Ask Owen

My Vista boot-up screen is black, but I saw a coloured one on someone else’s PC. Can I have that?

I recently moved Camille over to Vista so she can be on the latest software for her laptop. Recently she saw someone else’s computer and wanted to know why hers was “uglier”. It turns out that she had the default startup screen, while the other PC had a more colourful screen:

It turns out that Vista has an alternative boot up screen that ships with it, but the default display is black. Turning it on is quite simple. Open your Start Menu and type “sysconfig” in your Search Box. When this starts up, switch to the Boot tab and you’ll see the following options:

Turn on the “No GUI Boot” options, and click OK. Next time you boot, you should see the the colourful boot up screen.

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