BSOD Properties Version 1.0a
(c) 1998 Nathan Lineback
e-mail: lineback@toastytech.com
web page: http://toastytech.com

Back when I was using Windows 3.1 I came across a method of changing the 
color of the blue text screen that appeared when ctrl-alt-delete was 
pressed, or when something went horribly wrong. Having customized every 
other corner of Windows 3.1, I decided to set the color of this screen to 
match the rest of my color scheme.

Eventually, I forgot about this feature and when I got a new machine and 
installed Windows 95, didn't bother to change it.

Since then the "Blue Screen Of Death" seems to have become an increasing 
joke among the Windows community. Due to some problem with Windows, or 
possibly my computer I usually get a BSOD right out of the blue at random 
intervals at least once a week. (Same error, and oddly it's usually 
non-fatal.) I finally got tired of getting the same old screen, so I dug 
around in some of my old backups and found the modifications I made to 
Windows 3.1.

Skeptical that it would work in this "new" version of Windows, I went 
ahead and tried it. It worked!

So, as a joke, I put together this control panel like program that lets 
you easily select the color scheme. Simply start the program and select 
your own colors. The preview box will give you some idea of what the 
screen will actually look like. Click OK to save your selection. The new 
color scheme will not take effect until Windows restarts.

To test the results:
Under Windows 3.1, just hit ctrl-alt-del.
Under Windows 95, just wait a while. :) If you are in a hurry you can 
bring up a full screen text message by writing a file to a floppy disk 
and ejecting the disk while it is in the middle of writing. This will 
result in an "insert disk" error message.

This program is written in Visual Basic 3. (Lucky I have VB 3, this same 
program in VB 5 would have filled up an entire floppy disk! $*@&!($ 
Microsoft Bloat!!! You probably already have the required VBRUN300.DLL

What this program does is simply takes your selection and places it in 
two lines in the [386Enh] section of your SYSTEM.INI file. The lines are:

MessageTextColor=C
MessageBackColor=0

In this case "C" is the hexadecimal number for bright red, and "0" is 
black.

Here is a complete list of colors:

0 - Black
1 - Blue
2 - Green
3 - Cyan
4 - Red
5 - Magenta
6 - Yellow/brown
7 - White
8 - Gray
9 - Bright blue
A - Bright green
B - Bright cyan
C - Bright red
D - Bright magenta
E - Bright yellow
F - Bright white

Note that bright colors display as dark colors in text backgrounds. For 
example, if you select "bright green" as the background color, the text 
in the message title will appear bright green but the main background 
will appear as regular green. Likewise, if you selected "bright white" 
for the text color, the title background will appear as regular white.

This program has been tested under Windows 95 OSR2 and Windows 98. It
should work under Windows 3.1 as well. This program seems to have no 
effect under Windows NT.

This program may be distributed freely.