Window's Tweak: Hack Your Start Button

written by Sarah Lane on Wednesday, July 21, 2004

I've gotten so many requests on how to change the Windows XP Start button, I'm going to teach you how to hack it to pieces manually.
Before you get started, you might want to print out this page for easy reference.

Change the Start text

1. First of all, make sure you download Resource Hacker. You'll need this puppy to edit resources inside your Windows shell.

2. Locate explorer.exe in your c:\Windows directory. Make a copy of the file in the same directory and rename it explorer.bak.

3. Now launch Resource Hacker. In the File menu, open explorer.exe. You'll now see a bunch of collapsed folders.

4. Expand the String Table folder and then find folder No. 37 (folder No. 38 if you're in Windows Classic mode).

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