9. Change your Windows boot screen
Tired of seeing the same old Windows logo every time you start Windows? Dedicated tweakers can easily change the logo to whatever they want. There are two different processes for changing the boot screen in Vista and in XP.
Vista
First, you have to create or find a graphic for your new boot screen. You'll need two versions of the graphic, one 1024 by 768 pixels, and one 800 by 600 pixels. They have to be in .bmp format and must be 24-bit.
If you can't create them yourself, use Google image search. In your search results, under each image, you'll see the dimensions of the graphic, so you'll know whether it's the right size. If you add the word "wallpaper" to the subject of your search, you're more likely to find images of the right sizes.
Note that if you come across a graphic in .jpg format, you can still use it, because Internet Explorer can save it as a .bmp -- just right-click the image in IE, select Save Picture As, and in the Save As Type drop-down, select Bitmap (*.bmp) and click Save.
You can save time by finding just one file, a 1024-by-768-pixel image, and then using graphics software to resize it and make a copy of it as an 800-by-600-pixel file in addition to its original 1024-by-768 size. A great tool for doing this is the free IrfanView.
After you have both files ready, download, install and run the free Vista Boot Logo Generator. Click each of the Browse for image buttons and select your two graphics.
Select File --> Save Boot Screen As, and save the file to any location on your hard disk. The program will not save the files as graphics but instead will save them both as a single file, winload.exe.mui.
Now that the file is saved, copy it to C:\Windows\System32\en-US. There will already be a file in that folder named winload.exe.mui, so make sure that you make a copy of the original before you replace it with this new one.
Now run the MSCONFIG utility by typing msconfig at the Search box or command prompt and pressing Enter. Click the Boot tab, select No GUI boot, and click OK. You'll be asked to restart Windows. Click Restart, and you'll see your new boot screen in living, full-color glory.
Note that depending on your configuration, Windows Vista may not allow you to overwrite the winload.exe.mui file. If that's the case, you'll need to do some extra work. Run the command prompt as an administrator, by typing cmd at the Search box and pressing Ctrl-Shift-Enter. Then type the following command and press Enter:
takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\en-US
\winload.exe.mui
You'll get a message that you now have ownership of C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui. Next, type this at the command prompt and press Enter:
cacls C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui
/G username:F
where username is your username.