Change Boot Logo/Screen?

monkeys breath said:

the only reason ms has it setup this way is so they always get their free advertising during every bootup.

Class action time for back wages on Advertising. Where's a good lawyer when you need one,lol. Just for the record, I agree with you about the free advertising

0tolerance said:

The "Starting Windows" text is located in winload.exe.....however, as people have said, both bootres.dll and winload.exe are protected by digital signatures.....

I have figured out how to export the digital signature from the original files, however.....Unfortunately I haven't found a program that will convert the exported signature file into a useable format so that the modified files can be signed with it....

Ok, we now know where it is located. Now all we got to do is figure out how to modify the file and place back the digi-signature, right?
If you modify the winload.exe and just remove the lines "starting windows" and "(C) Microsoft Corporation", is this enough for the digital signature for it to be automatically removed?
Or even just to modify the colorcode of the letters from white to black, will this simple modification still remove the digital signature and leaves the file winload.exe unusable?

PS: how did you read and edit the file, to find the words? What executable-editor software?

dont waste ur time palle... if it is ever to be possible to change that bootscreen, then it will be some guys who hack the system files, you'd have to wait for.

Ok, we now know where it is located. Now all we got to do is figure out how to modify the file and place back the digi-signature, right?

There is no way to replace the digital signature without Microsoft's private key, so the only way to make an unsigned file work is to figure out how to completely disable the code signing checks....

If you modify the winload.exe and just remove the lines "starting windows" and "(C) Microsoft Corporation", is this enough for the digital signature for it to be automatically removed?
Or even just to modify the colorcode of the letters from white to black, will this simple modification still remove the digital signature and leaves the file winload.exe unusable?

Any modification of a digitally signed file will cause the signature to be removed

PS: how did you read and edit the file, to find the words? What executable-editor software?

I used Resource Hacker to open and edit the file....The portion of the file you are wanting to change is located Message Table section....Once you change any of the text located there, you will need to click the "Compile Script" button at the top of the text window and then save your file

CarlTR6 said:

I, too, liked the ease with which I could change the boot screen in XP.

Me too as in it's easy to replace the file, getting my image into it is a crap shoot with the app I use. It usually takes about 3 times for it to take. On a sad note, I noticed today after the XP Win updates that ntoskrnl has been updated. There went my boot screen,lol. I think I'm done for now. Maybe later on I will replace the image but right now I find myself in Win 7 more than XP.

the problem is not solved, and this thread should have not been marked as such. it is only solved until a practical way to change the win 7 bootscreen is found. meaning a a way to change it that regardless of the users level of computer skills can apply the solution without any worries of doing harm to their system by accident.

monkeys breath said:

the problem is not solved, and this thread should have not been marked as such. it is only solved until a practical way to change the win 7 bootscreen is found. meaning a a way to change it that regardless of the users level of computer skills can apply the solution without any worries of doing harm to their system by accident.

Indeed! I totally agree with you.
The problem hasn't been solved yet. And considering the huge amount of interest in this thread, sooner or later some smart fellow will find a way to change the bootscr with some kind of homemade editor!
(hopefully.....)

So come'on hackers, I can't believe you can hack Win7 installation or any other programs from high value software companies but you cannot hack a digi signature in one small file!
I reckon it won't be long till it someone invents it!

It seems that there are people out there who are hex editing winload.exe and the windows kernel to disable PatchGuard....and somehow the digital signatures on these modified files remain intact...I also found some instructions on how to manually disable PatchGuard and driver signing checks with a hex editor, although I haven't found the spot in the code that they are saying to modify yet....The link to those instructions follows....


http://fyyre.ivory-tower.de/txt/bootloader.txt


I am currently using a version of Winload that was edited by the author of the above linked text, and it works fine.....however with this edited winload.exe, I now see a Vista style boot screen rather than the Windows 7 one....

0tolerance said:

It seems that there are people out there who are hex editing winload.exe and the windows kernel to disable PatchGuard....and somehow the digital signatures on these modified files remain intact...I also found some instructions on how to manually disable PatchGuard and driver signing checks with a hex editor, although I haven't found the spot in the code that they are saying to modify yet....The link to those instructions follows....


http://fyyre.ivory-tower.de/txt/bootloader.txt


I am currently using a version of Winload that was edited by the author of the above linked text, and it works fine.....however with this edited winload.exe, I now see a Vista style boot screen rather than the Windows 7 one....

still the fact is that most users that want to change their boot screen will want a simple app like the one that came with tuneup utilities for xp and vista. do not get me wrong there are a lot of thing that i tweak in 7 by editing, however if i goof with those hack they will not mess up the security or damage the os.