Browse Directory C

Posted on December 04, 2011 by Admin
Browse Directory C

Browse Directory C

You must click on the Start button of Windows XP several times in a day. Ever wished that it would say something else than plain old "Start"? There is a way in which you can make the Start button text spell out your name, or almost any other word for that matter. Let's see how.

First off, you will need a third party software tool called Resource Hacker, which is available for download free-of-cost. This nifty little tool allows you to open executable files and view the code (in hexadecimal format), images, sounds, etc., bundled inside the files.

Once you have installed it, do the following:

  1. Make a backup copy of Windows Explorer file, which you will find in C:\Windows directory. Put the backup in any a folder other than the Windows folder. You can even put it on your desktop.
  2. Now, locate the Explorer.exe file in the C:\Windows folder and open it using Resource Hacker.
  3. Expand the tree named "String Table" in the left pane of Resource Hacker.
  4. Scroll down till you reach entry number 37 (Use entry number 38, if you are using Classic layout in Windows instead of the default XP layout).
  5. Expand the entry, and click on the number given inside (it is usually 1033) to select it.
  6. In the right hand pane, you will see an item with the number 578 beside it. This is the entry we are going to modify. You will see the text "start" beside it, enclosed in quotation marks.
  7. Double click on the text "start" to select it. Make sure neither of the quotation marks gets selected. Those two quotation marks need to be exactly in the same place as those are now.
  8. Type some text to replace "start", inside the quotation marks.
  9. Once you are done, you will notice that there is a button towards the top portion of the right side pane, which says "Compile Script". Click on this button to compile the altered executable.
  10. Now save the modified explorer.exe by choosing "File" from the top menu, and then "Save As". Be sure to name the file explorer.exe once you save it. Save the file in some directory inside C:\Windows directory, not in C:\Windows itself.
  11. Click on Start button and choose Run. Type Regedit in the box named "Open" and hit Enter.
  12. Once Regedit opens, scroll down to the key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ Winlogon
  13. Click on the entry. In the right pane, you will see an entry named Shell. Double click on it. An Edit String dialog box will open. In the Value Data box, type the name of the folder inside C:\Windows where you saved the file. For instance, if you saved the modified explorer.exe file in the folder C:\Windows\inf, you will have to edit the value as inf/explorer.exe. Click on OK.

Now refresh the Registry Editor by pressing F5, close the editor and reboot your PC. Your Start button should now show the text you typed in step 8.