MSN Desktop Search: Hack, Skin, Mod, and Remove the Logo

Contributed by davak May 21, 2005  
Tagged: Windows

Customize your MSN Desktop Search! Get rid of that MSN logo or completely change the way it looks. Here are the steps.

I love this new program; however, I do not like the little MSN butterfly looking at me. By following a few steps, you can change any of the graphics in this little program… including the “Search Desktop” graphic and the butterfly logo.

I’m no graphics artist… but this quick lightning example took me 1 minute to do in adobe:

Update… I had to do one tech-recipes style as well:

Using these steps you could completely skin this program however you wish. Some of your graphics people… please post your best!

Anytime you mod a program like this, you could break it. Here it doesn’t matter… as you can just reinstall it if something doesn’t work right.

Here would be the steps for removing the logo… although using these steps you could easily customize it however you wish.

1. Download Resource Hacker from http://www.users.on.net/johnson/resourcehacker/
2. Right click on the downloaded file and select Extract All
3. Use the wizard to extract to a friendly directory. You do not need to install it.
4. Turn off the MSN Desktop Search
- Right click on the magnifying glass
- Select Exit
- Right click on a blank area of toolbar
- Select Toolbar and then unselect MSN Desktop Toolbar
- (The toolbar and magnifying glass should now be gone)
5. Double click on ResHacker.exe to start the program
6. In the Resource Hacker click the File menu -> Open
7. Navigate to this file:
C:\Program Files\MSN Toolbar Suite\DB\02.01.0000.2214\en-us\dbres.dll

(If you have a beta version or a different version, the path might be a little different. Just find the dbres.dll in the installation.)
8. In the left hand column, click Bitmap

Each of those numbers, contain the graphical bitmaps used to display the desktop search. By editing these files, we can modify the program.

9. Click on 240 and then 1033 to display the logo
10. Right click on the 1033 and select Save [Bitmap : 240 : 1033]
11. In the file box, navigate to another safe folder such as the desktop and save the old graphic as 240-1033-old.bmp

Now our old graphic is saved. Let’s mod it! I’m going to use MSpaint just because everybody has it on their system. You could use adobe or whatever. Just remember to keep the files the same type, format, size, etc.

15. Open MSPaint (If you can’t find it…
[list] - Click Start button
- Click Run
- Type mspaint into the textbox
- Click OK)

16. In MSPaint click the File menu -> Open
17. Navigate to and open 240-1033-old.bmp
18. The graphic will display. Let’s erase the logo
19. Click the Edit Menu -> Select All
20. Press the Del key and the logo will be cleared.
21. Click File -> Save As
22. Name your new file 240-1033-new.bmp and click OK

Now we just need to load the new graphic into the Desktop Search.

23. In the Resource Hacker, right click on the 1033 under 240.
24. Select Replace Resouce
25. Click Open file with new bitmap
26. Navigate to 240-1033-new.bmp and select it
27. Click Replace button
28. Now the logo under 240-1033 will be gone!
29. In Resource Hacker click File -> Save
30. Reboot
31. Right click on a blank area of the taskbar
32. Select Toolbars and MSN Desktop Search

You have removed the logo! As you can see in my example, I have already removed the green button as well.

All the graphics can be changed to whatever you wish. Just look through all the graphics listed under Bitmaps and you can mod/skin it completely.

Please post your best example!