Changing the icon of the Start Menu button using Resource Hacker

Simply run Resource Hacker, open the explorer.exe (found in the Windows directory) – and you are ready to make changes.

To change the icon of the Start button do:

• Expand the category Bitmap.

• Navigate down to and expand string 143 followed by highlighting 1033.

• Click Action and then Replace bitmap

• Open file with new bitmap (the new picture must be 25×20, and have 16 million colors)

• Select a picture file

• Click Replace

You are now ready to save altered file using the Save As command (found in the File Menu). Do not overwrite the exiting file – save it as explorer.exe but in a subdirectory in windows.

E.g. create a new sub directory ex. Tweak and save it there

After wards you have to update the registry. Open up regedit and find the key:

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

Here you have to change the value for Shell, so that it fits you new explorer file.

Ex. Shell Value = ‘tweak/explorer.exe’

Close Registry Editor and either log off the system and log back in, or reboot the entire system if that’s your preference – and you are ready to go