Windows 3.1x Tips & Tricks

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Change Startup Logo    Creating control buttons and icons in Win95 style    Working with Windows 3.11 Regedit    How to open 32bit help files    Starting Windows without the GUI    Change Internet Explorer 5 properties


Change Startup Logo

First of all you should ensure that the new logo is a 4bit RLE file (use e.g. GWS or WinGif to create it) and that it doesn't have more than 16 colors. Otherwise it would become too large to be embedded into the win.com file.
There are three different possibilities to change the logo:

1. The "simple" method:
Make a backup copy of WIN.COM (from the Windows directory) and of VGALOGO.RLE (from the WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. Exit Windows.
Copy the new logo as VGALOGO.RLE to the WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. Run Windows setup (SETUP.EXE) from the DOS prompt and change your video settings - or at least do so as if you wanted to change them, i.e. choose a different resolution and return to your previous settings. Save your changes.
If any problems occur, just write back your backup copies of WIN.COM and VGALOGO.RLE.
2. The "conventional" method:
Make a backup copy of WIN.COM (from the Windows directory) and of VGALOGO.RLE (from the WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. Exit Windows.
Copy the new logo as VGALOGO.RLE to a temporary directory, together with WIN.CNF and VGALOGO.LGO from the WINDOWS resp. WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory. From the DOS prompt change to this directory and execute the following command:

COPY /B WIN.CNF+VGALOGO.LGO+VGALOGO.RLE WIN.COM

Copy the "new" WIN.COM to the WINDOWS directory and the new VGALOGO.RLE to the WINDOWS\SYSTEM directory.
If any problems occur, just write back your backup copies of WIN.COM and VGALOGO.RLE.
3. The "secure" method:
Use a program to change the logo. Winlogo (165K) is a Shareware program that will do the job. It'll inform you if your file is too large to be embedded into WIN.COM.

Here you can download three startup logos that I created (reduced in size to fit to the page). If you don't have a RLE viewer, right-click the images to download the logos:

Windows95 style

Windows2000 style

Windows XP style

Please check out calpaint.de for more logos, themes, etc.


Creating control buttons and icons in Win95 style

 

For changing the system controls it's necessary to patch your VGA driver. You may want to use a resource editor for this, e.g. the Borland Resource Workshop (825 K).
Make a backup copy of your VGA driver (VGAxxxxx.DRV) and open this copy with the resource editor. You can either change the bitmaps and icons manually or you can exchange them with the ones shown above. After saving your changes, exit Windows and overwrite the original VGA driver with the changed copy.
More bitmaps, icons and 2 cursors can be downloaded here (thanks to Stefan Schlinzig!).
There's also a tool especially for patching drivers. Here it is. The archive also contains some more W95 buttons.


Working with Windows 3.11 Regedit

"Windows 3.1 registry??", you may ask. Believe it or not, but the registry first came with Windows 3.1, not Windows 95. And the more applications you install (e.g. IE 5, Netscape 4.x, Acrobat Reader, CorelDraw! a.s.o.), the more entries will fill the originally small registry. Some newer programs will even save their options to the registry, not to an INI file, just like in Windows 9x.
When using the simple regedit program that comes with Windows 3.1, you won't see these entries and won't be able to change much.
Well, how can I make the entries visible? If you've got Windows for Workgroups 3.11, just start regedit using the /v (verbose) switch. If you're using another version of Windows and your regedit program doesn't know this switch, you can download a newer version here.
But be careful: Even if the 3.1x registry only contains classes (HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT), you may destroy a couple of things if you change it without knowing what you're doing.. Actually, it is recommended to be as careful as you would be when editing a Windows 9x registry - with the slight difference that Windows 3.1x itself won't care much about illegal entries and will start nevertheless.


How to open 32bit help files

If you install Win32s (to be found on the download page), you'll find that a file called WINHLP32.EXE is part of the distribution. This program was originally meant to open 32bit help files, but it is also able to open the old ones. Therefore, it may be useful to associate any help file with this program, no matter if 16 or 32 bit. To do this, just open your file manager and choose associate from the file dialogue, or add the following key to your registry:

.HLP\shell\open\command = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM\WINHLP32.EXE %1


Starting Windows without the GUI

By using a batch file winstart.bat - which has to reside in the Windows directory - it is possible to pause the Windows startup procedure and to work in DOS mode without GUI. If a network is installed, it's already present in this state.
The winstart.bat works in the same way as the autoexec.bat. All commands will be executed one after the other, before the graphical user interface is started. E.g. you can just enter command.com as a single command to work at the MS DOS prompt. When entering exit the Windows startup procedure will be resumed.
Thanks a lot to Marco Schlichting for this tip!


Change Internet Explorer 5 properties

Apart from the properties for the Internet Explorer that can be changed via the Internet Options dialogue, the IE 5 also uses a custom registry called REG16X2.DAT to store information, e.g. the directory, where the Outlook Express mail folder is stored.
You can edit this registry using the program REGEDT16.EXE, which can be found in the Windows\System directory.


... to be continued

Any questions? Then please drop me a line.