Windows Security and Shutdown dialogs 2K/XP (Classic Mode)      



This is a walkthrough targeted to the Win XP users who are using the classic 2K style logon. For more information on how to enable this in WIndows XP, please do a online search as it has been covered in many Win XP tweak sites. I will not cover things step by step like a WinT tutorial, as I feel the basics of resource hacking has already been covered in great detail in other tutorials on this web site.

I will focus on 2 dialogs in Msgina.dll that can make a difference in the way we use or view the OS. The first and the easier one is the "Windows Security" dialog. The harder one to mod is the "Shut Down Windows" dialog. I feel that the stock dialogs are a little cluttered with unnecessary text and decorations. You can't see the controls for the Windows banner at the the top of these dialogs, but let's dig deeper into the dialogs.

Load Reshacker: File --> MSGINA.DLL :: Targets to modify --> Dialogs #1800 & #2200

The "Windows Security" dialog, dialog #1800 is the one that pops up when we press Ctrl+Alt+Del in Win 2K and Win XP with the classic logon/logoff dialogs. It contains information like current user's name, and date and time when we log on for the current session. there are also the following buttons: 'Lock Computer', 'Log Off', 'Shut Down', 'Change Password', 'Task Manager', and 'Cancel'. Very mundane stock dialog layout and too much empty space considering there's already a big banner on the top of the dialog. Luckily for all of us, this dialog is a very straight forward hack, you can move controls around and delete some static controls. For example the "Use the task Manager to close an application ..." I think most people who hit Ctrl+Alt+Del already understand what the Task Manager is for.

Moving along to the "Shut Down Windows" dialog, dialog #2200. You would think it's just another straight forward hack. Not this time. Let's look at static controls 2202 and 2205. These controls are the descriptions for each selection in the dropdown boxes. They are shown blank but their content can be edited in string table #501. I don't want these descriptions on my dialog, so I set their heights to 0 and removed their WS_VISIBLE styles.Now let's discuss the "Shutdown Event Tracker" part of this dialog. Since i have personally never seen this section of the dialog in action before, i'm assuming it's a very rare occurance for most people as well. Now, let's go to the "Shutdown Event Tracker" BS_GROUPBOX section of this dialog. In my original write up, i simply moved the contents of this section down and out of the dialog. I have to admit that it was a mistake on my part for not thinking it through. For starters, it is obvious that the BS_GROUPBOX section does not show in the 2K/XP (Classic Mode) shutdown dialog when in normal operation. But just in case they do appear, we have to consider these hidden controls placement in the overall dialog layout. A small thing that annoyed me was, i had to move the groupbox control out of the way first to move the other controls within it (actually they're behind the BS_GROUPBOX). I was able to delete the BS_GROUPBOX control itself without compromising the normal dialog's functionality. But I would advise not to, because it creates a visual boundary for the "Shutdown Event Tracker" related controls.

I should mention something about the banner images on these dialogs. They are invisible on Reshacker, and i wasn't able to find any static or hidden controls in the dialogs that are related to these bitmaps. In the bitmaps section of the dll there are a few variations of these banners. In my file there are about 4 variations of each XP version. There are two that has a height of 72 pixels and two with a height of 88 pixels. One of the two with the same heights are drawn with 256 color pallete while the other is drawn with colors from the 16 color windows palette (used in safe mode, and possibly most 4bit & 8bit color depth Windows resolutions). The 72 pixel versions are the ones that's used for our dialogs above (Anyone know where the 88 pixels are used?). There are also the very thin bitmaps that make up the lower section of the banners. These thin horizontal strip bitmaps are neat because during boot sequence they scroll from left to right, but remain static on the two dialogs above. So, spend some time to plan the bitmap designs to work with the scrolling effect, unlike my awful examples.

I think these dialogs can dramatically change the way we view the Classic XP/2K OS in general. A little mod, but one that I feel should be noted along the many tutorials on this website. Have fun, and as always, back that file up!

by schmin