The pompous Microsoft Windows Vista logo that appears for the 30 seconds or so
it takes to boot your computer can be replaced with any image you choose; it just
takes a little hacking. First, find an image you’d like to use. It can be a photo you
took with a digital camera or a picture you got off the Web. When you’ve got one,
use your favorite image-editing application—or, barring that, Vista’s Paint program
(mspaint.exe)—to convert the file to the .bmp format. You’ll actually need two .bmp
files, one resized to 800 × 600 and the other resized to 1024 × 768, but both must
have a 24-bit color depth. (If your photo doesn’t conform to the 4:3 aspect ratio,
you’ll need to crop it or add padding so that it does.) Next, download and install
the free Vista Boot Logo Generator from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
(Note that at the time of this writing, this program only works with the 32-bit
edition of Vista.) Start the program, click Browse for image on the left side,
and locate the 800 × 600 .bmp file you just made. Then, click Browse for image on
the right side, and locate the 1024 × 768 version. When that’s done, select File ?
Save Boot Screen File As, name the file winload.exe.mui (the default) and save it
to your desktop, and then close the Vista Boot Logo Generator.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\en-US\ folder
(if you’re not using the United States–English edition of Windows Vista, choose the
appropriate folder in place of en-US). Take ownership of the winload.exe.mui file in
this folder, as described in “Set Permissions for a File or Folder” in Chapter 8, and
then rename it to winload.exe.mui.backup. Now that the original file is out of the
way, drag your custom winload.exe.mui file into the C:\Windows\System32\en-US\ folder.
There’s one more step: open the Start menu, type msconfig in the Search box, and press
Enter to open the System Configuration window. Choose the Boot tab, and from the
Boot options section, turn on the No GUI boot option. Click OK and then close the
System Configuration window when you’re done.
it takes to boot your computer can be replaced with any image you choose; it just
takes a little hacking. First, find an image you’d like to use. It can be a photo you
took with a digital camera or a picture you got off the Web. When you’ve got one,
use your favorite image-editing application—or, barring that, Vista’s Paint program
(mspaint.exe)—to convert the file to the .bmp format. You’ll actually need two .bmp
files, one resized to 800 × 600 and the other resized to 1024 × 768, but both must
have a 24-bit color depth. (If your photo doesn’t conform to the 4:3 aspect ratio,
you’ll need to crop it or add padding so that it does.) Next, download and install
the free Vista Boot Logo Generator from [You must be registered and logged in to see this link.]
(Note that at the time of this writing, this program only works with the 32-bit
edition of Vista.) Start the program, click Browse for image on the left side,
and locate the 800 × 600 .bmp file you just made. Then, click Browse for image on
the right side, and locate the 1024 × 768 version. When that’s done, select File ?
Save Boot Screen File As, name the file winload.exe.mui (the default) and save it
to your desktop, and then close the Vista Boot Logo Generator.
Open Windows Explorer and navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\en-US\ folder
(if you’re not using the United States–English edition of Windows Vista, choose the
appropriate folder in place of en-US). Take ownership of the winload.exe.mui file in
this folder, as described in “Set Permissions for a File or Folder” in Chapter 8, and
then rename it to winload.exe.mui.backup. Now that the original file is out of the
way, drag your custom winload.exe.mui file into the C:\Windows\System32\en-US\ folder.
There’s one more step: open the Start menu, type msconfig in the Search box, and press
Enter to open the System Configuration window. Choose the Boot tab, and from the
Boot options section, turn on the No GUI boot option. Click OK and then close the
System Configuration window when you’re done.
