Yep, if you are customizing your desktop, you probably also want to know how to change the Start button in Windows 7.
Well, it’s definitely not easy, but with a good Windows 7 Resource editor you can edit the explorer.exe and change your Start button!

How to change Start Button in Windows 7

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Because we’re going to change a system file, we’re first going to play around with a dummy file. Go to your Windows folder and copy the file “explorer.exe” and rename the copy “explorer2.exe”.

1. Step Download the Windows 7 Resource Editor.

2. Step Start the .exe file “ResHacker.exe

3. Step Press CTRL + O (or File -> Open) to open the explorer.exe. You will find it in your Windows folder (C:\Windows\)

4. Step Uncollapse the folder “Bitmap”. We are only going to change the files in folder “6801”, “6805” and “6809”.

To change the Start button in Windows 7, we have to replace every Start button .bmp file.

5. Step Uncollapse “6801”, right-click on the entry “1033” and click on “Replace Resource..”:

Replace Resource in Windows 7

6. Step Click on “Open file with new bitmap..”:

Open file with new bitmap

7. Step Browse to your Start button BMP files and select the file that you want. In my case it’s an updated Ubuntu Start button for Windows 7:

Open Start Button BMP Windows 7

8. Step Now the Start button BMP will be loaded and you can preview it. If that should be your Start button, click on “Replace”:

Start button Bitmap loaded

9. Step Repeat steps 5-8 for the folders “6805” and “6809”!

10. Step Now save your file using the “Save as” command. “File” -> “Save as”.
Save your project as “new_explorer.exe”.

Wait! You should save the new_explorer.exe in your Windows folder C:\Windows or you will have to move it later.

Save Explorer.exe File

11. Next, we have to replace the explorer.exe in the Windows folder C:\Windows with our newly created new_explorer.exe

12. Open up the Windows Folder (Windows key + E and then double-click on Windows), take ownership of explorer.exe and give yourself permissions to edit the file. If you don’t know how to do that, follow out comprehensive guide that will teach you how to replace explorer.exe in Windows 7:

How to replace explorer.exe in Windows 7 .

Your new Start button could like mine now:

Change Start Button Windows 7

Of course we will be adding new Start buttons to our site, so that you have a nice collection of new Start buttons for Windows 7!