Enable Hidden BootScreen in Windows Vista
The Windows Vista BootScreen is pointless, but Microsoft decided to hide a more visually appealing boot screen that can easily be enabled with very little trouble. I'm not sure why they didn't make the boot screen better.
If you really want a better boot screen, you can check out my article on creating a custom boot logo.
Here's the default boot screen:
And here's the hidden one, called "Aurora"
All you have to do is type msconfig into the start menu search box, and hit enter.
Click the Boot tab, and then check the "No GUI boot" checkbox.
Hit OK and reboot the computer. You should see the new boot screen immediately.
Note: You may get a Windows Defender error on the next startup. You can enable the system config utility using the tray icon and this error will go away.
test comment here
Thanks for the tip, worked flawlessly!
That was a sweet and smart Tip. Tested and worked fine and I never got any issues with Windows Defender as you stated in the article.
Again thanks for the short and sweet tip
Cheers,
Dreamchaser
Cool. Now all you have to do is find where that image is located, back it up and then go about changing it. Except they probably made it complicated, like changing the image in XP.
Looks very nice
They hid it to speed up boot.
The new boot screen is extremely similar to the default for when resuming windows and instead of displaying "Starting Windows Vista" it displays "Resuming Windows".
So it isn't all totally new, but yes does make a nice change from the current starting screen.
OMG the hidden one is a million times better
I was a bit disappointed - I prefer the original screen!
Meh. I prefer the minimal, quasi-retro original version. If I could get it to move back-an-fro whilst playing a midi file of the Knight-Rider theme…
But thanks for the tip, nonetheless.
Really nice, aurora borealis type look
Sio what are the other boot options for? The base video? Guess I will try it and see.
I was hoping this would have had some movement to it, like a rea aura borealis.
yea..i dont like it..iwas hoping the windows orb will have a spinning light and has transitions like the logon screen.
I also liked the original boot screen but how to change the not so pretty shut down screen?
the screen is neat but i wish there was a progress bar on it why would theymake another boot screen if they were going to hide it on us?
The reason they hid it because, on average, it makes Vista boot up 6 seconds faster than normal.
Oh, and it doesn't work for me. With /noguiboot on, I get nothing but a blank screen until the welcome screen appears.
When I enable the hidden "AURORA" boot screen it takes a minute to boot… maby thats why they hid it.
I have a god pc experience index is 3.8 (GF 7300GT) andy AMD 64 3000+
your computer must be pretty crappy then my lappy with an experience of 2.0 a turion 64 2.2ghz takes the same amount of time with this hidden boot screen if not a few seconds faster!
hi,
this is cool i loved you each and every article it's really nice. i like to heard from you some more thing about vista x64. keep righting dude.
regards,
ghanshyam
Any idea how to change the Resuming windows screen? id like to customize that too
I'm not sure… Is it moving/changing, or still?
this is good
I tried this tweak. It changed the bootscreen, but now Windows will not boot. How can I correct this when I can't get in Windows at all?
Try to boot up with vista install disk, there will be a repair option… somewhere…
I read somewhere that the reason the boot screen is so plain is that Microsoft asked its vendors to stop adding so much stuff to the boot screens for their own products, and decided to lead by example. I can't remember where I saw that, though, so it could be nonsense.
How do i get back to the original bootup screen??? my pc boots up much slower now that i have switched to the hidden one
i did your tweak but all i got was black screen and i waited and it loaded like normal no aurora any suggestions?
Personally, I prefer the "OS Boot Information" setting instead. This gives you an NT4 style boot that shows all kernel drivers as they load, the kernel version, the number of CPUs and amount of ram detected, then shows the results of the drive check options. After this, the GUI appears normally.
To do this same tweak to an XP machine, open your boot.ini file, and add /SOS to the end of the boot line.
Also, if you don't have it already, search Google for "TweakVI", and install it. It'll let you tweak every aspect of Vista, and allow you to take much of the control back.
I just did it now windows will not load just a black screen When i try to do a vista repair there does not show any op system installed anyone else had this problem and got it repaire?
All your tips are great, very "actionable" and directive. At the end of the tip on enabling the hidden bootscreen in Windows Vista, is the comment: "You may get a Windows Defender error on the next startup. You can enable the system config utility using the tray icon and this error will go away." Can you give me some actionable information. I'm not sure what to do.
Thanks!
Marc / Tristin
what puzzles me is if they hid it to speed up the startup why put it on at all just to hide it??
Liked the screen, but it made my Toshiba DVD player not be able to find the video output. Undo the check and it works again.
Oh Well,
AJ
Wait, if you anble it, does it speed up the boot, or does it slow down the boot?