Tip #3638 - Branding Your Computer
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Branding
Your Computer
Guess what! I have
some great news for all of you! Today, I'm going to show you how to make
some very cool modifications to your computer. I'll share with you how
you can make your experience with Windows XP a whole lot easier and more
fun too!
For this tip, I'll
be showing you a couple of ways you can modify Windows to personalize
and brand it. You know, just to make sure everybody knows it's yours!
We'll start off with the system properties window. By default, a computer's
system properties window looks like this:
To access that, right
click on the My Computer icon on your desktop and select
Properties. Some of you may have a manufacturer logo
below the Windows logo. If so, how would you like to add your logo and
some text there? I thought you might be interested, so let's do it!
1.) First, an image
must be created to place there. For that, I'll be using Microsoft's Paint
program, which is included on all Windows computers. To access that, go
to Start, All Programs, Accessories
and choose Paint.
2.) Since the image can be no larger than 180x115 pixels,
we need to resize the canvas. To do so, go up to Image
and select Attributes. In the box that appears, select
Pixels as the measurement unit and enter in the correct
units, shown once again below. Then click OK.
3.) You can use the tools located on the toolbar to create your logo.
I used the fill tool to make a black background and the
text tool to make white text. I also copied and pasted
a small clip art of a computer. You can do whatever you want with this.
Just choose something that will help personalize your computer for your
very own. Here's what I came up with:
4.) Now, go up to File, Save As and
save the file in the directory of C:\Windows\System32
with the name of oemlogo.bmp.
That does it for the
logo. Now, let's move on to entering the text. We will be using Notepad
for this part.
1.) Get to Notepad
by going to Start, All Programs, Accessories,
Notepad.
2.) Next, copy and
paste the information below into the text area. You won't want it to be
exactly the same as mine (there's more on that below), but go ahead and
copy and paste it all first. Then, once you have it in Notepad, you can
change everything to read what you want. That way, you'll know for sure
that you have the basics entered in correctly.
[General]
Manufacturer=Neil's PC
Model=Dell Inspiron 8100
[Support Information]
Line1=This PC was created
Line2=by Neil Patel
Line3=Enjoy using it!
Line4=*************
3.) After you have
that pasted in, replace everything after the equal signs (=) with your
own information. You can add more lines at the end too, but be sure to
use the same format as I did.
4.) Once you have
that the way you want it, go up to File and choose Save
As. Again, save the file in the directory of C:\Windows\System32,
but this time, under the name of oeminfo.ini. Also, be
sure to change the file type to All Files instead of
Text Document.
If you did this correctly,
the next time you check your system properties, your new information should
be there. Be sure to click the Support Information link
to see your custom message.
Another great mod is editing the text on the Start button. Everybody who
uses your computer looks at that, so it’s a great way to express
your individuality. Now, there is a manual way to execute this mod, but
a nifty program called Start Button Renamer makes it
much easier to do. You can download that program right here.
There is no installation necessary, so just double click the icon called
StartBtn.
Now, just type the text you want your Start button to read in the box
and click Rename It. Viola! Your start button has been
changed. Look at my new Start button below. I love it!
I have one more mod
for you today and that's posting a box to come up every time you log on
and off your computer. Now, once again, there is away to do this manually,
but you can use this simple script I found for you instead. It's much
easier that way. You can download the script here
and then open it up. You will see this screen:
Just enter the log in text you want and click OK. Then
enter the log off text you prefer and click OK.
Now, whenever you (or other users) log on and off, you will see the designated
message. How awesome is that?!
I hope you enjoy all
of today's mods!
~ Neil Patel
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