Boot screen

[Excessum]

I’ve been trying to find a way how to make WS’08 swallow vista’s winload.exe.mui (or more precisely – a version of this file I made myself for Vista) in order to change the appearance of my boot screen, but so far, with a very limited success. Is Vista’s version of winload.exe anyhow different from Server’s? Unfortunately I don’t have a copy of Vista on my hands, so I am having trouble with “borrowing” files from it for comparison and other uses.

Has anyone else tried to change the boot screen? How far did you get?

[JonusC]

It will be impossible to use a Vista MUI on Server 2008, the OS signatures do not match. It’s done purposely for security reasons. While you can use SOME Vista MUI’s, they are only for non-system protected files.

I investiagted this myself when trying to change the logon screen, i’m sure it’s the same with the Aurora bootscreen image. Sorry I can’t help, I don’t mean to be rude but i’ve never had an urge to mod my bootscreen in my life – I always turn them to verbose boot mode.

[Excessum]

Well… after a bit of tinkering and tossing files around, I got to the point where it showed the Aurora boot background, but without the status bar. But the custom made mui’s did not work at all.

Well ok, we can’t use the MUI… maybe we can use the whole winload.exe?

Gah… it looks like I will have to set up a couple of additional hyper-v machines with vista and server’08 respectively in order to test all this… I wish i had more free time >_>

[JonusC]

@Excessum wrote:

Well… after a bit of tinkering and tossing files around, I got to the point where it showed the Aurora boot background, but without the status bar. But the custom made mui’s did not work at all.

This is by design…. the Aurora Bootscreen on Windows Vista only shows the image, with a “Starting Windows” down the bottom. There has never been a progress bar 😕

@Excessum wrote:

Well ok, we can’t use the MUI… maybe we can use the whole winload.exe?

You could try, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it resulted in a BSOD. In Vista to get the Aurora bootscreen, is it the /noguiboot flag? Can’t remember. What happens in Server 2008 when you try the same flag? Is it just blank? I’d try using a resource editor before making a frankenstein of your system files, that’s always a last resort (it could break many things, especially in the case of WinLoad.exe – it might break Domain Controller support or other credential/logon related server functions).

[Excessum]

All of this did not seem to be a problem for TuenUp Utilities 2009, which successfully changed both the background of the Log on screen and the boot screen, as well as the animated windows logo you see prior ti the Log on screen. You can fetch a 30 day trial here: http://www.tune-up.com/download/

[JonusC]

@Excessum wrote:

All of this did not seem to be a problem for TuenUp Utilities 2009, which successfully changed both the background of the Log on screen and the boot screen, as well as the animated windows logo you see prior ti the Log on screen. You can fetch a 30 day trial here: http://www.tune-up.com/download/

Yes, I own a copy of TuneUp 2009, its very good. I also like TweakNow Powerpack, which I also own.

I’m not sure I understand your problem now. What are you trying to do now, and what was your question? 😕

[Excessum]

I was looking for a way to change the boot screen. Since I failed at doing it manually, I looked in-to other possible solutions, one of them being the piece of software mentioned above… and it worked, so no problems here 🙂

[JonusC]

Oh so you figured it out? Well thats good to hear 🙂

[frauhottelmann]

To get Aurora, you just go into msconfig (Windows Key + R), then go to the second tab and check no gui start. And reboot!

[Arris]

@frauhottelmann wrote:

To get Aurora, you just go into msconfig (Windows Key + R), then go to the second tab and check no gui start. And reboot!

Nice! Didn’t know that one! 🙂

[JonusC]

@frauhottelmann wrote:

To get Aurora, you just go into msconfig (Windows Key + R), then go to the second tab and check no gui start. And reboot!

Yes he already got that far (Post #3) it’s no big secret, you kinda need that for every boot screen mod (so all the tutorials mention it).

Arris, are you for real you didn’t know that man? I don’t believe you… LOL.

[Arris]

@JonusC wrote:

@frauhottelmann wrote:

To get Aurora, you just go into msconfig (Windows Key + R), then go to the second tab and check no gui start. And reboot!

Yes he already got that far (Post #3) it’s no big secret, you kinda need that for every boot screen mod (so all the tutorials mention it).

Arris, are you for real you didn’t know that man? I don’t believe you… LOL.

I ‘ve never studied these bootscreens so for me it was a quite big difference to see the Aurora loading screen in stead of the default loading bar. 🙂

[JonusC]

@Arris wrote:

I ‘ve never studied these bootscreens so for me it was a quite big difference to see the Aurora loading screen in stead of the default loading bar. 🙂

Oh haha. yeah I never bothered with Vista (apart from my first time, just to try it) because I always leave my computer on Sleep and only reboot when I need to 🙂

It sucks that Aurora doesnt have an animation… but have you seen the Windows 7 one? Oooooohhhh i’ve been meaning to look into how to modify that… finally, a cool animated boot screen!

[Arris]

@JonusC wrote:

@Arris wrote:

I ‘ve never studied these bootscreens so for me it was a quite big difference to see the Aurora loading screen in stead of the default loading bar. 🙂

Oh haha. yeah I never bothered with Vista (apart from my first time, just to try it) because I always leave my computer on Sleep and only reboot when I need to 🙂

It sucks that Aurora doesnt have an animation… but have you seen the Windows 7 one? Oooooohhhh i’ve been meaning to look into how to modify that… finally, a cool animated boot screen!

Yeah, I also always hibernate my pc. Windows 7 has a nice bootscreen indeed: some cycling dots that finally come together in the Windows logo. Just downloaded and installed the build 7100 from usenet; looks good! 🙂

[JonusC]

@Arris wrote:

Just downloaded and installed the build 7100 from usenet; looks good! 🙂

I’m on build 7077… it’s the main branch and is code frozen in RC1 patch, thus more stable… 71xx builds are experimental…

The common misconception is that a larger build number means that the build is more recent than a build with a smaller number. Due to the recent branch in code base, this is no longer the case.

You have undoubtedly noticed that all the builds up until this point have come from the 70xx.0.winmain line, so you’re wondering where this 7106 build came from, and you’re probably wondering if it’s better than 7077. Here’s the hard fact: It’s not.

…you might be interested in this article, where that was taken from – http://windows7center.com/news/understanding-how-windows-7-build-numbers-work/

Don’t worry, it’s stupid I agree – I only found this out because i’m a registered tester for Windows 7, I wouldn’t have known otherwise! 😛

[Arris]

From the download I got this info:

This is the long awaited Release Candidate 1.
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/23/windows-7-rc-completed-build-7100

Release name: Microsoft.Windows.7.RC1.Build.7100.x64.DVD-iND
Release date: 2009-04-24
Release size: 62x50M
File names: ind-win7-7100-x64.rar
Language: English

It says that the (scene)release date is the 24th of April so it should be the latest one?

Anyway, thanks for this clarification! I won’t blindly trust on the build numbers anymore. 😛

[JonusC]

@Arris wrote:

From the download I got this info:

This is the long awaited Release Candidate 1.
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/23/windows-7-rc-completed-build-7100

Release name: Microsoft.Windows.7.RC1.Build.7100.x64.DVD-iND
Release date: 2009-04-24
Release size: 62x50M
File names: ind-win7-7100-x64.rar
Language: English

It says that the (scene)release date is the 24th of April so it should be the latest one?

Anyway, thanks for this clarification! I won’t blindly trust on the build numbers anymore. 😛

Hmm… yes you’re right, everywhere is saying that 7100 is the official RC1. Wow, I had no idea… the code branch has already become useless for end users like us to worry about…

…well, that’s a good thing then. See, if that is indeed the real 7100, because Build 7100 is actually newer then 7107 haha!

[JonusC]

@Arris wrote:

From the download I got this info:

This is the long awaited Release Candidate 1.
http://www.neowin.net/news/main/09/04/23/windows-7-rc-completed-build-7100

Release name: Microsoft.Windows.7.RC1.Build.7100.x64.DVD-iND
Release date: 2009-04-24
Release size: 62x50M
File names: ind-win7-7100-x64.rar
Language: English

It says that the (scene)release date is the 24th of April so it should be the latest one?

Anyway, thanks for this clarification! I won’t blindly trust on the build numbers anymore. 😛

I think that may be a fake Arris. See the post I made here…
viewtopic.php?&t=856
…Windows 7 Build 7100 is, indeed, the final RC released to Technet. But it wasn’t released until April 30th….! It’s POSSIBLE there was a leak, it might not be a fake… but I dunno!

[Arris]

I’ve seen your post yes. Here are the filenames / md5 hashes of the iND releases to compared to the MSDN RC1 iso’s.

x86
Filename: 7100.0.090421-1700_x86fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRC1CULFRER_EN_DVD.iso
md5: 8867c13330f56a93944bcd46dcd73590
sha1: 7d1f486ca569effffb719cfb48355bb7bf499712
MSDN: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/subscriptions/downloads/default.aspx?PV=36:350:DVD:en:x86

x64
Filename: 7100.0.090421-1700_x64fre_client_en-us_Retail_Ultimate-GRC1CULXFRER_EN_DVD.iso
md5: 98341af35655137966e382c4feaa282d
sha1: fc867fe1ab2e0a9796f9e4d155b44ea6998f4874
MSDN: Not available yet?

As you can see the sha1 hashes of the iND and MSDN x86 release are equal, so it’s the real RC1. 🙂

Arris

[JonusC]

@Arris wrote:

I’ve seen your post yes. Here are the filenames / md5 hashes of the iND releases to compared to the MSDN RC1 iso’s.

{…}

As you can see the sha1 hashes of the iND and MSDN x86 release are equal, so it’s the real RC1. 🙂

Arris

Nice! I just got my MSDN copy today, luckily I am on Build 7077 right now so I can do a straight up in-place upgrade. This is good, because 7077 was actually less stable than build 7057 😯 (my network connection kept dropping out, and sometimes the Audio service would crash and i’d have to restart it to get sound back).

Exciting. Good luck!

[Author]

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