Disabling Program Splash Screens
- From: "Wintips&Tricks" <wintips@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "Wintips&Tricks" <wintips@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Tue, 11 May 2004 12:10:16 -0400
Wintips&Tricks
May 11, 2004 - Issue 5
Disabling Program Splash Screens
By Vic Ferri
Most programs open up with a splash screen to identify or advertise themselves.
Whether you like to see these screens or not, they do slow down
the opening of the program, somewhat. Depending on how fast your computer is
and how huge the program is, this slow down can be just a fraction of
a second or a few full seconds.This is only natural, since the screen, which is
usually a bitmap image, has to load before the actual application
can open up. So here I will show you, without having to hack any dll files, how
you can get rid of the startup screens of a few of the more popular programs,
so that they will open up quicker . I will also give a link to a small free
utility that can kill almost all splash screens.
Outlook Express 5 to 6
A simple registry edit can take care of the Outlook Express loading screen.
Click Start>Run, type regedit and click OK.
Make your way the ...Outlook Express\5.0 key here:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Identities\{your identity number
here}\Software\Microsoft\Outlook Express\5.0
In the right hand pand of the 5.0 key, right click an empty area and choose
New>Dword value.
Name it NoSplash. Then double click it and enter a value of 1.
And that's it. Exit the registry and try opening Outlook Express. You should
notice it loads noticeably faster.
Eudora Email
This should apply to all versions of Eudora. Exit Eudora and search for
eudora.ini
Open it with a text editor (it should open up in notepad, by default)
In the [Settings] section, add this line:
NoSplashScreen=1.
Save and exit.
Microsoft Office Programs
You can disable the splash screen on most of the Office programs by using the
appropriate switch which you enter at the end
of the programs shortcut command line. To access any of the default Office
program shortcuts:
Right click the Start button.
Click Open, then open the Programs folder.
Right click the shortcut for the Office program whose splash screen you wish to
disable, go to Properties and click the Shortcut tab
At the end of the command line in the Target field, add the appropriate switch
as described below (note that these might not work
on all versions of Office. I tested only on Office 2000 and XP)
Microsoft Word
Add a "/q" (without the quotes) to the end of the shortcut's command line:
Example:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\WINWORD.EXE" /q
Microsoft Powerpoint
Enter "splash" (without the quotes) at the end of the command line.
Example:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office10\POWERPNT.EXE" /splash
Microsoft Excel
Add "/e" to the end of the shortcuts command line:
Example:
"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Office\Office\Excel.exe" /e
Microsoft Outlook
If you're wondering about Outlook,you would have to hack outlibr.dll in Outlook
2000 to remove the btmap for the screen. This requires opening
the file with a resource type editor and deleting bitmap 7702. How to do this
is beyond the scope of this article However,
the Splash Killer utility mentioned at the end of this article will take care
of both the Outlook 2000 and XP splash screens, easily.
For Outlook XP, I haven't found any way to remove the startup screen (aside
from using the Splash Killer)
Tip - even with the splash screen present, you can make Outlook load faster by
disabling Instant Messaging (Tools>Options>Other)
Wordperfect
For all or most versions, right click your shortcut to Word Perfect, go to
Properties, click the Shortcut tab and in the Target field add a
space and then a colon to the end of the command line.
Example:
C:\Program Files\Wordperfect Office 2000\Programs\wpwin.exe :
Of course, you can also just make your own shortcut to wpwin.exe and apply the
no splash colon to it.
Norton AntiVirus
This one requires a simple registry edit:
Click Start>Run, type regedit, click Ok, and make your way to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Norton AntiVirus\Clinic
In the right hand pane, right click a blank area and choose New>Dword Value.
Name it DisableSplashScreen
Double click it and enter 1 as the data value.
Norton Utilities
This one also requires a regedit, the same as the one for NAV above, but at a
different key.
Click Start>Run, type regedit, click Ok, and make your way to this key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Symantec\Norton Utilities
In the right hand pane, right click a blank area and choose New>Dword Value.
Name it DisableSplashScreen
Double click it and enter 1 as the data value
******
Remove almost all program splash screens
If you can't find a specific way to remove the startup screen of a particular
program you use or if you detest splash screens to the point
that you would like to disable them on almost all programs you use, then you
can do so by using Splash Killer which you can download here:
http://www.digitallis.co.uk/pc/SplashKiller/index.html
Splash Killer is a small and free utility that requires no install. You just
double click it to load it to your SysTray. And that's all there is to it.
Almost any program you start should then load without any visible splash screen
(the utiltity actually hides the splash screens - as opposed to removing them)
If there are certain programs you do not wish to be included for "splash
killing", you can enter them and they will be ignored.
Read SplashKiller.txt for more info.
****
Besides this article, you may also be interested in two other articles I
recently wrote for ABC and Techtrax.
1. Registry Data Values (with sceenshots )
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMArticle.asp?ID=361
2. Disabling Error Reporting in Microsoft Office (with screenshots)
http://personal-computer-tutor.com/abc4/v35/vic35.htm
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TechTrax
http://pubs.logicalexpressions.com/Pub0009/LPMIssue.asp?ISI=0
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