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Nowadays in actuality, you need to make sure it's an SP2 boot screen if that's the version you're using.
The fault in that setup lies with booting with the wrong kernel, you can hose your installation and face a repair.
Third party installers work the best and the safest, but you can also do what they do manually. StyleXP uses modded boot screens but adds a startup menu exactly like I've posted below. However, you can also use BootSkin from Stardock which does not use modded kernel files and does not change your boot.ini file. Bootskin files are just a simple boot screen image and an ini file that tells the program what the screen looks like and where to put the progress bar. That's it...and it's the safest method to use screens. I've also seen Bootskin themes that are much more clearer to look at then modded kernel files. Almost as if it's not bound to the 16bit color format!
StyleXP will cost you $20 to use, BootSkin is free.
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You'll have to edit the boot.ini file and add another line that points to the new boot file. This will give you the option of booting to the modified boot files and your original incase the modded ones don't boot. Right click My Computer, go to Properties. Click on Advancd tab, go to Settings in the Startup and Recovery section. Click on the Edit button. The boot.ini file will open in Notepad. If you want to, you can save this original file to your desktop in case you need it.
In the example below, you need to duplicate the last line of the string under operating systems, and add the /KERNEL=NewBoot.exe line. Whatever you decide to name your new kernel file will be what the additional line needs to say, NewBoot.exe is just used here as the example. In the "timeout" section, set that to at least 10 seconds if not 5 otherwise anything less may not give you enough response time to choose your original kernel should something go wrong. You can even change the text inside the "quotes" to anything you want it to say...I've shown that in the second boot line. The first boot line refers to your original boot kernel and will be the first selection in the boot order menu. After saving this file and closing it, the window in which you clicked on the Edit button will have a pull down menu where you can change this to have your modded boot screens at the top of the list.
[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="My Boot Screens for XP" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /KERNEL=NewBoot.exe
After adding this line, go to File - Save. Not Save As.
Reboot and you'll see a menu to choose your boot screens.
Hope that helps! and remember, the only major headache with doing this manually, is that when you choose to use another boot screen, you will have to modify the boot.ini file to the name of the kernel file.
(note: The /noexecute=optin is an SP2 kernel boot line. You won't see that in XP, or XPSP1)
This message has been edited since posting. Last time this message was edited on 7. July 2006 @ 12:30
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