Big Book of Windows Hacks

Big Book of Windows Hacks

Big Book of Windows Hacks

STARTUP AND SHUTDOWN

How much do you think about the way you start up and shut

down Windows? After all, what’s to think about—push a few

buttons and you’re done, right?

Wrong. As you’ll see in this chapter, starting up and shutting down Windows is absolutely hackable.

Whether you want to be more productive or just have fun, there’s plenty to hack. Want to change the

Windows Vista and Windows XP boot screen? You can do it. Tired of waiting for your PC to start up

and shut down? You can speed it up. Want to boot into multiple operating systems, create a dualboot

Linux-Windows laptop, and customize your multiboot options? You can do that as well. In this

chapter, you’ll even learn about hardware startup hacks that show you how to tweak your BIOS.

HACK 01: Change Your Windows Vista Boot Screen

Tired of seeing the same old Windows Vista logo every time you

start Windows Vista? Here’s how you can replace it with any one

you want—for free.

Start Windows Vista. Stare at the same boring boot screen you’ve seen approximately 2,984 times.

Ho-hum. Another day of computing.

It doesn’t need to be that way. You can create your own boot screen for Windows Vista, or use a

graphic you fi nd online. And it’s easy to do.

First you’ll need to create or fi nd a graphic for your new boot screen. You’ll need two versions of the

graphic, one 1024 x 768 pixels, and one 800 x 600 pixels. They must be in 24-bit .bmp format.

If you can’t create them yourself, use Google’s image search (go to Google, then click the Images

link and do your search). In your search results, under each image, you’ll see the dimensions of the

graphic, so you’ll be able to know ahead of time whether it’s the right size (Figure 1-1). Note that if

you come across a graphic in .jpg format, you can still use it, because you can have Internet Explorer

save it as a .bmp.

You can save time by fi nding just one fi le, a 1024 x 768 pixel image. You can then use your graphics software

to make a copy of the fi le as an 800 x 600 pixel fi le, so that you’ll have two fi les, one 1024 x 768, and the

other 800 x 600 . A great tool for doing this is the free IrfanView (www.irfanview.com). When you open a fi le

in IrfanView, select Image→Resize/Resample, click 800 x 600 pixels on the right side of the screen, and click

OK. Then save the fi le with a new name, making sure not to overwrite your original fi le.

In Internet Explorer, right-click the image you want to use, select Save Picture As, and in the Save As

Type drop-down, select .bmp. Then save the fi le.

After you have both fi les, download, install, and run the free Vista Boot Logo Generator (www.

computa.co.uk/staff/dan/?p=18). Click each of the “Browse for image” buttons and select your two

graphics. You’ll see a screen like the one shown in Figure 1-2. Select File→Save Boot Screen As and

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