Change the Windows Vista boot screen & login screen

Changing your Vista boot screen and login screen
The first thing you see as you boot up your computer is your boot screen and shortly after you'll come to your login screen (if you have login enabled.) Although you don't spend much time using these interfaces, customizing them can be a nice touch. On this page you'll learn how to customize both these screens.

To successfully achieve this in an easy manner, you'll need two tools: 'Vista Boot Logo Generator' and 'LogonStudio Vista'. Both of these programs do not need to run in the background, so the performance of your system does not deteriorate at all. These programs simply patch your system files, so you don't have to do any shell scripting or editing of system files. Add a personal touch to your system as you follow this page.

Enable the Aurora Vista Boot Screen
The boot screen in Windows Vista is plain and lame. To change the boot screen, follow these simple steps:

1. Press the Start button, type 'msconfig', and hit enter
2. If prompted, select Continue
3. The System Configuration window will come up. Click on the Boot tab
4. Select your Windows Vista installation
5. Check the 'No GUI boot' box
6. Press OK
7. Click on Restart
Your computer will now reboot, and you will see the Aurora boot screen.

Making a Custom Vista Boot Screen
You can easily make your own boot screen for Windows Vista by following this guide: (Please note: this does not work for SP1 ...yet)

1. Navigate to C:\Windows\System32\en-US
2. Locate 'winload.exe.mui' and take ownership of the file
3. Rename the file to 'winload.exe.mui.old'
4. Press the Start button, type 'msconfig', and hit enter
5. On the 'Boot' tab, check 'No GUI Boot'
6. Press OK and when prompted to restart, select 'Exit without restart'
7. Download Vista Boot Logo Generator
8. Install the software on to your machine
9. Open Vista Boot Logo Generator
10. Select your Vista boot screen (you'll need both 800x600 and 1024x768 24-bit BMP files)
11. Select 'File > Save Boot Screen File As... and save your new 'winload.exe.mui' file in C:\Windows \System32\en-US

Restart your computer to verify your boot screen works.

Customize Your Logon Screen
Logon Studio, created by the Stardock team lets you customize your Windows Vista logon screen. Choose from many styles that will make your computer stand out from the crowd.

Logon Studio is freeware, which can set any wallpaper as your logon screen. All you need to do is to download this utility and choose the wallpaper you want to use.

Logon studio lets you create custom screens within the program. Once you apply the screen, Logon Studio locks your computer so you can test drive the screen to see if it works for you.

How to Use Logon Studio
Logon Studio is simple to use, but in this guide, I'll show you the basics. To change your login screen, do
the following:

1. Open Logon Studio
2. In the left-hand menu, click 'Create'
3. Browse for your background image and then select 'Save'
4. Now click 'Apply' to test your login screen

Use Windows Wallpapers for Your Logon Screen
You already have a collection of wallpapers that come with Windows. You may use any one of the wallpapers from the collection as your boot screen and I'll show you how to achieve this easily.

1. Install login studio (if you haven't already)
2. Download this zip file
3. Extract the .logonvista files to your desktop
4. Drag and drop the .logonvista files on to the LogonStudio Vista window

The new logon screens will appear on the right-hand side, under "Built-in logon screens". You can now delete the .logonvista files.

Download even more Vista Boot screen Wallpapers

Download even more Login Screens

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