You wanna brand your PC?

Hi Guys and gals.

If you have purchased a machine from one of the big manufacturers, you will have seen that they have customised the "System Properties" window with their own logo.

In addition, there will usually be a button next to it, which gives you additional support information.

These two items are known as OEM information, and can be easily replaced with your own. This is useful if you build your own computers, or in a larger office allowing you to place the company branding on the machines along with details on how to contact your internal support department.

All you have to do is create the files which are very specific and place them in the location.

Support Information Text

Open a new notepad document and copy the text below in to it.

[general]

Manufacturer=Your First line here

Model=Your second line here

[Support Information]

Line1=" Your first line here"

Line2=" A second..."

Line3=" and a third..."

Replace the text with your chosen information.

For example, to get the text shown in the screenshot on the right.. we used the following text:

[general]

Manufacturer=Dani’s IT Solutions Ltd.

Model=Exchange Server

[Support Information]

Line1=" Maintained by Dani’s IT Solutions Ltd."

Line2=" http://www.just4danish.blogspot.com/"

Line3=" "

Important

When creating your own text, it is important that you follow the pattern shown.

There must be no breaks between the lines and no spaces between the "=" and start of the text.

You can increase the number of lines by simply adding more and increasing the number.

Saving the File

Once you have finished creating the file, you need to

save it. The file name you MUST use is "oeminfo.ini".

In order to be able to save the file without the ".txt" extension, choose in the "Save as file type" selection,

change it from ".txt" to "All Files".

You can then enter your own extension.

Support Information Logo

The logo also needs to be created in a specific way.

The image can be no larger than 182 pixels x 114 pixels. It can be smaller, but anything larger will be cropped. The file also needs to be in ".bmp" format. You will probably want to create a special image for this application so that you can make the best use of the space.

As it is a bitmap, you cannot make use of transparency options, so we suggest that you put your logo in a contrasting colour as in our example screenshot. This will ensure that no matter what colour scheme is in use, the image looks as you want.

However with Windows XP (and Windows 2003 Server), if you use an image that is smaller than the optimum size, then Windows will just centre it in the available space.

With any version of Windows older than XP (2000, ME, 98, 95) Windows will stretch it to fill the available space. This can look odd. Therefore you might want to consider having two images and deploy different ones depending on the OS. If this isn't possible, using a fixed sized image is best as it will allow you to control exactly how the image looks.

Saving the File

Once you have created the image, you need to save it with a special file name: "oemlogo.bmp". No other name can be used.

Positioning the Files

Once you have created the files, they need to be positioned correctly. Both files need to be located in the same place. As an alternative, you could use one of the batch files below.

Windows 95, 98, ME ------------ C:\windows\system\

Windows 2000 ------------ C:\winnt\system32\

Windows XP, 2003 Server ----------- C:\windows\system32\

Once the files are in place, you will be able to see the changes immediately. Right click on "My Computer" and choose "Properties". If you make further changes to the files then these will also be seen immediately.

Troubleshooting

If you do not see anything, check the names of the files - as they must be as shown.

Once you have checked the file names, ensure the files are formatted correctly.