I need some help with a Registry edit

[The Texan]

hey, i went to techtv and found something cool i wanted to try but i couldnt get it to work! what am i doing wrong? i followed the directions but when i hit "compile" nothing happens! here is the article http://www.techtv.com/screensavers/w...661576,00.html i think it may be that i didnt create the backup copy (bak file) right.... i am running XP on a P4 with 384 megs of ram if yall need to know.

p.s. i was trying to change my start bar name and hover text i dont care bout changing the picture.

[skiddieleet]

Didn't work for me either. Probably has something to do with windows file protection. I don't think it matters if you backed it up, that's just for your own assurance that if you screw it up you still have a backup. Were you trying this on XP Home or Pro? I tried on Pro and it didn't work. And now I just tried it on Home and it also didn't work. I think it is some file protection in windows that they probably disabled and didn't tell us. That's the only reason I can think of, unless they left out a step. Sorry.

[wyred]

I think the reason it didnt work is because explorer is always running in the background and the Resource editor cant get rights to the file. You might be albe to copy explorer.exe and edit the copied file, boot with a startup disk and swap the original file with edited file in dos.

[SwordFish_13]

Hi

I have not used it yet but i don't know how it will modify the explorer.exe when it is running.Yes you would have to run the computer in either dos mode or like i do with a bootable floppy . I am a litle old fashioned and i opened explorer.exe in the edit.exe . and located the Start then replased ir with codeR (waaaaa couldn't think of anything better).

If you want i can tell you step by step how i did it.

• if you have a dual boot system then you are lucky . Just the boot the system with the other OS whose Start Buton you are trying to Change. Otherwise you can use windows 98 /DOS bootable disk.
  
• Open Notepad and open the explorer.exe in it . Or in Dos prompt type "Edit /70 c:\windows\explorer.exe"
  
• ok now comes the difficult part you will have to locate S T A R T in it and this itn't easy in all those thousands of Junk characters . It's generally near the end so i always start from the bottom
  
• If you are lucky you will locate it now you can i have attached a snapshot of that See i am lucky i located it .
  
• In the red circle did you notice a Strange character just before "C". In Edit if you will just place your cursor just behind it you will see that it's value is "5". this character defins the length of the String you can use fro the Start button. now you can leave it as it is if you want to use a 5 character string insted of the current one . if you want Something longer or shorter you would have to locate in theis window a char whose value is the same as the lenght of your string. i used a five char word thats why i left it alone.
  
• And remembe there is a space in between each characters in S T A R t. now place yyour Cursor in one of the blank spaces it shows the ASCaII value of that blank is "0" strange isn't it what's the ASCAII value for space , no it's not 0. So those blanks are not spaces so beware do not press space anywhere , if you need a blank space just copy one of the blank spaces there and paste it.
  
• You are done now Save it and you are ready to go . if your comp refuses to start then you would have to replace this edited exe with the old one.
  

As you can see my S T A R T was in the line number 2390 , yours might be different and i used "edit /70 explorer.exe" if you wouldn't use /70 or use differrent then it would be somewhere else. The trick i use is first scroll to the bottom then scroll up to seee some human readable characters , when the human readable eharacters end and junk begins stop scrolling , click there and then use search , i just search for "S" because S T A R T wouldn't work as the blanks in the midle is not Space.

--Good Luck--

[The Texan]

i have XP pro and i booted into safe mode and tried it but, it still didnt work!! im going to try SwordFish_13 idea but if yall can think of anything else let me know.