Remove or Disable Picture From Top of Start Menu (WXP)

[ldrucker]

I need a tweak to remove or disable the picture from the top of the XP Start Menu. I found a tweak to remove the user name but the picture stays.

This does not concern the My Pictures Folder.

Thanks in advance.

<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by ldrucker on 02/20/03 08:55.</FONT></P>

[DanK]

Probably not what you want but disabling the welcome screen removes the picture on the start menu

I'm guessing you used gpedit.msc to remove the name

DanK<font color=green> (http://www.winguides.com/forums/sendprivate.php?Cat=&User=DanK><font) /images/forums/icons/laugh.gif

[POBrien]

I read ya Dan. I couldn't remove it. I hope someone else reads this post and tries. I was trying to imbed a file (calculator) within the relevant picture so it would serve as a dual purpose. No luck so far.

Pat

[POBrien]

Ok. Here's the steps.

Open the start menu

Use a program to take a picture of a portion of the start menu itself. Roughly the size of the picture itself. (the goal is to take a snapshot so the picture will be the exact same color as the start menu).

Example: My username is admin. Save the picture as admin.bmp and save it into the C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures folder overwriting the current picture.

Logoff and back in.

*If you need a free program to take the picture send me an email. It's called snapshot.

POBrien

"Knowledge is important and Power is not. Fixing the Problem is what counts"

[Plastic]

Hrm.. are you using the "hurting your eyes" Luna theme, or classic view ? If using a theme, there's a "UserPicture: True/False" switch inside, a resource editor can edit the .msstyles file. Just tried that with luna, defaultblue, regular fontsize (different .ini's in the .msstyle), and didn't seem to work, but my custom build theme has no pictures there, also the space for it is significantly less in height, so it should be possible with luna too...

[POBrien]

I don't know. I know it works fine with an XP default theme. Hold on brb.

edited below..

Here's my desktop settings that I had when testing this out.

in the display properties..

Themes tab = XP (modified)
Desktop tab = crystal

POBrien

"Knowledge is important and Power is not. Fixing the Problem is what counts"

<P ID="edit"><FONT class="small">Edited by POBrien on 02/28/03 18:20.</FONT></P>

[POBrien]

and here's a picture...

<a target="_blank" href=http://home.pacbell.net/tallean/start.htm>http://home.pacbell.net/tallean/start.htm</a>

POBrien

"Knowledge is important and Power is not. Fixing the Problem is what counts"

[Plastic]

Sorry, POBrien, I should have posted as response to initial post. What didn't work was changing the setting inside luna.msstyles, though I have a theme running without the picture, small titlebar there. Problably needs another setting applied too...

<a target="_blank" href=http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/cur_desk/cur_plc.html>http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/cur_desk/cur_plc.html</a>

[tom_keefer]

Brian, that Core Control app. that is linked from your link appears to have solutions for a number of issues raised on the forum. Might be a good have it listed in Tweak Discoveries New.

<font color=purple>Tom</font color=purple>

the oxen are slow ...
but the earth is patient

[POBrien]

Hi Tom,

Thanks for your comments. Yes, I think it does a pretty good job too. Since I use a dialup, Simon was kind enough to keep it on his server for download. Considering this, I have decided not to push it too much here as I don't want to use Winguides as my billboard.

Thanks again,



POBrien

"Knowledge is important and Power is not. Fixing the Problem is what counts"

[POBrien]

Not a problem. That's a nice look to your menu. Nice site too.

POBrien

"Knowledge is important and Power is not. Fixing the Problem is what counts"

[ldrucker]

Thank You for your post, but I am a real novice. Can you please write how I would get rid of the user picture? Or have you already and I just missed it. :-)

Thanks for all the info.

[Plastic]

Heh, if I say A, better do B too. While I said my quick edit of luna.msstyles didn't work, something was cached or something, found it working later on. Then, trying to reproduce the process, I had some trouble with the tool I initially used, so went looking for a better editor. Worked, but process is bit more involving... anyway, two ways, using ResBuild (free) by , and <a target="_blank" href=http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/>Resource Hacker (http://www.tgtsoft.com/>TGT). Make a backup of x:\windows\resources\themes\luna\luna.msstyles first. Then try ResBuild, most easy. If it acts funny skip to Resource Hacker.

Using ResBuild, set your theme to Windows Classic at display properties first. Then open above mentioned luna.msstyles and browse to TEXTFILE, NORMALBLUE_INI. Select it and scroll down about 60%, there's a [StartPanel.UserPane] header. Directly underneath is the line "UserPicture = True". Change True to "False" (one character more, you might have to select a bit of empty space behind the word to be allowed to add a 5th character). Click Save, yes and change your theme at display properties. Like said, worked for me once.

Using Resource Hacker, set your theme to classic again, and open up luna.msstyles:

1) Scroll down to TEXTFILE, NORMALBLUE_INI, selct the underlying "1033" entry;
2) you'll find format not as easy this time, but from main toolbar, select Action, Save resource as a binary file...
3) Save it as something like "luna.txt";
4) Open in notepad, scroll down etc, set True to False as above;
5) In Reshacker, that entry still selected, choose Action, REplace other resource...
6) Click "Open file with new resource", browse to your text file;
7) New entry boxes appear, fill in:
a) at Resource Type, "TEXTFILE" (no quotes),
b) at Resource Name, "NORMALBLUE_INI" (ditto);
8) Replace button will be enabled now, click it;
9) Finally, from main toolbar, choose File, Save, and at display properties choose Windows XP theme.

Now this will work, but I'm not fully sure you will be allowed to overwrite files and/or Windows might complain that selected theme is not a certified XP theme.

If you're allowed to overwrite files, but theme is said to be not certified, check <a target="_blank" href=http://www.tgtsoft.com/>TGT Soft</a>. At download page there's a free patch for uxtheme.dll, the file responsible for theming stuff in XP. Download if in XP WITHOUT servicepack 1. If you've got SP1 installed, google for uxtheme + patch, it's all around.

If you're not even allowed to overwrite the .msstyles file (I've got protection completely shut off, so can't tell), using Resource Hacker, save somewhere else, then use a bootdisk, recovery console or something else to replace the file, but before doing that, save it as x:\windows\system32\dllcache\luna.mst too, so Windows can't restore it from there.