Custom Boot Animations in Windows 9x
This is a tutorial on how you can change the Windows 95, 98 or ME boot animation from the default one to anything you want.
The default boot animation is located inside IO.SYS, which is the DOS kernel at the root of the internal drive.
The Windows 95 Boot Animation stored in IO.sys
However, if there’s a custom boot animation at the root of the drive named ‘logo.sys’, then that animation would be loaded instead. An example of such a custom animation is the China DOS Union’s MS-DOS 7.10 repack, as seen below:
China DOS Union’s MS-DOS 7.10 Repack Boot Animation
To save some people time, I’ve taken several custom boot animations from past versions of Windows, such as Windows 98 Beta 2, 3 and RTM (first startup) and the MS-DOS 7.10 repack. Attached below is a download link of the floppy drive containing the logos:
Adding the boot animation:
Now if you already have several pre-built custom built animations ready, all you need to do is drag one of them into the root of the C:\ drive, as seen in the screenshot below. If you’re using a virtual machine with virtual tools installed, then it’s just as easy as drag and drop from the host PC. Then reboot and the new boot animation is installed!
If you want to revert back to the old animation, just delete logo.sys. Simple as that.
