Modifying boot screens.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lucvdv
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Lucvdv

A year ago, someone asked what MS's position is wrt modifying XPe boot
screens by hacking the OS files with a resource editor.

Andy Allred replied:
Brad,
I'll forward the question and let you know.
Click to expand...


But that's the last I heard of it (I hope I didn't miss any follow-ups
if they appeared in a separate thread).

What is MS's position regarding adding your own company logo to the
boot screens?

And replacing them completely? You can suppress them, but how about
showing something else instead?
 
You missed the replies. In a nutshell you are not allowed to do this per
the License agreement

Do a seach on google groups for the full discussion :-)

My company is using /noguiboot together with a custom BIOS to display a boot
screen.


Regards
Graham.
 
Kesavan,

In the boot.ini follow the boot path with a /noguiboot. It will remove the
bootup splash screen. Something like this...

[boot loader]
timeout=30
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" /fastdetect /noguiboot

HTH,

Brad Combs
Imago Technologies
 
Lucvdv,

Graham is right, this is apparently a no no. Using the /noguiboot option in
conjunction with unchecking the "Show Friendly Logon", and the "Show Welcome
to Windows screen before Winlogon" in the Windows Logon(Standard) component
is the closest that I've come. Once our shell is running I did a little
"Please Wait" splash screen to give some branding. HTH,
Click to expand...

Thanks, that sounds like the best solution.


One of my colleagues was using a neat hardware trick in a previous
version of a the device, and it turned ou to work with XPe too, but it
still left me with the welcome screen and I hadn't noticed that you
can suppress it.

There's no guarantee that it will work on all hardware, but if your
parallel port is free it may be worth a try:

Our device includes a standard OEM LCD monitor, powered by the same
power supply as the mainboard. By connecting its power switch to the
ACK line of the parallel port, a nice effect occurs: almost
immediately after the mainboard and display are powered on, the BIOS
self test sets the ACK line low - which powers off the monitor.

In the previous version, some code had to be added to pulse that line
again later to power the monitor on. Now it turns out that in
Windows, initialization of the ParPort driver pulses the ACK line -
and the pulse is long enough to power the monitor back on.
The timing is near perfect: the display is off all through the BIOS
screens and XPe's boot screens, it's powered on right before the
welcome screen.

Because I was already using a custom parallel port driver to handle
external hardware that's connected to the par port, I could extend it
even further with a little addition to my driver: I removed the
monitor power LED and connected its switched lead to the SELECT line,
now I can check the monitor power state and toggle it on and off
whenever I want.
 
Brad Combs said:
Lucvdv,

Graham is right, this is apparently a no no. Using the /noguiboot option in
conjunction with unchecking the "Show Friendly Logon", and the "Show Welcome
to Windows screen before Winlogon" in the Windows Logon(Standard) component
is the closest that I've come. Once our shell is running I did a little
"Please Wait" splash screen to give some branding. HTH,
Click to expand...

I'm currently discussing this issue with MS licensing.

The point I'm discussing with the 'Licensing dept' is that MS provide an
option to disable the GUI boot screen (which leaves a blank screen) yet MS
insist that the boot screen cannot be replaced by a company/target image
that replaces the XPe splash.

Seems stupid to me.

I've already replaced the BIOS boot screen with a custom BIOS (obtained from
the Award and Phoenix BIOS development team).

Graham.
 
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