Modify Start Button Label

Windows XP comes with its default label for Start button. What is the start button label? Sure, “Start”. If you’ve been used it for years, maybe you bore with it. Just modify it. If you don’t know yet, I’ll show you how do to do it.

There are so many ways to modify the Start button label, from using hexadecimal editor to using 3rd party tweak applications. But I choose this way because I think this ways is simplest one.

  1. This trick will need an application that calls Resource Hacker. Download Resource Hacker in there. The downloaded file is in a Zip format, so unzip it first. I suggest unzipping it on a folder at root folder, giving the folder name: ResHack (you can put it in whatever you like folder).
    Unzipped Resource Hacker
  2. Open it by double click the ResHacker.exe file.
  3. Open explorer.exe file inside your Windows installation folder (usually in C:\Windows).
    Open Windows Explorer
  4. At left panel, navigate to String Table -> 37 -> 1033 key.
    Left Panel
  5. At right panel, find line 578, “start”.
    Start string
  6. Replace it with your own label but the new string doesn’t too long.
    modify with your own label
  7. Then click Compile Script button.
    Click Compile button
  8. Save it in your Windows installation folder and give it file name with your own name but don’t explorer.exe. I give it name: oo_explorer.exe.
    Give another file name
  9. Now, you have a modified explorer.exe file. The next step is pointing Shell registry value to your modified file.
  10. Open Registry Editor by click Start -> Run, enter regedit in box and then press Enter.
    open Registry Editor
  11. Navigate to \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon key and then Find Shell value.
    Registry Path
  12. Shell value has default value data: explorer.exe, just replaces it with your modified explorer.exe file (in my case I replace it with oo_explorer.exe). To modify its value data, double click Shell value then replace its value data in box and then click OK button.
    explorer.exe
  13. Close Registry Editor and restart your computer.
  14. If you did it right, your Start button label has been changed.
    Result

I tried this trick on Windows XP SP 2, if you’re using others version, you can find its key on step 4 in other path. Just explorer it one by one until you find “start” string at right panel.
(article no:0113)

One Comment

Modify your Start Button Label : The Book of T.J.  on January 31st, 2009

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