In this post, I’ll share this technique of changing the text on the start button in Windows.

To do this, we must first find where that text is saved. Pssst...I’ll disclose it to you..

The “start” text is saved in the file explorer.exe located at C:\WINDOWS\

Note: It is assumed that your primary boot partition (Drive in which Windows is installed) is [C:].

If we replace the ‘start’ text in that file, then we will be achieving our goal. But explorere.exe is a binary file and it cannot be edited directly! It requires a special editor. One such editor is Resource Hacker^TM. It is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables (*.exe) and resource files (*.res). It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Microsoft Windows 95/98/ME, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows XP operating systems.

Get this software from this link.

Step 1:- Modify explorer.exe file:

But before attempting to modify the file, as the golden rule states, we must first backup our file. Copy the file explorer.exe located at C:\Windows\explorer. Paste it in a folder somewhere on your hard drive where it will be safe. Now you’ve backed up your file, else u may need to reinstall the OS if u screw up anything in that important system file.

Extract the WinRAR contents of the downloaded software. The contents will look like this:

Double click the ResHacker.exe file and the software will be launched. The default software window:

Then open the explorer.exe. To open, click File>>Open (or Ctrl+O). Navigate to the C:\WINDOWS folder and select explorer.exe.

The category we are going to be using is "String Table". Expand it by clicking the plus sign next to it. Then navigate down to string 37 and expand it followed by highlighting 1033. The right hand pane will display the STRINGTABLE. We’re going to modify item 578, currently showing the word “start” just as it displays on the current Start button.

Finally we found the place where the word is saved!! Hooray!

Just double click on the word “start” so that it’s highlighted, making sure the quotation marks are not part of the highlight as shown below:

Note: If you are using a Windows Classic style for your theme, then you must edit the “start” text found in item595 inside string 38.

The quotation marks need to remain in place. Go ahead and type your new entry. I typed Click Me!

You’ll notice that after the new text string (Click Me!) has been entered the Compile Script button that was grayed out is now active. Clicking this button will compile the script modified by us and make it executable.

Click Compile Script and then save the altered file using the Save As command on the File Menu. DO NOT use the Save command (even if you try saving it as such, you’ll get a error as the original explorer.exe is in use!!:p) So, give a different name for the file and save it in C:\Windows directory.

I named my new file “explo.exe” and saved it. Observe that I have renamed the text>>complied the script>>then only Save As:

Step 2:- Modify the Registry:

Now we have modified the text and saved it as explo.exe (in my case). But next time when Windows starts it will search the file explorer.exe and apply the text as found in that file. All we want it to do is search for a file named explo.exe and apply the text found in it. For this we must edit the registry and tell the system to use explo.exe from next time!

KEYWORD ALERT: I just used the words EDIT THE REGISTRY. So, as a smart hacker u must backup the registry before proceeding to the step. If you don’t know what a registry editor is or how to do a backup then take a look here for complete tutorial to do so.

After backing up your registry, navigate to:

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

Starting from top, expand the plus(+) signs next to the keywords given above one by one to navigate to that location. In the right pane, double click the "Shell" entry to open the Edit String dialog box. In Value data: line, enter the name of file which you used to save the explorer.exe file. In my case, it explo.exe, so I typed explo.exe in the Value data: field.

Then, click OK.

Close Registry Editor. Log off the system and log back in(logging off is enough). If you followed all the steps correctly, you must see the new text in place of the earlier “start”.

If u didn't get the desired result make sure, you didn't leave out any step.

By now, you must have got what you have tried for!

Now, invite your friends and show 'em off your unique, super-cool text you have instead of the passé 'start'

Hope you find the post useful!

Please lemme know about the write-up and any suggestions/critiques about my post are always welcome.

Ruygene.