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Try Tune-Up Utilities or StyleXP, they do this job automatically, you'll only have to rename the resulting file back to ntoskrnl.exe. Manual editing is a lot of hard work, plus you have to transfer your image in 16-color bmp, and very likely it'll not look so nice as it looks now.

Cenatek RAMDisk 2.0 emulates up to 3 GB harddisk in RAM. but idk if it will work in Vista.

In Vista you can change the colors of boot menu (OS selection) and/or of additional options menu (which appears after pressing F8 while booting). All you need is to edit a XSL resource in bootmgr.exe.mui or in winload.exe.mui respectively, using any resource editor. Different colors can be set for different lines and options of those menus, for fonts and backgrounds, just by combinations of 4 letters from XXXX (black) to RGBI (white), for example RXXI will be red, RGXX will be brown.

Probably your processor utilizes ntkrnlpa.exe instead of ntoskrnl.exe for booting OS.

Read about it here.

bledd , i meant Retail vs RTM. Of course OEM discs are different, they contain specific sertificate, etc.

That's myth. The size and content are equal. Manufacturers can't add drivers or anything to installation media. They get an iso or img file from Microsoft to print on discs and don't have a right to modify it.

You should save tokens.dat and, in case of OEM, maybe some other file(s).

Try this one: http://www.megashare.com/108916

I think palette is the same in Vista's and XP's kernel files. It's just that Vista's bootscreen really SUCKS, that's why nobody wants to do such a crap for XP. Well, i made one, unzip it to System32 and add a line in boot.ini with the switch /KERNEL=VISTAXP.EXE download from here: http://www.MegaShare.com/108916

Thanks for the good work !

Microsoft was kind enough to let us play with their source code for win2k3 kernel file ! And promise the same for XP's one. Don't remember where i've got this tool though, but you can get it here: removed Those who know C++ would probably say WOW. I wish i knew.

I think version string just shows what's written in the version resource of your ntoskrnl.exe or some other system file, and if in later builds this file wasn't updated in other parts than this string, then windows update will not update it, and the version of build in winver won't change.

5.1.2600.3042 (xpsp_sp2_gdr.061126-2305)

It's in authui.dll - resources's names are 17000-17004 - they're 5 images in PNG format, first four contain this "logo in the orb", the last picture is empty. If to add such resources in authui.dll.mui, they'll substitute the original "orb" while loading. 17000 17001

@ddebacker Someone's instruction, i couldn't write better: You have to change the permission settings of the file. Right-click on the file. Click on Properties from the contextual menu and select the Security tab. Notice: Before you are able to change the permission settings you have to get ownership ! Click on the Advanced button. Click on the Owner tab; change your settings and get ownership of that file. Now you can edit the permission settings on the Security tab to get full access. Click the OK button to apply your changes. Now you should be able to rename or replace it.

He-he, Chee, that's what i was talking about, ntoskrnl.exe in Vista is digitally signed and useless after modifications. The signature is located at the end of the file and is pretty big, with some kind of repeating structures of code. I think, by it's looks, it should frighten even the most desperate hackers, lol. @McTavish - picture of the green progressbar is located in ntoskrnl.exe as a bitmap resource, and is loaded also by ntoskrnl.exe, like in XP.

High resolution bootscreens are in true color -24bit, but it doesn't use such thing as progress-bar, just words "Starting Windows Vista". And it doesn't depend on your display resolution - it always is 1024x768, the other image (800x600) is never used. It's not like in XP at all. In XP we could modify ntoskrnl.exe to change default 16-color picture and progress-bar, but in Vista this file is digitally signed and any changes in it make it corrupted, unless someone will find a way to hack self-checking code. If this will ever happen, we will have the option to make 16-color 640x480 bootscreens with progress-bar like in Windows XP, but now - only true-color 1024x768 pictures and forget about progress-bar.

Credits to the author of this article. So if you run msconfig > boot and enable "no GUI boot" option, you'll see faded aurora instead of lonely green progress bar during boot process. How to substitute this aurora with an image of your own choice is described in the article above. Here's the result of my tricks with ResHacker, imagex, PaintShopProX and mspaint, lol : download link Preview: Just replace windows\system32\en-US\winload.exe.mui and don't forget to save/back-up the original file. My file is taken from RC2 (X86), but i think it'll work on RTM as well, it's only resource file. Don't forget to enable "no GUI boot".

If you have more than 2 partitions on your hdd, when "playing" with them, you could have messed their order in mbr, so that now vista's bootmanager sees your hda3 as another letter than it was originally.

Orb?!! I thought it was a bubble...

Yes, I know, this is what they say, but it would be interesting to learn if it's so in fact from those who had legally downloaded it from MS (or got an actual disc).

Can you tell us the version of the build? Is it 6000.16386.061101-2205 or something else? What are the date attributes of the files in the media? 11-02-2006?

Yes, it's much like creating a new theme with a new .msstyles file in XP. These patched uxtheme.dll and two other files will let you use unsigned .msstyles instead of aero.msstyles, which controls the looks of the start button, task bar, caption of a window, buttons, start menu and so on...

If anyone wants to make or try any other style, other than aero or classic, they'll need to use patched uxtheme.dll and two other dll's. Versions for different releases of Vista are here: http://anti-tgtsoft.com/