BootSkin ALPHA available for trying out
Friday, November 7, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize News
Want to change your boot screen without patching your actual OS kernel?
Stardock has a free program in development to do just that and the first alpha is now available:
http://scripting.stardock.com/private/bs_current.exe
BootSkin replaces the boot screen by creating a device driver that does the job. This has several advantages:
1) It will work on Windows 2000, it'll work on Windows XP, and it'll work on Longhorn 4051 it seems to work. Heck, it probably works on NT 4.
2) This has been implemented in the way that Microsoft would probably do it (or arguably how they should have done it). No patching, no hacking, totally safe.
3) No need to "back up" your kernel. If you somehow blow up your system, you can just boot up in safe mode and uninstall it.
Limitations:
Right now it's no better no worse than the regular boot screen. That means 16 color VGA (640x480).
What's next:
High resolution, true color and animation. But these won't be for a bit. We want to make sure this works well on everyone's system. Creating your own boot screens is incredibly easy. Just look at the included ones in the directory it's installed to (\program files\stardock\wincustomize\bootskin) and go from there. You don't even have to do progress bars if you don't want to. We'll have a bunch of examples as soon as we put some other projects together but hopefully you'll be able to figure out how to do these on your own. Remember though - 16 color (that's 4 bit) only right now since it's VGA. Same as regularly boot screens.
But this is just to get things started and make sure there aren't any problems. It's been tested extensively internally but usual caveat: This is an alpha, use at your own risk, assume it will blow up your computer, kill your pets, set the house on fire, etc. No problems reported so far.
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Reply #22 Saturday, November 8, 2003 8:46 PM
Reply #23 Sunday, November 9, 2003 3:25 AM
Reply #24 Sunday, November 9, 2003 9:13 AM
Reply #25 Sunday, November 9, 2003 11:44 AM
Reply #26 Sunday, November 9, 2003 7:09 PM
Reply #27 Monday, November 10, 2003 12:22 AM
looking forward to future builds
Reply #28 Monday, November 10, 2003 6:17 PM
all i need is higher resolutions... the 16 colors makes it kinda hard to make anything interesting...
Great program! Plus it doesn't slow my computer!
Yay!
Reply #29 Monday, November 24, 2003 2:41 PM
I am having a problem with Bootskin. When I change the skin and reboot, it crashes where the boot picture is supposed to come up. Windows tells me that the problem is vidstub.sys. I have to boot with "Last Known Good Configuration" to get back into Windows (which sets the boot picture back to the default).
Can somebody help me get this to work? I am using XP Home.
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Reply #21 Saturday, November 8, 2003 6:23 PM
BAD,BAD,BAD,BAD,BAD , don´t use this "windows killer" , i test it in a new computer , it makes windows do not boot , If i use this on my personal computer , I COULD LOST , YEARS OF WORK, THANK´S GOD FOR MAKEING ME TRY THIS FIRST ON A NEW COMPUTER , BECUASE DON´T LOSE ENYTHING . I RECOMEND YOU , THIS IS NOT SAFE , NOT GOOD , NOT ANYTHING , WHAT DO STARDOCK MEANS WITH "HIGH RESOLUTION , GOOD IMAGES , SAFE BOOT, NOT PROBLEMS" DOES A PINK BOOT IMAGE IS GOOD?
DON´T USE THE "WINDOWS KILLER" , IT´S MORE DANGEROUS USE THIS , THAN USE KAZAA WITHOUT ANTIVIRUS. >