Edit "Start" in the start button to any other text!

Yeah, using this tweak you can edit the "Start" in the Start menu to anything you like; your name, your dog's name, anything at all! ;)

Credits to Jim Foley a.k.a. TheElderGeek at http://www.theeldergeek.com/ for this kickass tweak.

I tweaked mine to look like my gaming nick, "xatax"!

Before beginning, I'd like to make it very clear that this tweak involves editing your Windows Registry and WINDOWS core files (explorer.exe). There is always a risk of causing harm to your system. I've tried this tweak and it has worked fine for me. However, it may or may not work with you. If you mess up, I will not assume any responsibilty. I'd try my best to help you out of the mess though. :)

This tweak works for Windows XP Home and Professional versions. If you are using any other OS, avoid this tweak.

You can safely try this tweak by first backing up your registry. To learn how to backup your registry, click here.

Lets begin.

First you need to install Resource Hacker. Resource HackerTM is a freeware utility to view, modify, rename, add, delete and extract resources in 32bit Windows executables and resource files (*.res). It incorporates an internal resource script compiler and decompiler and works on Win95, Win98, WinME, WinNT, Win2000 and WinXP operating systems. Click here to directly download it to your pc.

Unzip and run ResHacker.

Now go to File>Open and navigate to C:\Windows\explorer.exe (Be sure not to make a mix up with explorer.scf).

On the left pane, navigate to String Table>37>1033. Here, as you may have already guessed, we edit line 578.

Simply replace "start" with text of your choice without removing the quotation marks. "xatax" in my case.

Now click Compile Script! Next, from the File menu, DO NOT "Save". Use "Save as" and save it as explorer.exe in any folder within C:\Windows (that does not already contain an explorer.exe file) but NOT C:Windows itself. I used C:Windows\inf. You could do the same.

Now all we've got to do is edit the registry so that windows accesses the edited explorer.exe file whenever the user logs on.

Fire up Registry Editor. (Start>Run. Enter regedit in the text field.)

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

In the right pane, navigate to the "Shell" entry. Double click it to edit the string. In the Value data line, enter the directory and file name that was used to save explorer.exe . In my case, inf/explorer.exe .

Hit ok. F5 to refresh. Close the Registry Editor. Log off and log back on or simply reboot and you should see the new edited Start button! :)