Senseless Syndrome

ramanujam July 4th, 2006

It was way back in my school when I noticed this in one of my school computers. The tutors name was there instead of the word start. When everyone asked him he said take it as a challenge and do it. It was the some 5 years back when ‘windows’ was flooded inside India and most of the students didn’t have a system in their home. Today I say that renaming the start button is a child’s play.

Step By Step Guide for Renaming the START button.
Everyone knows that this is the place where we have to start and it is annoying to see the same Start and “Click Here to Begin” everyday, why not we change it???
Here we go…

CAUTION: Be careful while doing this, if you do it incorrectly you may end up screwing up your OS. Don’t worry it takes minutes to restore if you provide the necessary back up as I mention.

1. In the Menu bar, click on Tools–>Folder Options–>view
In it select the option “show hidden files and folders” and uncheck the option “Hide protected Operating System files”

2. This is one of the most awesome tools for window hackers, Resource Hacker
(542 KB). This is required for this hack.

3. IMPORTANT: Providing Backup
Go to command prompt StartàRun àcmd
Type copy c:\windows\explorer.bak c:\windows\explorer.exe
Then type “yes” and “Exit”
(Assuming c is the directory in which you have loaded XP)

4. Launch Resource Hacker and open c:\windows\explorer.exe. On opening you will find collapsed fields like this.

5. You now will want to browse down to the item String Table 37 1033. It should now look like this. In that replace the word “start” with your desired text. (Not necessary to be 5 letters). Ensure that the quotes are intact. Then click on “COMPILE SCRIPT” present above.
Repeat this process for StringTable 38-1033. Replace start with the same text.

6. Now make sure all your windows are maximized, Go to Task manager (Ctrl+Alt+Del) –>Processes–>Select explorer.exe–>End Process. Now your taskbar will get vanished. Go to Resource Hacker and “save as” explorer.mod (Don’t save it as explorer .exe)
Again Task manager–>New Process–>explorer.exe

7. Next restart the system and press F8 while booting and enter “Safe mode with Command Prompt” Log on as “Administrator”. In the cmd type

Copy c:\windows\explorer.mod c:\windows\explorer.exe and then “yes” and “exit”. Then press (Ctrl+Alt+Del) Task manager–>New Process–>explorer.exe

8. You are now in safe mode, reboot and enter normal mode, you will see the customized start button. The text “click here to start” can be changed in string table 34-1033-Replace with desired text. Follow the same steps.

9. In case any error occurs, in the safe mode enter the command prompt and type copy c:\windows\explorer.bak c:\windows\explorer.exe and then “yes” and “exit”. You will be back to your normal state.

This may look long but the whole lot can be performed in 2 minutes. Lot of other hacks can be done with Resource Hacker, Step by step guide for other common hacks will come up soon.

Happy Hacking!!!!

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