Changing the Explorer start menu button.

[Extasey]

This is what we are trying to achieve:

Photobucket

Spoiler (Click to View)

Firstly, you need to choose your bitmap! Heres a thread where I have posted a whole bunch of them.

Now we need to take owner ship of your windows folder. To do this, you will need to disable UAC, then restart. Once you have done this, copy and paste this code and save it as a registry file (.reg)

Code:

Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\takeownership]
@="Take Ownership"
"HasLUAShield"=""
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\*\shell\takeownership\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\takeownership]
@="Take Ownership"
"HasLUAShield"=""
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\exefile\shell\takeownership\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\takeownership]
@="Take Ownership"
"HasLUAShield"=""
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\dllfile\shell\takeownership\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F"

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\takeownership]
@="Take Ownership"
"HasLUAShield"=""
"NoWorkingDirectory"=""

[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\Directory\shell\takeownership\command]
@="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"
"IsolatedCommand"="cmd.exe /c takeown /f \"%1\" /r /d y && icacls \"%1\" /grant administrators:F /t"

Once merged, you should be able to navigate to your windows folder (Last file folder on the local disc, if you haven't put other crap there of course), right click on it, and take owner ship (UAC must be disabled,and you must restart afterwards).
It should look a little like this:

Spoiler (Click to View)

Photobucket

When you select "take ownership" a command prompt should appear and do a whole lot of stuff to each file and sub-directory in the windows folder, depending on your computer speed and how much crap you have in this folder, it should take around 5-10minutes.

Sweet! We own something! Now we actually get to change it, but not before we make 10 different backups of our existing explorer. The explorer can be found in the windows folder and is called "explorer.exe" (C:\WINDOWS\explorer.exe), although it's image is a folder so don't think it isn't an executable. Rename the explorer "explorer.exe.bak" (Do this after you have opened the file with restorator, otherwise you won't be able to access it through the program)
Personally, I made 3 backups on different drives.
Now that we've got 300 backups and are all set to start messing with files we shouldn't be, we have to get a resource hacker!
I used this one.

Spoiler (Click to View)

Whatever you do, DO NOT TORRENT IT. I tried to and it completly fudged crap up, you can see my thought process of repairing the issue here. Just run the trial, its long enough to do what we're doing.

Once you have installed the res hacker, right click on your explorer.exe file and select "Open with Restorator".

Spoiler (Click to View)

Photobucket

You should be presented with an explorer like interface, browsing explorer.exe. Navigate to the bitmap file (explorer.exe > Bitmap) and find the file "6801" (the first one). When you click on this file it should come up with the start orb. If it is just a list of all the files in that directory, click on the file and your location will be moved to the left panel with the picture of the start orb appearing in the right.
Right click "6801" then choose "Assign...", then "Assign to". You should be presented with an open box. Choose the new start button bitmap! You'll also need to repeat the last step with "6805" and "6809", as you can see they are the same.

Spoiler (Click to View)

Photobucket

Once you've changed the bitmap, hit F12. Alternatively you could click File > Save As.
Lets just save it too the desktop for now.

Go back to your Windows folder and paste the new explorer.exe file into there. Select replace when (if) it asks you, but make absolutely sure that you have backed it up! Now your all set. Go to the task manager (CTRL + ALT + DEL) and select the processes tab. Once you've got that open kill explorer.exe, then start it again. If you don't know how to start it, go back to the applications tab and select new tab, then type "explorer.exe" and OK.

Spoiler (Click to View)

Photobucket

Done! You should have a sick nut start... button now.

[!XpecTz!]

Is there a complete theme that exists that will change the taskbar, start button and all the colors of Windows just by installing?

[Extasey]

Probably, wouldn't surprise me actually.

[υℓqυισяяα]

Niiiiiiice! But pics are dead, I want pics.

[Extasey]

Pictures are working fine for me, are you behind a proxy?

They are currently hosted by image-host.com but I will host them with Photobucket alongside, just for you ;)

[iHeartWindows]

Looks interesting. I'll give it a try.

[Extasey]

Okay, it's been updated for those who can't view image-host.com, for whatever reasons (e.g. Blocked country).

Feel free to post your orb once your done, I want to know how other people did!

[ariton]

It's a good trick, I have to admin but WaterMark is way better than this.

[Fragma]

Woahh seems like a lot of work for such a small change.. Is there not an easier way??

[Infallible]

Wow thanks for this. Going to try this tonight.