 onwards) (Top) You can change the default wallpaper within an open folder by selecting View/Customize This Folder. Click "Choose a background picture" and follow the wizard to select either a solid color or image for your wallpaper. |