Windows XP have been there from a long time and the desktop we use to get along daily just seems like a boring one to watch out for, though vista is their to opt for a change but the ease and acceptance xp has in either terms has never been achieved with Vista, and this is not a statement quoted out by me here but is a genuine problem that the whole tech community has accepted and going further vista has been nominated as one of the mishap of the century in the terms of technology, but lets don’t go in a debate on that.
Here what I have come up with is a Windows XP desktop make over let us change that Start button in Green to something jazzy, there are steps you can take to impose a different kind of change in this area on your Windows desktop.
These steps may not require professional computer help or technical support. The first thing you should undertake is to identify and determine a program, which could decompile and modify 32bit Windows EXE files. Such a program should also have the function to compile and save Windows executable files, which all have the .exe extension. This is because in order for you to change the information on the Windows XP Start button, you need to decompile and modify the explorer.exe file. It is in the C:Windows folder that the executable file is located. Use the program to enhance the Start button of your computer. This is achieved by compiling and saving the changed explorer.exe file.
You can do a search on Google or any search engine for such a program. But if ever you have difficulty searching, one recommendation is to utilize The Resource Hacker™. This is one tool that provides functions and features to decompile and modify 32bit Windows EXE files.
When you have downloaded this application, there isn’t a need to install it on your computer system since it is a 32bit Windows application. But before you modify the explorer.exe file found in the C:Windows folder, you should make a back-up and save the file in a different folder or disk partition.
Using the Resource Hacker™’s program, open the explorer.exe file located in the C:Windows folder. Pressing the Tab key on your keyboard would put you in the actual right pane window of the application. Navigate to the String Table option by using the arrow keys. After doing so, expand the selection by again pressing the Tab key. Highlight the option string 37 within the String Table option, and press the right key so as to expand it again. Navigate to the 1033 option or to the 38 option, in case you are actually using the functional Classic desktop layout instead of the Windows XP desktop layout.
After doing so, press the Tab key again; this would take you to the right window pane of the program. This contains the scripts and codes of the String Table 1033 or 38 of the explorer.exe file. Item number 578 contains the quoted text Start, which is what you are looking for. Carefully leaving out the quotes, delete the boring word Start. Then, type in the word of your choice, but ensure that it is inside the quotes you have left out.
Now press the Tab key repeatedly until it takes you to the Compile Script button. Press the Enter key that you’ll find in it. After you have compiled the functionally modified explorer.exe file, navigate to the File menu of the program and choose Save as option. Save it with another filename different from the explorer.exe, but use the .exe extension for the tweaked file. Save it in the C:Windows folder of your computer.
You should then modify the system registry of your Windows XP Operating System. Press the keystroke Windows key plus R, and type in “regedit” in the edit box supplied by the Run Command window. This would take you to a dialogue box with functions and features in editing the system registry.
Navigate to the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindows NTCurrentVersionWinlogon item, and carefully go through options one after the other. Navigate to the Shell option, and right click on it so as for a menu box to appear. Select the Edit String menu item on the dialogue box. This would take you to a new area in the window where the string values and other codes are to be found.
In the text field entitled “Value data:”, key in the filename of the functionally modified explorer.exe you have saved in the C:Windows folder. Press the Tab key repeatedly until it takes you to the OK button of the window. Press the Enter key on it.
You have now successfully modified the explorer.exe file, as well as the system registry of your Windows XP operating system. Enjoy the day ahead but before that you have to restart your system.
