1. Removing the phone skin (HTC)
The default HTC skin for the phone application gets very boring after a while. I dare say it is ugly. If you don’t mind ending up with smaller buttons, you can change the registry key HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Security\Phone\Skin\Enabled and set it to 0.
2. Replacing carrier name text with a logo
Having the carrier’s name displayed as text is the standard. It shows up every time you make or receive a call. How about sticking a graphic? The graphics file has to be a non-animated 256-color GIF of 20 pixels height. There is no restriction on the width, but keeping it below 100 is a good idea. Use a solid background color. You don’t have to make it transparent (you shouldn’t make it transparent), as Windows Mobile will make it transparent for you. Name the file carrierlogo.gif and put it in the \Windows folder.
3. Animated splash screen galore (HTC)
Every time you boot up your device, right after the quite brief “smart mobility” screen, you see the animated HTC logo. You can change that to whatever you want. First things first, create a 240x320 256-color animated GIF file. I found Adobe Fireworks to be a very good tool for this. Then name it animated.gif and place it in the \Windows folder. Use Total Commander CE or something similar, as you'll have to overwrite a protected file. You can also direct the system to use any animation file by setting the value of the following registry path to the absolute path of your favorite animated GIF file: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\StartupAnimation\GIFFile.
You can even add audio to the animation! A regular WAV file (16-bit PCM mono, no compression) will do. First, set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\StartupAnimation\Volumn to decimal 4555 - or the volume will be turned down to inaudible levels! - and then set HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\HTC\StartupAnimation\WAVFile to the absolute path of your favorite WAV sound.
4. Changing the Windows Mobile splash screen
Every time you boot up your device, right after the “smart mobility” and the animated HTC logo screens you get this green Windows Mobile splash screen. I detest it, so I’ll tell you how to change it to something more beautiful. First, create a 240x320 PNG file of your liking. Then name it welcomehead.96.png and place it in \Windows folder. Again, use Total Commander CE or some other similar program, as you'll be replacing a protected file.
