How to change XP boot screen orientation

[Stormrider]

I have a dual layout in MaLa, for horizontal and vertical orientation. I switch between with a button. However, my XP boot screen is the always same, no matter if my tv is set to horizontal or vertical.

My idea is to automate a process by means of which when you leave MaLa and its layout is set to vertical, the XP boot screen is changed to a vertical screen, for next boot. If next time you quit MaLa, you leave the layout in horizontal position, the boot is changed to horizontal.

The only way to know what's the orientation is to read mala.ini and check the line vertical=1 or =0. That would be the first problem. Sencond: how to automate a process for changing the boot screen depending on the aformentioned condition. I don't think Bootskin can do that, can it? Any other program that accept commands for changing XP boot screens?

[Kman-Sweden]

It can if you make a boot skin yourself. just flip the image...

[Stormrider]

You didn't undestand a thing. I need a way to automate the change of the boot screen depending on a variable, which moreover has to be read from a ini file.

[Ginsu Victim]

What if you made your own boot skin that works both vertical and horizontal? To where either way it's oriented, it still looks good.

[Kman-Sweden]

Good luck. 

[Ginsu Victim]

Good luck. 

That directed at me or him?

[Stormrider]

I have made it possible.

You will find the necessary files in my MaLa layout zip: http://www.alvarezeninternet.com/malalayout/stormrider_mala_layout.zip

If you usually rotate your TV or monitor this may be interesting to you. My frontend layout has a dual configuration, featuring horizontal and vertical display. Everything is correctly displayed in each setup, even the splash video, the loading screens, the information box, the dialogues, etc. However, the Windows XP boot screen is always horizontal. I've fixed that.

The idea is that, when you quit MaLa and Windows desktop starts, the screen orientation is automatically detected and the Windows boot screen is changed according to that. You need Bootskin installed for this to work. You must place a shortcut to the bsrotate.exe file (MaLa folder) in programs\startup, so that it loads when Windows starts. Then, you need to copy vidstubh.sys and vidstubv.sys to c:\windows\system32\drivers\. Vsrotate.exe contains an Autohotkey script which carries out the following tasks:

Reads line vertical= under the GUI section in mala.ini
If that line is vertical=1, then vidstubv.sys is copied over vidstub.sys (the Bootskin file that contains the Windows boot screen image).
If that line is not vertical=1, vidstubh.sys is copied over vidstub.sys

Therefore, the Windows boot screen will always be in the right orientation. When we have our TV set or monitor set to horizontal, our layout is also set to horizontal, and viceversa, and it's left like that when we quit MaLa. That piece of information is written to mala.ini, and this allows the script to work as expected. If you want to use your own boot screen, you only have to apply it from the Bootskin menu. Copy your C:\Windows\system32\drivers\vidstub.sys. Then, repeat the process with a rotated image. I don't think further details are necessary.

BTW, I've updated my mala layout also with a little change. I've removed the pointers.cmd file (batch file which switches visible and invisible pointers), and I've included all the actions in the pointers.exe file, which contains the AutoHotkey script that copies the pointers files and opens up the mouse dialogue. It also works with Spanish, English and French versions of Window. Anyway, the code is there if you need to edit it.