Posted by3 years ago
Archived
How to change Win10 boot loading animation to custom?
I know it is still technically early in the life span, but anyone know if there has been any updates on being able to customize the boot loading screen (Blue Windows logo with animated dots at the bottom, during start up)? Really wanting to change up the branding for an arcade/HTPC machine to something more personal... More custom.
In my research attempts, there was plenty of information on doing it for Windows 7, but Windows 10 still seems to be a mystery for most. Some even believe it is not possible due to the new OS having it 'baked in' essentially.
Any info on this would be greatly appreciated.
Also, I would like to change the shell, for booting straight in to something like Kodi or EmulationStation, etc. I know things can be done in Classic Shell, but I know it is still working out the compatibility bugs with Win10 through updates. Also, all the info I have found has been more about changing Win10 back in to something visually similar to Win7, not about custom shells and boot-to options. So information in this area would be great too.
But mainly looking for how to customize boot loading animation, currently.
Thanks for your time.
76% Upvoted
HackBGRT is intended as a boot logo changer for UEFI-based Windows systems.
Summary
When booting on a UEFI-based computer, Windows may show a vendor-defined logo which is stored on the UEFI firmware in a section called Boot Graphics Resource Table (BGRT). It's usually very difficult to change the image permanently, but a custom UEFI application may be used to overwrite it during the boot. HackBGRT does exactly that.
Usage
Important: If you mess up the installation, your system may become unbootable! Create a rescue disk before use. This software comes with no warranty. Use at your own risk.
- Make sure that your computer is booting with UEFI.
- Make sure that Secure Boot is disabled, unless you know how to sign EFI applications.
Windows installation
- Get the latest release from the Releases page.
- Start
setup.exe and follow the instructions.- You may need to manually disable Secure Boot and then retry.
- The installer will launch Notepad for modifying the configuration.
- If you need only one custom image, the defaults are fine.
- Otherwise, check out the examples in the configuration file.
- The installer will launch Paint for creating the image(s).
- You can create multiple images by using Save As.
- Be sure to always use the 24-bit BMP/DIB format.
- If Windows later restores the original boot loader, just reinstall.
- If you wish to change the image or other configuration, just reinstall.
Multi-boot configurations
If you only need HackBGRT for Windows:
- Extract the latest release to
[EFI System Partition]EFIHackBGRT. - Set
boot=EFIMicrosoftBootbootmgfw.efi in config.txt. - Point your boot loader to
EFIHackBGRTbootx64.efi.
If you need it for other systems as well:
- Extract the latest release to
[EFI System Partition]EFIHackBGRT. - Set
boot=EFIyour-actual-boot-loader.efi in config.txt. - Set
EFIHackBGRTbootx64.efi as your default boot loader with efibootmgr or some other EFI boot manager tool.
On 32-bit machines, use bootia32.efi instead of bootx64.efi.
Configuration
The configuration options are described in config.txt, which should be stored in [EFI System Partition]EFIHackBGRTconfig.txt.
Images
The image path can be changed in the configuration file. The default path is [EFI System Partition]EFIHackBGRTsplash.bmp.
The image must be a 24-bit BMP file with a 54-byte header. That's a TrueColor BMP3 in Imagemagick, or 24-bit BMP/DIB in Microsoft Paint.
Multiple images may be specified, in which case one is picked at random.
Recovery
If something breaks and you can't boot to Windows, you have the following options:
- Windows installation (or recovery) media can fix boot issues.
- You can copy
[EFI System Partition]EFIHackBGRTbootmgfw-original.efi into [EFI System Partition]EFIMicrosoftBootbootmgfw.efi by some other means such as Linux or Windows command prompt.
Building
- Compiler: GCC targeting w64-mingw32
- Compiler flags: see Makefile
- Libraries: gnu-efi