Serenity Macros Removing or Adding Browser Customisation

Customising the Appearance of IE4 & IE5 (or Removing Customisation)

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In IE4 and IE5 ISPs, coporate administrators, and content providers can customise the browser in many ways. This tip is about removing or setting your own customisation such as the text in the title bar, the animated logos, and the toolbar background. A lot of people will have either ISP branded IE (such as Microsoft Internet Explorer provided by Telstra Big Pond in the titlebar after the page title} or custom logos (such as the ZDNet logo in the upper right corner of the menu bar).
Displaying or Removing Branding

To remove or view customisation copy the following lines into a new text file and rename it ShowBranding.vbs. Double click to view, and optionally remove branding information and set a custom Window Title. Remove the last three lines if you don't want it to ask "Do you want to visit Serenity's web site?". You need to have installed Windows Scripting Host which comes with Windows 98 and is a free download with Windows 95. (or use the sample supplied)
;ShowBranding.vbs
;Displays and/or removes branding information for IE4 and IE5 and sets a user Window Title.
;
;Remove last three lines to prevent program from asking "Do you want to visit Serenity Macro's Web Site?"
;
;Serenity Macros 	http://www.angelfire.com/biz/serenitymacros 
;David Candy	davidc@sia.net.au
;

strExplain="Lists any browser customisation registry settings" & vbCRLF & "Only values present are shown, some may be empty."  & vbCRLF & vbCRLF
strBranding=""
strTitle=""

Dim Sh
Set Sh = WScript.CreateObject("WScript.Shell")

On Error Resume Next
strBranding=strBranding & "Window Title      " & vbTab & Sh.RegRead("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title") & vbCRLF
strBranding=strBranding & "SmallBitmap      " & vbTab & Sh.RegRead("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\SmallBitmap") & vbCRLF
strBranding=strBranding & "BigBitmap          " & vbTab & Sh.RegRead("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\BigBitmap") & vbCRLF
strBranding=strBranding & "BackBitmapIE5  " & vbTab & Sh.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\BackBitmapIE5") & vbCRLF
strBranding=strBranding & "BackBitmap (for IE4)" & vbTab & Sh.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\BackBitmap") & vbCRLF
strBranding=strBranding & "SmBrandBitmap" & vbTab & Sh.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\SmBrandBitmap") & vbCRLF
strBranding=strBranding & "BrandBitmap     " & vbTab & Sh.RegRead("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\BrandBitmap") 

If strBranding="" then 
	strBranding= "No customisation present"
	MsgBox strExplain & strBranding, vbInformation + vbOKOnly , "Show Branding Information"
Else
	If MsgBox(strExplain & strBranding & vbcrlf & vbcrlf & "Remove customisation?", vbQuestion + vbYesNo + vbDefaultButton2, "Remove Branding Information") =6 Then
		Sh.RegDelete("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title") 
		Sh.RegDelete("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\SmallBitmap") 
		Sh.RegDelete("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\BigBitmap") 
		Sh.RegDelete("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\BackBitmapIE5") 
		Sh.RegDelete("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\BackBitmap") 
		Sh.RegDelete("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\SmBrandBitmap") 
		Sh.RegDelete("HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar\BrandBitmap") 
	End If
End If

strDefault=Sh.RegRead("HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title") 
If strDefault="" then strDefault="Microsoft Internet Explorer"
strTitle=Inputbox("Do you want to set Internet Explorer's titlebar string." & vbCRLF & vbCRLF & "Use a space to set to nothing.", "Set Window Title", strDefault)
If strTitle <> strDefault then
	If strTitle <> "" Then
		Sh.RegWrite "HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\Window Title",strTitle
	End If
End If

If MsgBox("This program came from the Serenity Macros Web Site" & vbCRLF & vbCRLF & "Would you like to visit Serenity's Web Site now?", vbQuestion + vbYesNo + vbDefaultButton2, "Visit Serenity Macros") =6 Then
	sh.Run "http:\\www.angelfire.com\biz\serenitymacros"
End If
Setting User Customisation

The items customisable here are the Window Title (Window Title), the backing for the toolbar (BackbitmapIE5 or just BackBitmap in IE4), and the logo in the upper right corner of Internet Explorer (SmallBitmap, BigBitmap. SmBrandBitmap, and BrandBitmap).
Making the bitmaps and what they do is discussed in the next sections.
To set browser customisation to your own, copy the following lines into a text file and rename it branding.reg, then edit the information, save it, and double click it. (or use the sample supplied)
There are six values under two keys here (three each). Make sure you delete any values from the file that you aren't setting. Also note that paths in reg files require two backslashes rather than one. A comment is a line starting with a semicolan.
The paths shown are set to the sample bitmaps supplied below and assumes that they will be on your desktop. When you finish customising the bitmaps move them to another folder and edit the paths in the reg file. (Right click and choose Edit)
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Window Title"="IE5"
"SmallBitmap"="c:\\windows\\desktop\\smallbitmap.bmp"
"BigBitmap"="c:\\windows\\desktop\\bigbitmap.bmp"

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar]
"BackBitmapIE5"="c:\\windows\\desktop\\toolbarbitmap.bmp"
;Line below commented out. Use instead of above line with IE4
;"BackBitmap"="c:\\windows\\desktop\\toolbarbitmap.bmp"
"SmBrandBitmap"="c:\\windows\\desktop\\smbitbrand.bmp"
"BrandBitmap"="c:\\windows\\desktop\\bitbrand.bmp"
About the Bitmaps

BackBitmapIE5 can be any bitmap. The only requirement is that it is light in colour so you can read the toolbar. Size is unimportant as it will be tiled to fit. Try clouds.bmp from the Windows directory or make your own with Paint on the Start Programs Accessories menu. I've supplied a streched and cropped version (1280 (streched by 2) x 100 (streched by 2 then cropped to 100px) of clouds.bmp renamed to ToolbarBitmap.bmp.
SmallBitmap and SmBrandBitmap are used when the menu bar only or a toolbar without text labels is the top toolbar. BigBitmap and BrandBitmap is used when another bigger toolbar is the top toolbar.
SmallBitmap is a 22 x 22 pixel bitmap and BigBitmap is a 38 x 38 pixel bitmap and are used when Internet Explorer isn't doing anything. I've provided a red square with a black border of each bitmap as a template for you to modify.
SmBrandBitmap (22 pixels wide) and BrandBitmap (38 pixels wide) are the animated bitmaps. There height is dependant on the number of frames in the bitmap, Height=No of frames x width, so 10 frames in SmBitmapBrand is 220 pixels and in BitmapBrand would be 380 pixels.
Each BrandBitmap is a series of either 22 x 22 or 38 x 38 bitmaps joined together vertically. I've supplied a sample bitmap of 6 frames for each to be used as a template for making your own. These are just coloured squares with a black border.
The first 4 frames are played once when Internet Explorer begins to browse and the remaining frames loop over until the browse operation is complete. If SmallBitmap or BigBitmap are absent then the first frame of the branding bitmap is used as the static branding.
More on Customising

Suppliers of IE5 can also set custom help pages, links, download sites, and more. Use Regedit to browse the registry to undo their changes. Most settings appear under the following keys
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer