BootSkin Alpha now available!
Thursday, November 6, 2003 by Frogboy | Discussion: WinCustomize Talk
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 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.
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Reply #2 Thursday, November 6, 2003 5:22 PM
that is a small offer for skinning your pc 
Will test it tomorrow
Reply #4 Thursday, November 6, 2003 5:40 PM
Reply #5 Thursday, November 6, 2003 6:07 PM
Reply #8 Thursday, November 6, 2003 8:50 PM
[Message Edited]
Reply #9 Thursday, November 6, 2003 11:05 PM
Besides, my HD's starting to sound like it's in the process of dying, and I've got things so cluttered on the notebook that I need to reinstall anyway...
Reply #10 Thursday, November 6, 2003 11:05 PM
Reply #11 Thursday, November 6, 2003 11:06 PM
thanks to Phoon Reply #12 Friday, November 7, 2003 3:11 AM
| However, when I used a progress bar as per the readme.txt. It made the screen.bmp colors distort and brighten up badly as soon as the bar kicked in |
If you use the same Palette as the picture it should work fine
I think the only real hiccup is getting the Progressbar outline in the correct place on screen
Well done, congradulations to all the Guys and Gals at Stardock
Reply #13 Friday, November 7, 2003 3:39 AM
Seems like having the same palette didn't work
It appears that Phoon was correct after all Has anyone noticed the speed increase on the Boot Progressbar
Reply #14 Friday, November 7, 2003 11:02 AM
[Message Edited]
Reply #15 Friday, November 7, 2003 11:29 AM
Reply #16 Friday, November 7, 2003 2:10 PM
-Ian
Reply #17 Friday, November 7, 2003 11:01 PM
Thanks for that info. Stumpy said he had the problem too and was using the same palette. I didn't check it further from there.
Upon modification, using PSP8, I saved my palette from the main image. Created the 22x9 progress bar, loading the palette that I had saved. All worked well..
Can't wait for more colors ability. Even though I don't really care about my boot screen, testing it is a pain, but it is a tad fun for now.
Reply #18 Saturday, November 8, 2003 1:23 AM
At least I -do- turn off my notebook - so I get to see it on here!
Reply #19 Saturday, November 8, 2003 1:59 AM
Reply #20 Saturday, November 8, 2003 5:21 AM
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Reply #1 Thursday, November 6, 2003 5:03 PM