Change Text on XP Start Button
For Windows XP Home and Professional Versions
Pretty neat Huh ? You can style your own system in
the same fashion for a more personal note as well.
The directions given below are how I accomplished it
and they should do the same for you. Just read them
carefully and do as directed.
Backing up the registry is a must with all registry
edits so please take this as a warning and do so
before commencing with the hack.
Lets backup the reg key first
-
The first step is to make a backup copy of the file
explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer. Place
it in a folder somewhere on your system where it
will not be deleted. Start Resource Hacker and open
explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer.exe as
shown in Fig. 01.
Step 1 –
Modify Explorer.exe File
In order to make the changes, the file explorer.exe
located at C:\Windows needs to be edited. Since
explorer.exe is a binary file it requires a special
editor. For purposes of this article I have used
Resource Hacker. Resource
HackerTM
is a
freeware utility to view, modify,
rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit
Windows executables and resource files (*.res). It
incorporates an internal resource script compiler
and decompiler and works on Win95, Win98, WinME,
WinNT, Win2000 and WinXP operating systems. Click
here to download Resource Hacker.
Fig. 01
The category we are going to be using is String
Table. Expand it by clicking the plus sign then
navigate down to and expand string 37 followed by
highlighting 1033. If you are using the Classic
Layout rather than the XP Layout, use number 38. The
right hand pane will display the stringtable as
shown in Fig. 02. We’re going to modify item 578,
currently showing the word “start” just as it
displays on the current Start button.
Fig. 02
There is no magic here. Just double click on the
word “start” so that it’s highlighted, making sure
the quotation marks are not part of the highlight.
They need to remain in place, surrounding the new
text that you’ll type. Go ahead and type your new
entry. In my case I used TechSupersite as shown in Fig.
03.
Fig. 03
Compare the screen captures in Fig. 02 and Fig. 03
and you’ll notice that after the new text string has
been entered the Compile Script button that was
grayed out in Fig. 02 is now active in Fig. 03. I
won’t get into what’s involved in compiling a
script, but suffice it to say it’s going to make
this exercise worthwhile. Click Compile Script and
then save the altered file using the Save As command
on the File Menu. Do not use the Save command – Make
sure to use the Save As command and choose a name
for the file. See Fig. 04. Save the newly named file
to C:\Windows.
Fig. 04
Step
2 – Modify the Registry
Now that the modified explorer.exe has been created
it’s necessary to modify the registry so the file
will be recognized when the user logs on to the
system. If you don’t know how to access the registry
I’m not sure this article is for you, but just in
case it’s a temporary memory lapse, go to Start
(soon to be something else) Run and type regedit
in
the Open: field. Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\
SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\
Winlogon
In the right pane (Fig. 05), double click the Shell
entry to open the Edit String dialog box as shown in
Fig. 05. In Value data: line, enter the name that
was used to save the modified explorer.exe file.
Click OK.
Fig. 05
Close Registry Editor and either log off the system
and log back in, or reboot the entire system if
that’s your preference. If all went as planned you
should see your new personalized Start button.
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