How to perfectly change your Windows Vista boot screen

GMM2003

Post subject: How to perfectly change your Windows Vista boot screen

Posted: 30 May 2021, 20:28

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If you want to change the same and boring Windows Vista boot screen into a custom boot screen, here's how to do it correctly and perfectly. Keep in mind that Windows Vista uses the same color palette from Windows XP until 6519 and 6608 (6568 doesn't apply).

What you need:

Windows Vista (requires Extended Kernel, otherwise, your image will not make changes)
ntoskrnl.exe (version needs to be 6.0.6003.20555)
A photo editor (I prefer using GIMP)
Pixelformer (to use the new image shown correctly)
Resource Hacker (to modify ntoskrnl.exe)

Steps:

1. Make the image whatever you want, whatever you are using GIMP, Photoshop, paint.net.. GIMP works best. Black background looks best (recommended), as using a custom background in an image will make the boot screen horrible. Don't forget to add an progress bar (without a progress square) into your image (without it will only show the progress square).
2. Make sure that the image needs to be precisely 8-bit integer precision and needs to be rendered as a 16 color bitmap.
3. After rendering the picture, open the image in Pixelformer and export as BMP again to make the bitmap work perfect and show in good detail.
4. Open ntoskrnl.exe in Resource Hacker and replace the image in 1 : 1033, then save the file. Make sure that the bpp is 4, otherwise, you will get a black background with only showing the progress square if it's set to 8 or higher, as shown in the picture.
[ img ]

5. In Windows Vista, replace the original with the modified one you made.
6. Restart your computer and you should have a new boot screen.

You can use the image to use the correct alpha settings and colors, and a progress bar, shown below.
[ img ]