HOW TO CUSTOMIZE WINDOWS 95 VISUALS

OK, let's say you are hosting a wild party in your home. You decide to show your buddies that you are one
of those dread hacker d00dz. So you fire up your computer and what should come up on your screen but the
logo for "Windows 95." It's kind of lame looking, isn't it? Your computer looks just like everyone else's box.
Just like some boring corporate workstation operated by some guy with an IQ in the 80s.
Now if you are a serious hacker you would be booting up Linux or FreeBSD or some other kind of Unix on
your personal computer. But your friends don't know that. So you have an opportunity to social engineer
them into thinking you are fabulously elite by just by customizing your bootup screen.
Now let's say you want to boot up with a black screen with orange and yellow flames and the slogan " KRad
Doomsters of the Apocalypse." This turns out to be super easy.
Now Microsoft wants you to advertise their operating system every time you boot up. In fact, they want
this so badly that they have gone to court to try to force computer retailers to keep the Micro$oft bootup
screen on the systems these vendors sell.
So Microsoft certainly doesn't want you messing with their bootup screen, either. So M$ has tried to hide
the bootup screen software. But they didn't hide it very well. We're going to learn today how to totally
thwart their plans.
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Evil Genius tip: One of the rewarding things about hacking is to find hidden files that try to keep you from
modifying them -- and then to mess with them anyhow. That's what we're doing today.
The Win95 bootup graphics is hidden in either a file named c:\logo.sys and/or ip.sys. To see this file, open
File Manager, click "view", then click "by file type," then check the box for "show hidden/system files."
Then, back on "view," click "all file details." To the right of the file logo.sys you will see the letters "rhs."
These mean this file is "read-only, hidden, system."
The reason this innocuous graphics file is labeled as a system file -- when it really is just a graphics file with
some animation added -- is because Microsoft is afraid you'll change it to read something like "Welcome to
Windoze 95 -- Breakfast of Lusers!" So by making it a read-only file, and hiding it, and calling it a system file
as if it were something so darn important it would destroy your computer if you were to mess with it,
Microsoft is trying to trick you into leaving it alone.
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The easiest way to thwart these Windoze 95 startup and shut down screens is to go to
http://www.windows95.com/apps/ and check out their programs. But we're hackers, so we like to do things
ourselves. So here's how to do this without using a canned program.
We start by finding the MSPaint program. It's probably under the accessories folder. But just in case you're
like me and keep on moving things around, here's the fail-safe program finding routine:
1) Click "Start" on the lower left corner of your screen.
2) Click "Windows Explorer"
3) Click "Tools"
4) Click "Find"
5) Click "files or folders"
6) After "named" type in "MSPaint"
7) After "Look in" type in 'C:"
8) Check the box that says "include subfolders"
9) Click "find now"
10) Double click on the icon of a paint bucket that turns up in a window. This loads the paint program.
11) Within the paint program, click "file"
12) Click "open"
OK, now you have MSPaint. Now you have a super easy way to create your new bootup screen:
13) After "file name" type in c:\windows\logos.sys. This brings up the graphic you get when your computer
is ready to shut down saying "It's now safe to turn off your computer." This graphic has exactly the right
format to be used for your startup graphic. So you can play with it any way you want (so long as you don't
do anything on the Attributes screen under the Images menu) and use it for your startup graphic.
14) Now we play with this picture. Just experiment with the controls of MSPaint and try out fun stuff.
15) When you decide you really like your picture (fill it with frightening hacker stuph, right?), save it as
c:\logo.sys. This will overwrite the Windows startup logo file. From now on, any time you want to change
your startup logo, you will be able to both read and write the file logo.sys.
16. If you want to change the shut down screens, they are easy to find and modify using MSPaint. The
beginning shutdown screen is named c:\windows\logow.sys. As we saw above, the final "It's now safe to
turn off your computer" screen graphic is named c:\windows\logos.sys.
17. To make graphics that will be available for your wallpaper, name them something like
c:\windows \evilhaxor.bmp (substituting your filename for "exilhaxor" -- unless you like to name your
wallpaper "evilhaxor.")
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Evil Genius tip: The Microsoft Windows 95 startup screen has an animated bar at the bottom. But once you
replace it with your own graphic, that animation is gone. However, you can make your own animated startup
screen using the shareware program BMP Wizard. Some download sites for this goodie include:
http://www.pippin.com/English/ComputersSoftware/Software/Windows95/graphic.htm
http://search.windows95.com/apps/editors.html
http://www.windows95.com/apps/editors.html
Or you can download the program LogoMania, which automatically resizes any bitmap to the correct size for
your logon and logoff screens and adds several types of animation as well. You can find it at
ftp.zdnet.com/pcmag/1997/0325/logoma.zip
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Now the trouble with using one of the existing Win95 logo files is that they only allow you to use their
original colors. If you really want to go wild, open MSPaint again. First click "Image," then click "attributes."
Set width 320 and height to 400. Make sure under Units that Pels is selected. Now you are free to use any
color combination available in this program. Remember to save the file as c:\logo.sys for your startup logo,
or c:\windows\logow.sys and or c:\windows\logos.sys for your shutdown screens.
But if you want some really fabulous stuff for your starting screen, you can steal graphics from your favorite
hacker page on the Web and import them into Win95's startup and shutdown screens. Here's how you do it.
1) Wow, kewl graphics! Stop your browsing on that Web page and hit the "print screen" button.
2) Open MSPaint and set width to 320 and height to 400 with units Pels.
3) Click edit, then click paste. Bam, that image is now in your MSPaint program.
4) When you save it, make sure attributes are still 320X400 Pels. Name it c:\logo.sys, c:\windows \logow.sys,
c:\windows \logos.sys, or c:\winodws\evilhaxor.bmp depending on which screen or wallpaper you want to
display it on.
Of course you can do the same thing by opening any graphics file you choose in MSPaint or any other
graphics program, so long as you save it with the right file name in the right directory and size it 320X400
Pels.
Oh, no, stuffy Auntie Suzie is coming to visit and she wants to use my computer to read her email! I'll never
hear the end of it if she sees my K-Rad Doomsters of the Apocalypse startup screen!!!
Here's what you can do to get your boring Micro$oft startup logo back. Just change the name of c:logo.sys
to something innocuous that Aunt Suzie won't see while snooping with file manager. Something like
logo.bak. Guess what happens? Those Microsoft guys figured we'd be doing things like this and hid a copy
of their boring bootup screen in a file named "io.sys." So if you rename or delete their original logo.sys, and
there is no file by that name left, on bootup your computer displays their same old Windows 95 bootup
screen.
Now suppose your Win95 box is attached to a local area network (LAN)? It isn't as easy to change your
bootup logo, as the network may override your changes. But there is a way to thwart the network. If you
aren't afraid of your boss seeing your "K-Rad Dommsters of the Apocalypse" spashed over an x-rated
backdrop, here's how to customize your bootup graphics.
0.95 policy editor
(comes on the 95 cd) with the default admin.adm will let you change
this. Use the policy editor to open the registry, select 'local
computer' select network, select 'logon' and then selet 'logon banner'.
It'll then show you the current banner and let you change it and save it
back to the registry.
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Evil genius tip: Want to mess with io.sys or logo.sys? Here's how to get into them. And, guess what, this is
a great thing to learn in case you ever need to break into a Windows computer -- something we'll look at in
detail in the next section.
Click "Start" then "Programs" then "MS-DOS." At the MS_DOS prompt enter the commands:
ATTRIB -R -H -S C:\IO.SYS
ATTRIB -R -H -S C:\LOGO.SYS
Now they are totally at your mercy, muhahaha!
But don't be surprised is MSPaint can't open either of these files. MSPaint only opens graphics files. But
io.sys and logo.sys are set up to be used by animation applications.
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OK, that's it for now. You 31337 hackers who are feeling insulted by reading this because it was too easy,
tough cookies. I warned you. But I'll bet my box has a happier hacker logon graphic than yours does. K-Rad
Doomsters of the apocalypse, yesss!