What happens if I make Win2000 boot.ini not hidden and not system file?

[Muse]

I wrote some code to switch my boot.ini so I can have different start options. I run the switch while in Windows. In order to do this I removed the Read-only attribute, but the program I'm using to automate the copy-over of boot.ini with another file is balking, I presume because of the system attiribute and possibly the hidden one as well. What will happen if I remove the hidden and system attributes? Will Win2000 still boot OK?

 

[CQuinn]

It should work fine (IIRC I've done that before myself).

As a safety precaution though, you can format a floppy disk (from within W2K) and copy the files:

boot.ini
ntdetect.com
ntldr

to the floppy, that should bring you to the same boot menu by booting off the floppy that you
would normally get from the hard drive.

 

[mikecel79]

Should not be a problem at all. I've done this before to edit the file and never changed the attributes back. Win2k still booted up fine.

 

[KF]

For one reason or another, my boot.ini has the restriction attributes removed. They are just a nuisance. It doesn't hurt anything to remove them, not that I've noticed over the years they have been that way. NT/XP does change them back sometimes.

What kind of start options are you contemplating changing, and why? Sounds interesting.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: KF
For one reason or another, my boot.ini has the restriction attributes removed. They are just a nuisance. It doesn't hurt anything to remove them, not that I've noticed over the years they have been that way. NT/XP does change them back sometimes.

What kind of start options are you contemplating changing, and why? Sounds interesting.

This site (Littlewhitedog.com) describes the process of changing the Win2000 boot logo and has links to 500 or so mostly pretty fantastic alternatives, most of them custom designed as Win2000 boot logos. I got around to creating an alternate boot logo yesterday but I also downloaded around 40 others. I got the idea today to automate the process of alternating these and decided to do it for an exercise. It necessitated making 40 different versions of NTOSKRNL.EXE, all with different names and different BMPs embedded. I also have 40 different versions of boot.ini, with different names (e.g. boot14.ini). My program could have edited boot.ini each time it runs but it was easier for me to create stock ones. I have the names of the files and descriptions in a data table and a program I will run automatically that will give me the option of changing the boot logo to any I want, keep the same one or just automatically cycle to the next one on next boot, if I prefer to have it so configured. Should work once I remove a couple more attributes on the boot.ini file. I got around to this because my new LCD monitor's just too bright with the stock Win2000 boot logo! I have a brightness controlling program that dims it once Windows kicks in, but until then, it's just too bright. All the logos I downloaded don't have that white background.

 

[KF]

I am always impressed by the talent and diligence of people like yourself, that can carry through projects like this.

Years ago, in the DOS era, I wanted to customize the background and foreground colors of text in the editor I used for programming. I knew video cards at that time commonly could select from a full range 64K colors for each, although there was no system for doing it; you could select from at most 16 forground and background colors, most of which were very unpleasant for reading. I found that situation amazing and irritating. IAC, I researched how to change the default 16 colors on the video card so I could use something I preferred, and wrote a litttle program, a few hundred instructions in assembly language, to do it.

Obviously, uncovering the hidden workings of Windows is much more difficult, but with the help of others you have managed to achieve what you wanted. It's that kind of availability of info on the Internet that makes the Internet so great, and enables inventive people to create things more easily than ever before.

Maybe it is off topic, but I know very little about LCDs. If it is too bright both in Windows and on the boot screen, why can't you turn the brightness down on the LCD monitor?

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: KF
I am always impressed by the talent and diligence of people like yourself, that can carry through projects like this.

Years ago, in the DOS era, I wanted to customize the background and foreground colors of text in the editor I used for programming. I knew video cards at that time commonly could select from a full range 64K colors for each, although there was no system for doing it; you could select from at most 16 forground and background colors, most of which were very unpleasant for reading. I found that situation amazing and irritating. IAC, I researched how to change the default 16 colors on the video card so I could use something I preferred, and wrote a litttle program, a few hundred instructions in assembly language, to do it.

Obviously, uncovering the hidden workings of Windows is much more difficult, but with the help of others you have managed to achieve what you wanted. It's that kind of availability of info on the Internet that makes the Internet so great, and enables inventive people to create things more easily than ever before.

Maybe it is off topic, but I know very little about LCDs. If it is too bright both in Windows and on the boot screen, why can't you turn the brightness down on the LCD monitor?

Well, I certainly can turn down the brightness on the LCD monitor but it's more convenient to leave it higher than I like in Windows and use NEC/Mitsubishi Brightness Controller to control the brightness. It's a free download and I discovered that it works not just for my NEC monitor but my LCD as well, and probably for any monitor. I highly recommend it. It allows you to control your monitor's brightness with a slider off a taskbar icon. Just as useful is the fact that it only controls general Windows applications' brightness (plus the desktop, etc.) but it leaves your video applications (DVD movies, TV card) at maximum brightness - much to be preferred.

My ability to change my logos wasn't done with assembly language or anything very complicated. I do database programming and my language of choice is Foxpro and Visual Foxpro, which is a very powerful 4th generation programming language which I can use to overwrite files, all that's necessary to switch boot.ini with a different one. Foxpro also has GUI generation, table management galore. Powerful tool.

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: KF
I am always impressed by the talent and diligence of people like yourself, that can carry through projects like this.

Years ago, in the DOS era, I wanted to customize the background and foreground colors of text in the editor I used for programming. I knew video cards at that time commonly could select from a full range 64K colors for each, although there was no system for doing it; you could select from at most 16 forground and background colors, most of which were very unpleasant for reading. I found that situation amazing and irritating. IAC, I researched how to change the default 16 colors on the video card so I could use something I preferred, and wrote a litttle program, a few hundred instructions in assembly language, to do it.

Obviously, uncovering the hidden workings of Windows is much more difficult, but with the help of others you have managed to achieve what you wanted. It's that kind of availability of info on the Internet that makes the Internet so great, and enables inventive people to create things more easily than ever before.

Maybe it is off topic, but I know very little about LCDs. If it is too bright both in Windows and on the boot screen, why can't you turn the brightness down on the LCD monitor?

Well, I certainly can turn down the brightness on the LCD monitor but it's more convenient to leave it higher than I like in Windows and use NEC/Mitsubishi Brightness Controller to control the brightness. It's a free download and I discovered that it works not just for my NEC monitor but my LCD as well, and probably for any monitor. I highly recommend it. It allows you to control your monitor's brightness with a slider off a taskbar icon. Just as useful is the fact that it only controls general Windows applications' brightness (plus the desktop, etc.) but it leaves your video applications (DVD movies, TV card) at maximum brightness - much to be preferred.

My ability to change my logos wasn't done with assembly language or anything very complicated. I do database programming and my language of choice is Foxpro and Visual Foxpro, which is a very powerful 4th generation programming language which I can use to overwrite files, all that's necessary to switch boot.ini with a different one. Foxpro also has GUI generation, table and data management/manipulation galore. Powerful tool.

 

[NogginBoink]

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: KF
For one reason or another, my boot.ini has the restriction attributes removed. They are just a nuisance. It doesn't hurt anything to remove them, not that I've noticed over the years they have been that way. NT/XP does change them back sometimes.

What kind of start options are you contemplating changing, and why? Sounds interesting.

This site (Littlewhitedog.com) describes the process of changing the Win2000 boot logo and has links to 500 or so mostly pretty fantastic alternatives, most of them custom designed as Win2000 boot logos. I got around to creating an alternate boot logo yesterday but I also downloaded around 40 others. I got the idea today to automate the process of alternating these and decided to do it for an exercise. It necessitated making 40 different versions of NTOSKRNL.EXE, all with different names and different BMPs embedded. I also have 40 different versions of boot.ini, with different names (e.g. boot14.ini). My program could have edited boot.ini each time it runs but it was easier for me to create stock ones. I have the names of the files and descriptions in a data table and a program I will run automatically that will give me the option of changing the boot logo to any I want, keep the same one or just automatically cycle to the next one on next boot, if I prefer to have it so configured. Should work once I remove a couple more attributes on the boot.ini file. I got around to this because my new LCD monitor's just too bright with the stock Win2000 boot logo! I have a brightness controlling program that dims it once Windows kicks in, but until then, it's just too bright. All the logos I downloaded don't have that white background.

DO NOT DO THIS!

Doing this requires that you hack the kernel on your machine. This breaks the digital signature on the file.

Then, when Microsoft releases a security patch or a service pack or whatever that updates the kernel, the installer will examine the kernel on your machine and not recognize what version you have, and won't update it.

You'll end up with mismatched files on your machine.

If you're lucky, your machine will blue screen. If you're unlucky, you'll see subtle strange behaviors and possibly data corruption.

THIS IS VERY VERY VERY BAD! DO NOT DO THIS!

 

[Muse]

Originally posted by: NogginBoink

Originally posted by: Muse

Originally posted by: KF
For one reason or another, my boot.ini has the restriction attributes removed. They are just a nuisance. It doesn't hurt anything to remove them, not that I've noticed over the years they have been that way. NT/XP does change them back sometimes.

What kind of start options are you contemplating changing, and why? Sounds interesting.

This site (Littlewhitedog.com) describes the process of changing the Win2000 boot logo and has links to 500 or so mostly pretty fantastic alternatives, most of them custom designed as Win2000 boot logos. I got around to creating an alternate boot logo yesterday but I also downloaded around 40 others. I got the idea today to automate the process of alternating these and decided to do it for an exercise. It necessitated making 40 different versions of NTOSKRNL.EXE, all with different names and different BMPs embedded. I also have 40 different versions of boot.ini, with different names (e.g. boot14.ini). My program could have edited boot.ini each time it runs but it was easier for me to create stock ones. I have the names of the files and descriptions in a data table and a program I will run automatically that will give me the option of changing the boot logo to any I want, keep the same one or just automatically cycle to the next one on next boot, if I prefer to have it so configured. Should work once I remove a couple more attributes on the boot.ini file. I got around to this because my new LCD monitor's just too bright with the stock Win2000 boot logo! I have a brightness controlling program that dims it once Windows kicks in, but until then, it's just too bright. All the logos I downloaded don't have that white background.

DO NOT DO THIS!

Doing this requires that you hack the kernel on your machine. This breaks the digital signature on the file.

Then, when Microsoft releases a security patch or a service pack or whatever that updates the kernel, the installer will examine the kernel on your machine and not recognize what version you have, and won't update it.

You'll end up with mismatched files on your machine.

If you're lucky, your machine will blue screen. If you're unlucky, you'll see subtle strange behaviors and possibly data corruption.

THIS IS VERY VERY VERY BAD! DO NOT DO THIS!

NogginBoink, this method does not require or ask you to alter NTOSKRNL.EXE in any way. What it does is have you make a copy of it, give it a different name and then alter boot.ini to have Windows 2000 use your altered version of NTOSKRNL.EXE. Therefore, Windows Updates would (should) be oblivious to what you are doing. What is true is that the version(s) of NTOSKRNL.EXE that you ARE running will not be updated by Windows Update, etc. If that happens, then you would have to create new versions of this kernel file if you are to run the updated version. I find it hard to believe that it's ask risky as you make out. A whole lot of artists did a ton of work creating these alternate boot logos and if people were getting messed up I think this would have been scuttled.

Semi-digitally signed, Muse... a VERY VERY VERY BAD boy! (I did it)