Gussoh at Gussoh.com
How to change the login image in Windows XP and Windows 2000
It is not very difficult to change the image appearing before you've logged in in Windows 2000 or press ctrl-alt-del or when your computer is locked in Windows XP.
This is what is shown on my screen when I lock my computer (plus some decoration)
!UPDATE! There is now an easier way of doing this, go HERE
The file with this image is called msgina.dll, wich is part of the Windows NT login system.
The location of it should be %SystemRoot%\system32\msgina.dll This usually means c:\winnt\system32\msgina.dll on Windows 2000 and c:\windows\system32\msgina.dll on Windows XP.
The dll-file contains THREE interesting images and lots of strings like "Password incorrect" and such.
One of the images is the login image, the second one is the "this computer is locked"-image and the last one is the rolling image showing activity.
Requirements
- This will be much easier to do if you have two computers
avalable running win2k or winXp (or two installations on one computer).
- You must have a program that you can use to create the new images, paint will probably work but something like Photoshop will work better.
- Some h4xx0r skillz ;)
Step 1 - Backup
This is a hack and you if you do something wrong you might have to reinstall your operating system. I can not be held responsible for any mishaps.
Take a backup of you files! If you are thinking about blaiming me for any mishaps stop reading here.
Step 2 - Create a directory
As in the Windows 98 installation this will take a long time ;)
Just create a folder called hack right on c:\ or something similar. In this folder you make a new folder called original.
Then copy the %SystemRoot%\system32\msgina.dll file to both the directories. You will be having c:\hack\msgina.dll and c:\hack\original\msgina.dll
Step 3 - Create the images
I used an 8 bit palette (256 colors) for all images, the original, small Windows 2000-image has only 16 colors but 256 works fine for me.
You might be able to use a bigger palette. Dont use any compression.
Windows 2000
327x72 - 6 062 bytes / 24 696 bytes - The image showing when your computer is locked.
413x88 - 37 688 bytes - The image showing at login and startup.
413x5 - 3 160 bytes - The roll image
These are the images that I created for Windows 2000. If you want to use these images, go HERE.
Windows XP
413x72 - 31 032 bytes - The image showing when your computer is locked.
413x88 - 37 688 bytes - The image showing before and when logging in if you're not using the "fast-switch-login-interface".
413x5 - 3 160 bytes - The roll image
And these are the images that I created for Windows XP. If you want to use these images, go HERE.
Step 4 - Insert the images
The easiest way to do this is to use THE resource hacker; http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/
When you've started resource hacker just do something like this...
File -> Open -> c:\hack\msgina.dll
Go to bitmap, in Windows XP the interesting images are the three first ones. In win2k the interesting images are 101, 103 and 107 (the first, third and the fourth)
For each image goto action -> replace bitmap and "open.." your new image and click replace.
File -> Save.
Now you've got the new msgina.dll file in c:\hack (or wherever you put it).
Step 5 - Replace the orignial file
This I tricky since you cant replace the file while Windows is running.
One way to go around this problem is to shut down the computer and put the harddrive in another computer with Windows XP or Windows 2000. Start up the second computer and explore you first computer's harddrive and just copy the X:\hack\msgina.dll to X:\windows\system32\ or perhaps X:\winnt\system32\
If you dont have access to another computer you can boot you Windows CD and go into recovery console and do the replacing in a dos-like environment. It would look something like copy c:\hack\msgina.dll c:\windows\system32\msgina.dll
Step 6 - Finished!
Reboot and enjoy your new images. And perhaps take another look at msgina.dll to change the strings and the ico-file? :)
By Gussoh at Gussoh.com Last updated 7 July 2003. The penguin I
have used in my examples is collected from www.gentoo.org.
