BROWSEUI screws up the system

[rascalgarfield]

Yesterday I proceeded to make an customized & modernized Windows 2000 installation. Since i'm hungarian, I used the Hungarian version of Windows 2000 Pro SP4. I extracted the contents of the ISO into a folder using MagicISO, copied the files I wanted to edit in a seperate folder, extracted them using Universal Extractor, edited them with Resource Hacker, then used Camtech's MakeCab 4-Win (MakeCab with graphical interface) to package the files. I copied them into i386, used nLite to integrate Windows Media Player 7 and to make a bootable ISO. I then went into Virtual PC 2007 (I also have VMWare, I use that more, but I used Virtual PC because... I wanted to) and installed the OS. The graphics were changed as I changed it, the WMP7 installer appeared halfway the installation. I installed WMP7, and when the install was done, and the login screen appeared (with my graphics), I logged into the OS, but the desktop and the taskbar didn't appear. I was weirded out by this, and I opened Task Manager, and tried to open Explorer.exe, but when I did, Explorer.exe still didn't appear. I tried a lots of things, like using ModifyPE (for safety's sake   ), not installing WMP7, repacking the ISO with n-Lite multiple times. I installed a vanilla Windows 2000 inside Virtual PC, put my customized files in a seperate folder, with Replacer, and replaced all the files in Safe Mode with my customized ones, and I basically got the same result. I reinstalled the OS, and tried to replace the files seperately, starting with browseui.dll, and when I did, and rebooted, explorer.exe didn't appear. I realized what was the problem, browseui.dll. After using the Recovery Console, I replaced user32.dll, and I got the XP error icons and start buttons from my customization (which worked in the customization), then shell32.dll, and I got my XP icons (with the Whistler recycle bin and favorites icons), and my new about logo. Out of curiosity I replaced the BROWSEUI.DL_ from the customized ISO with the one from a vanilla Windows 2000, and after installation, the OS worked. But I really want my browseui.dll inside the OS, which has some of the icons replaced with Windows 7 ones, with the back/forward/up icons from IE9/IE10/IE11 and the throbber from XP, only with a black background (inverted and then adjusted the hue in Photoshop). Is there a way to fix the customized browseui.dll? It's still not done, the control panel icons, the Please Wait dialog from setup, and the autorun need to be modified.

Edited May 3, 2015 by rascalgarfield

[jaclaz]

In a nutshell, you are in this situation (but on Win2K):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/914222

 

because your modified browseui.dll is not accepted, which should mean that *something* is wrong in your modified file.

 

Maybe you could adopt an approach similar to this:

http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/mod_xmpl.html

and try the edited browseui.dll after each change you make (or a few of them) until you find which one makes it invalid.

 

jaclaz 

[rascalgarfield]

In a nutshell, you are in this situation (but on Win2K):

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/914222

 

because your modified browseui.dll is not accepted, which should mean that *something* is wrong in your modified file.

 

Maybe you could adopt an approach similar to this:

http://www.virtualplastic.net/html/mod_xmpl.html

and try the edited browseui.dll after each change you make (or a few of them) until you find which one makes it invalid.

 

jaclaz 

Well, I didn't use icons, I used pictures from IE9 and Classic Shell. I'm now trying it how instead extracting the file from the ISO, I take it out from my installation, and edit it, then package it and put it into the customized ISO. Now i'm editing the .cpl files, so they would have XP icons and graphics. If it works, i'm going to show some screenshots from the OS.

[rascalgarfield]

Yay, I got it working! You have to set big icons to make them work (somehow when I wanted to replace small icons Resource Hacker gave me an error), there are some pink pixels behind the icons, and the throbber's left and right side is black when it doesn't animate (I used the default XP throbber instead of modified one, probably I will make a new one from scratch). I need to edit WMP's wmploc.dll, I have replaced the old Windows flag with an XP one in WMP, but I will try to make a WMP 10/WMP 11-esque interface in the final version, and replace the icons of the applications like Paint. The power applet in Control Panel gives me an error, but other applets work and have the new icon.

Edited May 4, 2015 by rascalgarfield