Windows XP is, in my opinion, one of the best operating systems. It is extremely customizable (even if it is not intended to be), compatible with nearly everything, and is quite stable. Here I will show you just one way to customize it, to be precise ' how to change windows start button text '. It will really remind you how much of a hacker tweaker you really are.

First, to do it the easy way, you need to download a program that will really assist you in helping you find what you are looking for and making sure you do not mess up along the way. After you have downloaded it, run the .exe file, so that we may begin tweaking.

First, open the explorer.exe file located here: C:WINDOWSexplorer.exe . You should now be able to see a list of different folders on the side that are made up of numbers in the "String Table" directory. The one we are looking for is folder 37 with the other sub-directory option being 1033. Inside that file there are multiple lines of text - we want to change the "start" text. You can change it to whatever you want, but keep under 20 characters as the tab becomes too large after that. Also, make sure you do not change any of the text on the other lines.

change windows start button text

When you have changed it to whatever you want, click "File," "Save As," and save it as explorerhacked.exe. (Note: You can change it to whatever you like, but in this demonstration we are using the explorerhacked file.)

Now, go to "Start," "Run," and type in "regedit". When the Registry Editor loads expand to the following directory: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE,SOFTWARE,Microsoft,Windows NT,CurrentVersion, and WinLogon. In that directory find the entry that is titled "Shell" and right-click it. Select "Modify." Now, type in ExplorerHacked.exe.

change windows start button text

Close the Registry Editor and log back in. You should now see your start button changed to whatever you typed in!

Have fun hacking tweaking!