Modify Windows 2000 Splash Screen

[MrMaguire]

I really like the way BlackWingCat has modified the Windows 2000 splash screen, and I would like to add to it.

 

 

I really like the black loading bar. That looks pretty slick, and I like the "Powered by Extended Kernel" text too. What I want to change here is the scrolling blue bar. I want to make it a similar black to the loading bar with a slight gradient to dark grey.

 

I can handle making new bitmaps and all that jazz. Question is: Where do I get access to the resources for this? Are they hidden in some system file? Which one?

[Tommy]

Look in NTOSKRNL.exe, that should contain the stuff you need. Just make sure to always back it up first.

[MrMaguire]

Thanks very much, Tommy. I'll look there.

[MrMaguire]

I put my new splash screen together, and this is what I came up with:

 

 

I like the way it turned out. But I'm having a problem implementing it. I basically just exported the bitmap from NTOSKRNL.EXE and created the scrolling bar separately. After getting the dimensions and colours right, I exported the new scrolling bar as a BMP 8 image and pasted it over the original. I replaced the existing splash screen with this in Resource Hacker and then replaced NTOSKRNL.EXE through the recovery console. After rebooting I get this:

 

 

Woah, trippy man. At first I thought that the slight mis-positioning of the new scrolling bar over the old one was causing some confusion. I fixed that and still get this. Then I thought that maybe it wasn't able to display all of the colours in the black and grey gradient, so I reduced the colour palette so it looked more like the original. And still nothing. The file implemented is a BMP 8 image, 640x480 pixels just like the original.

 

Any ideas what went wrong here? How does the scrolling bar mechanism even work anyways? I remember when I created my custom MSGINA.DLL file for the logon interface, the banner and scrolling bar were two separate components that could be replaced perfectly fine, but this is just one image.

Edited November 16, 2014 by MrMaguire

[MrMaguire]

Try number 3. This time I decided to play it safe by ditching thew new scrolling bar bitmap and just modified what was already there.

 

 

I replaced the dark blue with dark grey, and the lighter blue with lighter grey. Implementing this using Resource Hacker gives me the exact same result as above. There must be something that Macromedia Fireworks MX 2004 (my image editor) is doing to this, or maybe I'm just not using the correct export settings.

[MrMaguire]

Try number 4. This time I exported the image from Fireworks and then opened it in MS Paint to save it once again as a 256 colour bitmap.

 

 

Yes, I added even more grey. But I think that's all I want to change. Anyway, after putting this bitmap into a fresh copy of NTOSKRNL.EXE, I got the same result as above, except this time it was red with the yellow loading bar! I didn't manage to get a screenshot.

[Tommy]

The only thing is, I believe everytime you install a new kernel update, this will be replaced so make sure you keep a backup of it so you can put it back after you're done with the update.

[MrMaguire]

Yeah, I was thinking about that. I'll need to remake and replace the file every time a new version of UUR is released, which I honestly don't mind.

[Tommy]

Sounds good. I just wanted to warn you ahead of time so your hard work isn't erased accidentally.

[MrMaguire]

Anyone know what might be causing the problem? I'm all out of ideas. Maybe BlackWingCat could help since he has already modified the splash screen before.

[MrMaguire]

I finally got it to work! I took a fresh copy of the splash screen and put some text on it in MS Paint just as a test, and that worked just fine. So, it was obviously something that Fireworks did that isn't compatible, probably because it doesn't support exporting as a 16 colour bitmap. So I took another fresh copy of the splash screen and cut and paste the greyed out parts onto it and exported it as a 16 colour bitmap. Not it works just fine without issue.

 

 

Pretty sweet, huh? If anybody wants the original bitmap file to put in their own NTOSKRNL.EXE file, just tell me and I'll make it available.

 

I also modified the Windows 2000 Server splash screen:

 

 

I added the scrolling bar from the one above. Same deal, if you want the bitmap let me know.

Edited November 30, 2014 by MrMaguire

[jaclaz]

The issue is probably connected with "RLE encoded". 

 

Seemingly unrelated, but JFYI:

http://reboot.pro/topic/360-how-to-use-your-own-boot-screen/

 

and you may be interested in:

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/146529-pe-tool-for-creating-patches/?p=977524

 

jaclaz

[informaticapowered]

Please send me a copy of the Boot Screen

[MrMaguire]

Please send me a copy of the Boot Screen

 

Here you go: http://www.mediafire.com/download/4eb3fn6h43iktbn/Windows+2000+Splash+Screen+Bitmaps.rar

[informaticapowered]

 

Please send me a copy of the Boot Screen

 

Here you go: http://www.mediafire.com/download/4eb3fn6h43iktbn/Windows+2000+Splash+Screen+Bitmaps.rar

 

Thank You so Much