Windows XP theme styling utilities
Windows XP extends the visual customization with the ability to modify the boot screen, logon screen and the actual skinning of the desktop and the applications running. There are several tools available to enhance the XP appearance.
Theme Utilities
- Style XP - Import, select, rotate, and manage themes, visual styles, skins, wallpapers, logons, bootscreens, icons, and explorer bar.
- Stardock Object Desktop - Complete package of customization tools that includes WindowBlinds to skin almost everything and DesktopX that can extend the desktop with almost any kind of widget.
Logon Welcome Screen Utilities
- Stardock LogonStudio - Edit, change, and apply new logon screens. LogonStudio includes a visual editor to create your own logons.
- Logon Loader - Logon Loader makes the task of swapping logon/login screens easy (Formerly known as LogonUI).
- ChameleonXP - Create your own logon screens for WinXP.
- XP Visual Tools - Use multiple xp logon screens and automatically swap between them at specified interval.
Boot Screen Utilities
- Stardock BootSkin - Freeware tool to replace the bootscreen in Win2k/WinXP. It uses a different approach than patching the critical system file Ntoskrnl.exe. It installs a system driver which takes over the display of the boot screen. This is a bit safer as it allows one to boot in Recovery Console and disable vidstub.sys.
- BootXP - Easy management and switching of Windows XP and 2000 Boot Screens (Patches Ntoskrnl.exe).
- Boot Editor - Boot Editor is a freeware tool to create your own bootscreens for Win2k/WinXP.
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XP Boot Editor Guide & 2K Boot Editor Guide - Recipes for changing the boot screen manually in Ntoskrnl.exe with a resource editor (The 2K guide has a nice tip of how to replace Ntoskrnl.exe without getting into trouble with Windows File Protection or ruining Safemode).