Nice little tweak to brand your computer

Jan 7, 2007 11:03 GMT  ·  By

If you bought your computer from and important retailer you might have observed that when you select Properties for "My Computer" a logo and some information about that retailer is present.

By default, Windows do not provides any such information under the My Computer properties window unless it is edited by the retailer. So what is the OEM? OEM is the acronym for Original Equipment Manufacturer. Original equipment manufacturer is a company that builds products or components which are used in products sold by another company.

Does your Windows show such information? If not, wouldn't it be cool to add your own information and logo? Yes, I know it would. But how can it be done because Microsoft did not supply any option regarding this issue? We will do a little tweak. The information does not need to be added to the registry. It is stored in an .INI file. You just need to create such a file.

Open the Notepad to create a new file. Inside place something similar to this:

[General] Manufacturer=Softpedia Computer Model=TEST

[Support Information] Line1=Free downloads encyclopedia Line2= Line3=http://www.softpedia.com Line4= Line5=Windows, Games, Drivers, Handheld, Mac, Linux, Mobile, News Line6=

You can add any information to those lines. It's your option. Once you created this file save it in the format OEMINFO.INI and place it into the following folder: WindowsSystem32.

Next step is to create a logo. The logo must be in BMP format with 256 colors. Create/edit an image and save it OEMLOGO.BMP inside the above mentioned folder: WindowsSystem32.

Note that the logo won't work alone without the OEMINFO file. So it's mandatory to have both files placed inside the System32 folder. On the other hand, OEMINFO.INI can work without the logo, which is optional.

Before adding the OEM information.

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After the OEM information and logo has been added.
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That's all! Pretty simple, isn't it? More than that, you do not need to restart your computer either, because the information will be immediately collected by Windows and shown when you open My Computer properties.