So, you've probably navigated yourself to this page in the hope of finding some cool, yet useful Windows 7 tips and tricks! Well, you've come to just the right place! Firstly, I am going to show you how to get a really cool start orb, instead of the blah one that comes with Win 7. To begin, you must download W7SBC. This is the program that you will use to change the orb.
w7sbc.exe | |
File Size: | 917 kb |
File Type: | exe |
Now, you must run the program as an administrator. To do this, simply right click it and choose "Run As Administrator". You are now ready to change your start button to whatever you would like. However, you need a bitmap image to select first. They can be obtained from the following downloads.
orb_1.bmp | |
File Size: | 35 kb |
File Type: | bmp |
orb_2.bmp | |
File Size: | 35 kb |
File Type: | bmp |
orb_3.bmp | |
File Size: | 35 kb |
File Type: | bmp |
When W7SBC opens the browser window, you have to choose one of the three downloaded orbs. Once you open this, your screen will go blank for a second, and then you will have the coolest start button on the block! I will be uploading more orbs eventually, so sorry for the limited choice.
Now, you've got a cool looking computer, but it still isn't cool enough! The next tutorial is covering registry editing, and I reccomend that you back up your computer before tweaking with the registry, unless you have done it before or if you think that you are invincible, and that you will not mess anything up.
So, when Windows boots, it goes straight to your logon screen, right? WRONG! It does by default, but it definately doesn't have to!
In order to bypass this Windows default, we are going to add a few things to our registry. First of all, go to the start menu and type regedit. Double click the program, and wait for it to load. We need to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/System. On the right hand side, you will see something that looks like this:
Now, you've got a cool looking computer, but it still isn't cool enough! The next tutorial is covering registry editing, and I reccomend that you back up your computer before tweaking with the registry, unless you have done it before or if you think that you are invincible, and that you will not mess anything up.
So, when Windows boots, it goes straight to your logon screen, right? WRONG! It does by default, but it definately doesn't have to!
In order to bypass this Windows default, we are going to add a few things to our registry. First of all, go to the start menu and type regedit. Double click the program, and wait for it to load. We need to navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Policies/System. On the right hand side, you will see something that looks like this:
We need to right click on legalnoticecaption, and select modify. In the text field, you type what you want the title of your logon screen to be. This should be short and simple. Now, click OK and do the same for legalnoticetext. This is the message that will be shown at startup. You should make this a little bit longer, possibly something that is issuing a warning to anyone that uses your computer. You can now click the close button, and log off your account to see if it worked. You should be brought to a screen showing your message and title. Hit OK and log in as usual.
Ta Da!!! You now have a more personalized computer than you did a few minutes ago! Hopefully I will be putting on more tweaks in the near future!