BSOD Properties Version 1.0a (c) 1998 Nathan Lineback e-mail: lineback@toastytech.com web page: http://toastytech.com Back when I was using Windows 3.1 I came across a method of changing the color of the blue text screen that appeared when ctrl-alt-delete was pressed, or when something went horribly wrong. Having customized every other corner of Windows 3.1, I decided to set the color of this screen to match the rest of my color scheme. Eventually, I forgot about this feature and when I got a new machine and installed Windows 95, didn't bother to change it. Since then the "Blue Screen Of Death" seems to have become an increasing joke among the Windows community. Due to some problem with Windows, or possibly my computer I usually get a BSOD right out of the blue at random intervals at least once a week. (Same error, and oddly it's usually non-fatal.) I finally got tired of getting the same old screen, so I dug around in some of my old backups and found the modifications I made to Windows 3.1. Skeptical that it would work in this "new" version of Windows, I went ahead and tried it. It worked! So, as a joke, I put together this control panel like program that lets you easily select the color scheme. Simply start the program and select your own colors. The preview box will give you some idea of what the screen will actually look like. Click OK to save your selection. The new color scheme will not take effect until Windows restarts. To test the results: Under Windows 3.1, just hit ctrl-alt-del. Under Windows 95, just wait a while. :) If you are in a hurry you can bring up a full screen text message by writing a file to a floppy disk and ejecting the disk while it is in the middle of writing. This will result in an "insert disk" error message. This program is written in Visual Basic 3. (Lucky I have VB 3, this same program in VB 5 would have filled up an entire floppy disk! $*@&!($ Microsoft Bloat!!! You probably already have the required VBRUN300.DLL What this program does is simply takes your selection and places it in two lines in the [386Enh] section of your SYSTEM.INI file. The lines are: MessageTextColor=C MessageBackColor=0 In this case "C" is the hexadecimal number for bright red, and "0" is black. Here is a complete list of colors: 0 - Black 1 - Blue 2 - Green 3 - Cyan 4 - Red 5 - Magenta 6 - Yellow/brown 7 - White 8 - Gray 9 - Bright blue A - Bright green B - Bright cyan C - Bright red D - Bright magenta E - Bright yellow F - Bright white Note that bright colors display as dark colors in text backgrounds. For example, if you select "bright green" as the background color, the text in the message title will appear bright green but the main background will appear as regular green. Likewise, if you selected "bright white" for the text color, the title background will appear as regular white. This program has been tested under Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98. It should work under Windows 3.1 as well. This program seems to have no effect under Windows NT. This program may be distributed freely.