Screen resolution during bootup

[unifex]

I was trying to reproduce the nice behavior I had on my old Sony laptop (running XP, but that's not the point). Namely, the boot-up screens - either the animation or the text-style info if the animation is disabled - would show in *their* native resolution (not sure if that was 640x480 or 800x600) in the middle of the screen. Once booted to Windows it assumed the full screen at its own native resolution (or whichever I may choose).

Now, with later computers I could not manage to do that. So now the boot sequence is using the full screen. What I do not like about it is that all images get stretched as they are not designed for 16:9 screens. As a result they look rather ugly, with the text stretched as well. It's readable, but I would be much happier if I could shrink it to a nicer form.

Not a performance problem really, the OS is running nicely, but it just annoys me . Any ideas?

 

[Zidane24]

Let me see if I understand correctly...

You want to force a resolution of only 640*480 or 800*600 on the Windows 7 bootup (Starting Windows screen). I have a 16:9 laptop resolution and it doesn't look strecthed on mine

Take a look at this: Windows 7 Boot Process Evolution, New Eye Candy and Code Changes - Camouflaging boosted performance - Softpedia

Looks like the resolution of the boot in 7 is 1024*768...I am not sure if you will be able to change it

 

[unifex]

Well, what I mean is that whatever the boot resolution is - 1024x768, fine, it's not 1920x1080 of my screen. As a result the original 1024x768 image is stretched full screen, whereas I would like it to use just those 1024x768 pixels in the middle of the screen instead. Same goes for BIOS screens, which are not even part of Windows the way I see it.

So this is not so much changing the resolution of the boot sequence, but changing the way it is shown on a higher-resolution monitor.

 

[Zidane24]

Well, what I mean is that whatever the boot resolution is - 1024x768, fine, it's not 1920x1080 of my screen. As a result the original 1024x768 image is stretched full screen, whereas I would like it to use just those 1024x768 pixels in the middle of the screen instead. Same goes for BIOS screens, which are not even part of Windows the way I see it.

So this is not so much changing the resolution of the boot sequence, but changing the way it is shown on a higher-resolution monitor.

The only way to change the way it would be shown IS to change the resolution...it is going to look stretched because of the huge difference in resolution...

 

[unifex]

Right, but the fact is, I did see it done - on an old Sony laptop. I have no idea how though ...

 

[Zidane24]

Right, but the fact is, I did see it done - on an old Sony laptop. I have no idea how though ...

On a previous OS correct? Such as XP I guess...

Unless someone posts otherwise...I believe that is isn't possible now

 

[Zidane24]

Take a glance at this...
No Custom Windows 7 Boot Screen - Just in case you were holding your breath - Softpedia
It appears that MS has locked down the boot screen because it is now CPU based (like the link in a post above) and is tied to their performance enhancements

 

[unifex]

Oh well ... The old machine was running XP indeed. But I thought that the way the BIOS screens are shown is independent of the OS. In that old case both the BIOS screens and the boot-up screens were shown in the same fashion.

 

[Zidane24]

Oh well ... The old machine was running XP indeed. But I thought that the way the BIOS screens are shown is independent of the OS. In that old case both the BIOS screens and the boot-up screens were shown in the same fashion.

Sorry I couldn't be of anymore help...our hands are tied here

 

[seekermeister]

My monitor is 1920x1080, and there is nothing stretched about either the BIOS or boot screens on my system. Therefore, I would suspect that the problem has something to do with your system settings (monitor).

 

[unifex]

Hi Seekermeister,

Well, I used to have the regular 4:3 monitor (1280x1024) and then I upgraded to the bigger one. Comparing the images on these two screens it is rather clear that the system tries to use all available screen space. It is also clear that the text and images on BIOS, OS selection, and boot-up screens were designed for 4:3 aspect ratio. On 16:9 monitor they are stretched.

What I was talking about in my first post, was that even on the 1280x1024 screen the text looks too big and I would prefer it to be somehow shown in smaller font in the middle of the screen (as it was the case with my old Sony laptop). Now the new screen is bigger and thus the text is bigger. It is also stretched in addition and looks rather ugly. Now if I buy another, bigger screen I think the text will get even bigger, while I would like it to stay the same - you see, the resolution of these images is fixed (1024x768 for Windows 7), independent of the monitor resolution and I see no reason why they should occupy all of the screen space as opposed to those 1024x768 pixels in the middle of the screen.

Not a major problem though and it looks like there is no solution for now.

However, if you could suggest which monitor or system settings I may try to change, I'd be happy to try it.