How to Customize Windows 8 Boot Screen

Windows 8 has impressed one and all with its many new features. Among the most acclaimed ones is its graphical interface laced boot loader, which is the screen that you see immediately after starting up the computer. Although this new screen looks nice, it does have some pitfalls. For starters, people who use dual- or multi-boot setups on their PCs will find this new boot screen rather cumbersome. The same also holds true if you want to access some of the advanced boot options.

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That said, you can still have your old boot screen from Windows 7 or use an entirely new one. This is made possible by the Boot UI Tuner software that allows you to fiddle with the boot options of your Windows 8 machine.

Boot UI Tuner

boot UI

Boot UI Tuner is a free program, i.e. you do not have to pay anything to use it. The program can be simply procured from its developer’s website. One of the better things about Boot UI Tuner is that it is completely portable. This means you do not have to install the program on your hard drive. It is also quite small in size and is available in both 32- and 64-bit versions.

Getting It to Work

After downloading you need to run the program. When you do this there is a very good chance of it being not allowed to run by the inbuilt SmartScreen utility of Windows 8. The said utility tags Boot UI Tuner as an unknown program and stops it from loading further. To successfully run the program, you need to click on the ‘More Info’ tab on the prompt that pops up and then again click on the ‘Run Anyway’ tab to proceed further. Once you get past that minor irritant, it is smooth sailing all the way. The only thing you will need to do from here is decide which of the presented options you want and which you don’t.

For instance, these are the six options that you will be presented with after launching Boot UI Tuner. These are listed below in the exact order of their appearance in the program.

  1. Enable advanced options of boot menu
  2. Enable editing of boot options at startup
  3. Enable Windows logo
  4. Enable messages
  5. Enable loading circle
  6. Enable legacy boot menu

If you aim to speed up the performance of your computer, then turning off or deselecting options 3, 4 and 5 makes a lot of sense. Doing so will also significantly reduce screen clutter. Options 1 and 2 are pretty much self-explanatory and should be enabled by those wanting access to the said options on their boot screens. The last option will enable the boot loader as seen in Windows 7.

Customization is just like a bonus feature found in this version of windows and it truly gives a different sense to use this OS with its all time friendly interface. Well, it is an all time best or there is more to come, time is the best judge.

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