Teche Mania: July 2011

I've read a number of articles on the internet about changing the
text on the Start button in XP. On more than one occasion I’ve
seen references to a five (5) letter limitation when the button is
renamed. I always wondered if this was true or just an assumption
someone made because the default ‘start’ just happened to fit the
button size.So, I decided to run a test and see if there really was
a five character limit.

As you can see from the screen capture above it would seem that

the five character limit isn’t etched in stone. The button expanded

to accept the text I entered with no problem. I’ve been using the

system for a few weeks now with no adverse effects.That’s not to

say I won’t discover something down the road a bit, but for now

I feel comfortable with the changes. If you’d like to try the

procedure I used, the instructions follow.

Step 1 – Modify Explorer.exe File

In order to make the changes, the file explorer.exe located at C:\Windows

needs to be edited.Since explorer.exe is a binary file it requires a special

editor. For purposes of this article I have used Resource Hacker.

Resource Hacker^TM is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add,

delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource

files (*.res). It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and

decompiler and works on Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2000

and WinXP operating systems. Navigate here to download Resource Hacker.

The first step is to make a backup copy of the file explorer.exe located

at C:\Windows.Place it in a folder somewhere on your hard drive where

it will be safe. Start Resource Hacker and open explorer.exe located at

C:\Windows\explorer.exe as shown in Fig. 01.

Fig. 01

The category we are going to be using is String Table. Expand it
by clicking the plus sign then navigate down to and expand string
37 followed by highlighting 1033. If you are using the Classic
Layout rather than the XP Layout, use number 38. The right
hand pane will display the stringtable as shown in Fig. 02.
We’re going to modify item 578, currently showing the word
“start” just as it displays on the current Start button.

Fig. 02

There is no magic here. Just double click on the word “start”
so that it’s highlighted, making sure the quotation marks are
not part of the highlight. They need to remain in place,
surrounding the new text that you’ll type. Go ahead and
type your new entry. In my case I used ElderGeek as
shown in Fig. 03.

Fig. 03

Compare the screen captures in Fig. 02 and Fig. 03 and

you’ll notice that after the new text string has been

entered the Compile Script button that was grayed out

in Fig. 02 is now active in Fig. 03. I won’t get into what’s

involved in compiling a script, but suffice it to say it’s

going to make this exercise worthwhile. Click Compile

Script and then save the altered file using the Save As

command on the File Menu. See Fig. 04

Do not use the [Save] command – Use the [Save As] command.

Name the file explorer.exe

Save the explorer.exe file to C:\Windows\inf directory.

Note: There are two things that are very important at this stage
of the process. First, it's important that the modified file must
be named explorer.exe as this is what allows the start button
context menu search functions to operate properly.

Second, it's important that the explorer.exe be saved somewhere
in C:\Windows 'other than in C:\Windows itself.

Fig. 04

Step 2 - Modify the Registry

Now that the modified explorer.exe has been created it's
necessary to modify the registry so that the file will be
recognized when the user logs on to the system. If you
don't know how to access the registry I'm sure this
article is for you, but just in case it's a temporary memory
lapse, go to [Start] (soon to be something else) [Run] and
type 'regedit' in the Open:field. Click [OK] to open the
registry and navigate.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE\ Microsoft\ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ Winlogon

Fig. 05

In the right pane (Fig. 05), double click the Shell entry to open
the Edit String dialog box as shown in Fig. 06. In Value data:
line, enter the directory name and file name that was used

to save the modified explorer.exe file, separating the directory
and filename with a forward slash. Click OK.

Fig. 06

You can refresh the registry after you have made the entry
to make sure it is correct. Close Registry Editor and either
logoff the system and log back in, or reboot the entire
system if that's your preference. if all went as planned
you should see your new start button with the revised text.