Controlling the Power on Your Windows XP PC

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In this third part of a four-part series that helps you get your PC to do what you want it to do, you'll learn how to change your boot screen, personalize your PC's sounds, and more. It is excerpted from chapter six of the Windows XP Cookbook, written by Robbie Allen and Preston Gralla (O'Reilly; ISBN: 0596007256). Copyright © 2005 O'Reilly Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Used with permission from the publisher. Available from booksellers or direct from O'Reilly Media.

6.9 Changing Your Boot Screen

Problem

You want to change the screen that you see when XP boots.

Solution

Using downloadable software

The best tool for changing your startup screen is BootXP, shareware available from http://www.bootxp.net. (You can try it out for free, but if you continue to use it, there’s a $7.95 registration fee.) To use it:

1. Download, install, and run the program. When you first run it, it asks where you want to store your boot screens. The default is C:\WINDOWS\Resources\ Bootscreens. Unless you can think of a better place to keep them, use this folder. The software will create it for you.
   
2. Select the Your Boot Screens tab. If you have any graphics or boot screens in C:\ WINDOWS\Resources\Bootscreens, the program displays a list of them.
   
3. If you don’t have any boot screens stored, click the Get Boot Screens button to have BootXP search several web sites that have downloadable boot screens. (If you find any you like, download them to the folder where you’ve chosen to store your boot screens, such as C:\Windows\Resources\Bootscreens.)
   
   You can also create boot screens from an existing graphic. Put the graphic in C:\Windows\Resources\Bootscreens, so that, when you open them in BootXP and click Convert To Boot Screen, BootXP will convert them to the format Windows XP requires for boot screens: 640 × 480 pixels and 16-color. Once you have them in the right format, use BootXP to select any as your boot screen.
   
4. To choose a new boot screen, click the file in the list, and click OK. The program shows the graphic you’ve chosen on the left side of the screen, and how it looks as a boot screen on the right.
   
5. To confirm this is the boot screen you want, click the “Set As Your Boot Screen” button.
   
6. The next time you start XP, your new boot screen will be used.

Discussion

Be careful when going straight to Internet sites to download boot screens for your XP system. There are quite a few sites that specialize in boot screens, but when you install boot screens that you download from them, you may find that spyware rides on the back of the screens. If you download a boot screen and it includes an installation program, be wary, because the installation program often also installs spyware on your system.

If you decide to make your own boot screens using a graphics program, make sure they are 640 × 480 pixels and 16-color.

See Also

Another good program for selecting boot screen is ChangerXP, which is shareware available from http://www.nihuo.com/changerxp.html. In addition to changing boot screens, it also will change your wallpaper and Internet Explorer background.

Next: 6.10 Personalizing Your PC’s Sounds >>
 

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