Have you ever wondered how to customize the start menu button in Windows 7? Well it is possible to spice up your copy of Windows 7 by giving a new look to the start menu button. Here is a detailed tutorial on how to do it. The following images shows a preview of how your start menu would look like before and after the customization process is done.
Default Start Menu Button
Customized Start Menu Button
Tools That You Need:
1.
Resource Hacker2. Custom Start Menu icons (images). It mush be of the size
54×162 with a
.bmp extension. which looks something as follows
They must be in the following order:
1st Image - When the button is not in use
2nd Image - When the mouse pointer is over the button
3rd Image - When the button is clicked
I have created a few customized buttons which are ready to use. You can download them from the following link.
Start Menu Buttons DownloadOnce you have all those resources ready, you can start the customization process as follows…
1.
Take the ownership of the file “
explorer.exe“ which is located in the Windows Folder (Most likely in
C:\Windows).
2. Open the
Resource Hacker Tool.
3. Go to
File menu and click on
Open. Now load the file “
explorer.exe” into the Resource Hacker.
4. Expand
Bitmap branch in the
left pane.
5. Now expand
6801 option,
right-click on
1033 and select
Replace Resource option.
6. A new window appears. Click on
Open file with new bitmap button.
7. Navigate to the customized (.bmp) image, open it and click on
Replace button.
8. Repeat
steps 4 to
7 above for the options
6805 and
6809 as well.
9. Now click on Save option (File->Save). Resource Hacker will automatically create a backup file called explorer_original.exe so that you can restore it in the future if needed.
10.
Log Off and
Log On to see the changes in effect.
from: gohacking.com