Windows 7 start orb

Firestrider · 07 Jul 2009

I for one like the start orb from Windows Vista better than Windows 7. The one in Windows 7 is too flashy and needs to be more subtle.

Is there anyway to change it to what Vista had?

VeeEss · 07 Jul 2009

You need the winload.exe.mui file in the %windir%\system32\en-us folder. I don't have the file since I don't have Vista installed currently, but I'm sure you can find that. Get the file from a Vista installation and replace the one in the 7 folder of the same name. You then need to go to Start -> Run -> msconfig -> Boot tab -> Select Windows 7 -> Check No GUI Boot. When you restart it should look like Vista!

Mark · 07 Jul 2009

VeeEss said:

You need the winload.exe.mui file in the %windir%\system32\en-us folder. I don't have the file since I don't have Vista installed currently, but I'm sure you can find that. Get the file from a Vista installation and replace the one in the 7 folder of the same name. You then need to go to Start -> Run -> msconfig -> Boot tab -> Select Windows 7 -> Check No GUI Boot. When you restart it should look like Vista!

I think he was looking for the Vista Start Orb not the boot up animation.

Here are the Vista Start Orbs but they are PNG's and you may have to change them to a Bitmap and change the background colour to black as that's how they are in Windows 7, you will need a program like Restorator to open the explorer.exe and then you will be able to replace the default images, you will also need to take ownership of explorer.exe, if you want some more info then have a look at this thread.

Skinning Se7en | custom start buttons

Vista Start Orb.zip

peteryeung · 30 Sep 2011

Thanks for your sharing, that's so nice

Olivia Drinkwin · 11 Aug 2018

Thanks for sharing this it helped me customize my windows 8 machine. Since I have classic shell on here. And classic shell will let you put in a custom image. So I simply put in yours due to me being lazy and not wanting to create my own right now.