Development Dan's Blog

Windows Vista Boot Logo Generator Beta

by dan on Jan.04, 2007, under Development

I know a lot of people were disappointed by the lack of a decent boot logo in Vista, so I’ve thrown together a tool that should simplify the process of creating the new high resolution boot logos!

Vista Boot Logo Generator

Your works of art need to be saved as 24-bit BMPs, and you’ll need to create them in two sizes: 800×600 and 1024×768.  On my machine the boot logo always defaults to 1024×768, but I assume the 800×600 version automatically kicks in if your graphics card is rubbish :-)   Once you’ve selected your two images, just click File -> “Save Boot Screen File As…” and it will generate the logo file.  To make the logo come up during boot, you’ll need to copy the file to the following folder: 

%windir%\System32\en-US

You’ll also need to make sure the /NOGUIBOOT option is enabled in the MSCONFIG tool, otherwise you’ll only get the old 16 colour boot screen.  For full details, make sure you read the info during setup.

Download Vista Boot Logo Generator BETA 1.2

IMPORTANT: It’s still beta and there may be bugs so use at your own risk, and make sure you backup first!

216 comments for this entry:

  • Raa
    January 6th, 2007 on 3:49 am

    So uhh…. Does that mean I can have 24bit color vista boot logos?

    Thats not very well explained :P

  • dan
    January 6th, 2007 on 4:14 am

    “Does that mean I can have 24bit color vista boot logos?”

    It does indeed :-)

  • Izlude
    January 7th, 2007 on 12:13 am

    Thanks pal, this worked great.

  • juan
    January 11th, 2007 on 10:00 pm

    It left me with a blank bootscreen, and vista not booting anymore…

    Used 800×600 and 1024×768 bmp… 24-bit both

  • abc123
    January 16th, 2007 on 1:02 am

    Is it Vista only, or XP too? TIA

  • Chugworth
    January 16th, 2007 on 3:45 am

    Good job. Now where is the 64-bit version? ;)

  • anonymous
    January 16th, 2007 on 7:48 am

    Why do we need a generator when MS paint can do it?

  • bitbonk
    January 16th, 2007 on 7:55 am

    %windir%\System32\en-US

    I suppose this is the directory to copy to only for USA locale ?

  • dan
    January 16th, 2007 on 10:35 am

    “It left me with blank boot screen….” – This is fixed in the new 1.1 release!

    “Is it Vista only, or XP too?” – Just for Vista, XP doesn’t support hi-res/hi-colour screens I’m afraid.

    “Why do we need a generator when MS paint can do it?” – Paint can’t create the new Vista boot screens!

  • Namronia
    January 16th, 2007 on 3:49 pm

    sorry, i copied in DE-DE, because ive got english vista with german mui, now it works ;)

  • sascha
    January 16th, 2007 on 3:51 pm

    i have no permission to replace the winload.exe.mui. How do i get the right permissions? I am admin on my maschine???

  • sascha
    January 16th, 2007 on 4:03 pm

    i fixed the problem

  • Ronin
    January 17th, 2007 on 10:46 pm

    Hi there !

    Nice Program-but i allways get the following error:
    “Failed to capture image: 0″

    as soon as i´m going to save it.
    What does this error message mean?

    Greetings Ronin

  • Shinyu
    January 17th, 2007 on 11:06 pm

    Hey Guys….

    it worked, but the green vista loadingbeam …. is gone… i could see my image, and it looks good… but i hoped that the loadingbeam is also there…?! like it is an object that is laying over my image.. did i do something wrong?

  • koko
    January 19th, 2007 on 11:42 am

    It doesnt work!!!

  • dan
    January 19th, 2007 on 12:06 pm

    “it worked, but the green vista loadingbeam … is gone” – As far as I know the hi-res/hi-colour boot screens don’t support any form of animation, so there’s no way to add a progress bar :-(

    “i always get the following error: Failed to capture image: 0″ – Does your temp path have international characters in it? I’ll see if I can fix this in the next release.

    “it doesnt work!!!” – Are you getting an error message? As I mentioned in the readme, some languages may not be supported yet. I see Namronia (who posted earlier) managed to get it working by putting the file in the “DE-DE” folder rather than “en-US”.  Is there a folder for your language that you could try putting the file in?

  • Mark
    January 22nd, 2007 on 11:59 pm

    “i always get the following error: Failed to capture image: 0″ – Does your temp path have international characters in it? I’ll see if I can fix this in the next release.

    If you use “Windows2000″ Compatibility Mode it will work fine.

    Thanks to the Author of this great Programm.

    greez from Germany

  • MaxiMoruM
    January 23rd, 2007 on 9:38 pm

    У меня чтото не работает може из за того что нужно самому сохранять картинку в 24-битном формате… Ща проверю.

    http://maximorum.pp.net.ua/

  • MaxiMoruM
    January 25th, 2007 on 5:00 pm

    НЕТ НЕ ПОХАЕТ НАПИШЫТЕ ЧТО ДЕЛАТЬ

  • MaxiMoruM
    January 25th, 2007 on 5:01 pm

    НЕТ НЕ ПОХАЕТ НАПИШИТЕ ЧТО ДЕЛАТЬ

  • Sven Reichelt
    January 28th, 2007 on 4:14 am

    Hi guys!

    I’ve tried to use the Boot Logo Generator on Vista Ultimate 32-Bit German. My temp path have no internation chars… and i also tried to use compatibility mode but there was always:

    “Failed to capture image: 0″

    So I started the Logo Generator “As Administrator” (Right-click -> Run as Administrator…” and it worked great!

    Try it!

    Thanks for thig program!

  • Random
    February 6th, 2007 on 3:50 pm

    I’m looking for a good SPARE image to upload as my bootup screen. Can you supply me with one, preferably a FF image. Also your first blog says to expect some nonsense, I’ve yet to read any nonsense here (apart from this comment).

    Giggedy giggedy gooo..

  • tehCORE
    February 7th, 2007 on 4:07 am

    changelog for 1.2?

  • 변신웅(sin woong byun)
    February 7th, 2007 on 8:58 am

    i am korea 나 한국사람 –; this is usa? ok
    beybye~

  • Minnu
    February 13th, 2007 on 7:23 pm

    Vista is not allowing me to change security permissions of that file to replace it.

    Any clue???????????

  • daniel
    February 15th, 2007 on 5:30 pm

    Hi, I’m using Beta 1.2. Everything goes fine incl. saving, but after a restart there is only a green/blue anything with ‘Windows Vista starting’ below. What am I doing wrong?

  • BirdiecrazyNL
    February 19th, 2007 on 6:08 pm

    Guys I’m also trying to overwrite the file but windows don’t let me and I really don’t know how to give myself acces to overwrite. Can somebody please help me :(

  • SloppyGoat
    February 22nd, 2007 on 8:47 pm

    Does it still get rid of the progress bar when you do this? Because the progress bar is a little more important to me than just a picture without it. If you don’t know, you can check the NOGUIBOOT option and it already has an image that will show up, but you won’t have a progress bar.

  • SixXx
    February 25th, 2007 on 5:30 pm

    i created the file ‘ winload.exe.mui ‘ but when i try to put it in the windows folder i get “Destination Folder Access Denied” “Youll need to provide administrator permission to move this folder” Then i click continue with the admin symbol button, i get denied again and it tells me “You need permission to perform this action”…….what the heck is going on here….im on admin account….i choose continue with admin rights….still dont consider that permission….someone please help!!!

  • teh_pwnerer
    February 25th, 2007 on 9:54 pm

    Just wondering if/when i can expect a version compatible with Vista Ultimate x64. Thanks.

  • dizzybro
    March 11th, 2007 on 4:57 am

    made the winload file,replaced the original, checked to NOGUIBOOT option, but the default aurora boot screen comes up no matter what winload file I put in the en-US folder, or any other language folder

  • ih!mlen
    March 13th, 2007 on 1:25 am

    In order to switch (overwrite) winload.exe.mui SUCCESSFULY you first need right-click on the original file, choose: Properties–>click on Security tab–>choose “Advanced”–>choose “Owner” tab, add your username (John or whatever it is), hit OK, go to permissions, click “Edit”, tick all incl. special permissions-AND YOU’RE DONE! Now you can easily overwrite the winload. In the event of having errors and problems with starting the system you can always insert the original DVD with Vista and boot from CD/DVD, pick the “Repair your system”option and launch System Restore from the CD. Easy-peasy lemon squeezy;-)

  • ih!mlen
    March 13th, 2007 on 1:26 am

    PS. Boot logo generator is a very nice app, I’ve made an awsome boot screen for my vista with it & all works great! ;-)

  • SixXx
    March 13th, 2007 on 3:39 pm

    Now if there were only a way to use your custom boot screen and keep the progress bar =\

  • mideastboy
    March 22nd, 2007 on 1:25 pm

    Could you please to prepare for wide screen? My laptop is 1280X800, so if I use this, boot screen image become wider. Thanks Dan!

  • Daniel
    March 31st, 2007 on 8:05 pm

    German–>ich bin ein Deutscher und weis nicht wie ich “winload.exe.mui.” weg bekomme.
    English–>i have no permission to replace the “winload.exe.mui.” How do i get the right permissions? I am admin on my maschine?can you help me pleas?

  • Dwayne_K
    April 3rd, 2007 on 7:57 am

    Greeting’s Dan.
    When I start the program it freezes up if I click anywhere and says program not responding. I turned off UAC and tried to run as admin, but that did not work. Any suggestions?

  • niyazi
    April 14th, 2007 on 1:57 am

    ulan boşuna uğraştırıyon yarak kafalı olmuyo işte, 24 bit olarak ayarlıyom resmi yok yok yok olmuyo, geçmişini sikim senin :)

  • richard
    April 29th, 2007 on 9:22 pm

    Hi,

    Great tool, works perfectly! One question though: Does this also work with “winresume.exe.mui”? Would be nice if it does. This screen is the same ugly screen as the old winload-screen, but with the moving bar. Is it possible to change this?

  • richard
    April 29th, 2007 on 9:56 pm

    Hi,

    To answer myself on my question in my previous post: no, it doesn’t work with winresume.exe.mui, not with the current version of this tool. The insertion point of the WIM’ed images is correct for winload, but not for winresume. It’s possible to get this right, though, but that’s up to the author of the program. Dan, where are you? :-)

  • daniel teagan
    April 30th, 2007 on 6:28 am

    dont mean to sound like a moron, but when you are referring to using this vista logo boot generator, is this manipulating the screen that has the little windows logo briefly shining or the screen that displays your logon and text box for the password?

    Any links that show picture examples of what the logo boot generator does?

  • richard
    May 8th, 2007 on 12:29 am

    Strange… why have all replies after april 30th been deleted? I replied to daniel, including screenshots and such, but it’s all gone now. How come?

  • richard
    May 20th, 2007 on 12:01 am

    This blog is dead.

  • taeoj
    May 27th, 2007 on 5:53 am

    Can the output be different resolutions? Like 1440×900.

  • Ai8erovamon
    June 3rd, 2007 on 9:11 pm

    When I applied the bootscreens following the instructions, i got this screen BUT when the time came for windows vista logo i got a black screen and the system stack, I booted in safe mode and removed from the msconfig the no gui boot and it booted successfully, anyway how can i restore the .mui file to original ?

  • mark prindle
    June 27th, 2007 on 2:10 am

    I cannot download program, something wrong with your server

  • richard
    June 27th, 2007 on 10:20 pm

    The author has left this blog and will never look here again.

  • dan
    June 28th, 2007 on 9:00 am

    Not quite dead yet! I’m working on a new 64-bit version at the moment. If anyone’s interested in testing out the new version just let me know and I’ll send you a private link.
    -Dan

  • Patrik
    July 16th, 2007 on 4:11 pm

    eyyy “I’m working on a new 64-bit version at the moment. If anyone’s interested in testing out the new version just let me know and I’ll send you a private link.” Im intrested :D

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