Change the wallpaper

Change the background wallpaper

If you have a Windows system, copy your 800×600 or 1024×768 .bmp or .jpg file to the \_ISO folder on your E2B USB drive and run \_ISO\E2B_Editor.exe. This will allow you to set the background picture and many other options and then save the changes to the \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg user menu configuration file. 

I recommend using 800×600 because it is supported by most BIOSes/displays including older notebooks and PCs; it will also be faster to load.

Do not exceed 1024×768.

Always load and re-save .jpg files using Microsoft Paint to ensure they are in the correct format. They may not load properly otherwise!

Tip: If you want to test a variety of different .bmp or .jpg wallpaper files, simply copy them to the \_ISO\MAINMENU (or any) menu folder and select one from the E2B menu. 

Use a \_ISO\mybackground.bmp file

If you don’t edit the MyE2B.cfg you can copy your own mybackground.bmp or mybackground.jpg file to the \_ISO folder (you can compress a .bmp using 7Zip by selecting gzip as the compression type to reduce the file size for faster loading – or use the E2B LZMA_Encode.cmd script for even greater compression). You can download wallpapers from here – resize them to 800×600 using Microsoft Paint and save as ‘\_ISO\mybackground.jpg’. 

.bmp or .jpg files should not be larger than approx. 3MB – if they are larger then grub4dos may crash (the file is not in the correct format if it is larger than 3MB).

Add\edit the MyE2B.cfg configuration file

Alternatively, rename the \_ISO\Sample_MyE2B.cfg file to \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg (or edit MyE2B.cfg if already present) and change the following entries to point to your own wallpaper… 

!BAT
# set graphics mode - use 640, or 800 or 1024 - or specify full mode - e.g. 800 600 24 = 800x600 x 24-bit colour
set GMODE=800
set MYWBMP=/_ISO/myspecialbackground.bmp

IMPORTANT: Use forward-slash / instead of \ in paths. grub4dos is like linux and uses / instead of \. 
The MyE2B.cfg file must start with !BAT on the first line because it is actually a grub4dos batch file.

E2B also supports .jpg files as well as 24-bit colour .bmp files (always save  as .jpg using Microsoft Paint to ensure they are in the correct format or else it may not load). E2B will use the specified file if it can be found, otherwise it will use the default E2B background.

You can compress the .bmp file to a .gz file to make a smaller file which will load faster. In some cases E2B will only expect a .bmp file extension, e.g. Mainmenu.bmp or DOS.bmp (see below), so in this case you can change the .gz file extension to .bmp (grub4dos does not take any notice of the file extension – it just looks at the header bytes inside the file).

Note: The file extension is not used by grub4dos to determine it’s type – you can have a gzip compressed bitmap called fred.zzz or a JPEG file called doris.bmp, if you wish!
If you want to use your own background file (e.g. 640×480 or 800×600 or 1024×768)  ensure that the size is exactly correct (e.g. exactly 800×600 – not 800×599 or 799×600). 

Resolutions above 1024 x 768 are not supported because E2B uses memory in the same area as grub4dos stores large bitmaps and it may cause grub4dos to crash!

Display resolution

You need to set GMODE correctly (default is 800 and is suitable for 99% of systems), some examples are:
 set GMODE=800                 (800 by tallest available in highest colour mode) *RECOMMENDED*
set GMODE=800 600           (800×600 in highest colour bit depth available)
set GMODE=1024               (1024 wide by tallest available by highest bit depth available)
set GMODE=1024 768         (1024 wide by 768 by highest colour bit depth available)
set GMODE=800 -1 24:32    (800 by tallest available that is 24 or 32 bit colour – uses highest available)
set GMODE=800 600 24:32 (800 by 600 by 24 or 32-bit colour – uses highest available) for your MyE2B.cfg file.

The menu size and help text position will need to be changed too if you change the resolution.  

I recommend you do not use higher than 800×600 because not all systems can support these higher resolutions (e.g. early netbooks are 800×600). 

Modern EFI systems support a default resolution of 1024 x 768. If you work only with newish systems or gaming PCs, you may find using GMODE=1024 to be more reliable as some graphics cards have limited 800 x 600 mode support.

If you use 640×480 or 1024×768, the menu settings for number of menu items, menu width, etc. may also need to be changed because you will get more text lines and columns on a 1024×768 screen. 

You can have a different wallpaper for each menu – see here. e.g. if the file \_ISO\MainMenu.bmp or \_ISO\MainMenu.jpg is present, the file will be loaded just before the Main Menu is displayed, thus overriding any setting of MYWBMP which may be set in the MyE2B.cfg file. The same thing applies to all other E2B menus (e.g. \_ISO\DOS.jpg will be loaded just before the DOS menu is displayed).

Use an alternate MyE2B.cfg file

If you use 1024×768 in your MyE2B.cfg file, you may find that certain netbooks, etc. do not support that resolution. 

You can use the following lines in your MyE2B.cfg file to check if the system does not support 1024x786x24 graphics mode and thus use an alternative configuration file: 

debug 1 ;; vbeprobe > (md)0x220+5 ;; debug 0
# if 1024x768x24 is not supported, use the MyE2B800.cfg file instead of this one
cat --locate="1024 x 768" (md)0x220+5 > nul || /_ISO/MyE2B800.cfg && goto :EOF 

You can then add a MyE2B800.cfg file containing all settings for 800×600 which will be used instead of the MyE2B.cfg file.

Ensure the first line of the cfg file starts with !BAT. 

Note: E2B also supports GFXBoot menus. 

Tip: Choose a bitmap that has a clear area at the bottom so that the help text is easily visible. Avoid a multi-coloured, high-contrast picture (e.g. lots of different bright colours and dark blacks) as it will be difficult to choose a text colour that will stand out against all of the colours in your picture! Another idea is to use a bitmap editor and draw a filled rectangle over the picture so that the menu can be displayed within the rectangle. A clear area for the menu help text underneath the menu is also a good idea. You can also add your name or company name or company logo to the bitmap itself or add a STAMP.

You can use the settings in MyE2B.cfg to change the menu position and the menu size, text and border colours. 

Menu Editor

Use the E2B_Editor.exe GUI to design your menu (800×600 or 1024×768 only). 

You can, of course, make a plain single colour 800×600 bitmap for the background (see ‘Background fill colour’ below). 

Tip: grub4dos does not support all possible types of JPG or BMP files. If the background does not look correct, then simply load it into Microsoft Paint and re-save it as a 24-bit colour .bmp or .jpg file. Lots of wallpapers can be found here! 

Background fill colour

E2B v1.78+ also supports filling the entire screen with a single colour. This is much quicker than loading a wallpaper file. The MYWBMP value must start with 0x followed by a 6-character hexadecimal string (RRGGBB):

# fill 800x600 display with red pixels : R=FF  G=00 B=00
set GMODE=800
set MYWBMP=0xFF0000 

Note: STAMPs can only be used after loading a .jpg or .bmp wallpaper. If you want STAMPs on a plain background, you must load a plain colour graphics file first. 

Use a JPEG file

E2B v1.72+ also supports .JPG files for use as wallpaper backgrounds as well as .bmp files. I recommend working on an image in 24-bit .bmp format and then converting it to .jpg as the final step. Progressive (web format) JPG’s are not supported (these are often used for websites as they contain a low-res image + hi-res image). If the .jpg does not work in E2B, load it into Microsoft Paint and re-save it as a .jpg file to convert it into a non-progressive JPEG format.
You can specify the name of your .jpg in the \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file or simply name the file as \_ISO\MyBackground.bmp or MyBackground.jpg and it will be used by default.  Only grub4dos 0.4.6a supports .jpg files (grub4dos 0.4.5c does not support .jpg). 

Background for a Master password entry

When E2B boots, you can configure it so that the user must enter a password before the Main menu is displayed.

You can have a different background for a Master Password entry screen – see here.

Changing background based on the day of the week

In this example, we used compressed .bmp files in .gz format. These load quicker as they are smaller files and the internal format is automatically recognised by grub4dos and decompressed. .jpg files are already compressed so there is no need to convert them to .gz files.

Add the lines below to your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file. Ensure that you have seven .bmp.gz files in the \_ISO folder named Aurora0.bmp.gz to Aurora6.bmp.gz. 

# get day of week
checktime | set A=
set /a dow=%A:~20,1% > nul
set A=
# we now have a number between 0 and 6 (0=Sunday, 6=Saturday)
set MYWBMP=/_ISO/Aurora%dow%.bmp.gz
set dow= 

Check for December

Use this in your MyE2B.cfg file to load a different bitmap for December

if %month%==12 set MYWBMP=/_ISO/XMAS.jpg

Note: The variables %day%, %month% and %year% are available for use in MyE2B.cfg.

Random backgrounds

E2B will choose one of three different backgrounds each time it is booted.

Add the lines below to your \_ISO\MyE2B.cfg file. Ensure that you have three .bmp.gz files in the \_ISO folder named Aurora1.bmp.gz to Aurora3.bmp.gz. 

:rlp
# get a random number between 1 and 10
set /a randnum=%@random% / 3277 + 1 > nul
# if greater than 3 then get another number!
if %randnum%>=4 goto :rlp
# we now have a number between 1 and 3
set MYWBMP=/_ISO/Aurora%randnum%.bmp.gz
# could use set GFX=message%randnum% instead
set randnum=

%@random% returns a number between 0 and 32767, so dividing by 3277 will give a number between 0 and 9. Change the if %randnum%>=4 goto :rlp line to use a different number if you want more backgrounds (2-9).

Note: Make sure the file starts with !BAT on the first line.

Backgrounds for sub-menus

You can have a different background for each E2B sub-menu (e.g. MAINMENU, BACKUP, ANTIVIRUS, DOS, WINDOWS, WIN, WINPE, LINUX, etc.) – see here.

Write text strings to the menu

You can write text strings to the menu screen by adding lines to MyE2B.cfg, e.g.

# Write text to the menu (grub4dos 0.4.6a only) using - --string=x=y=colour="text"
setmenu --string=69=18=0xFF00FF="Hello"

Tip: Run PimpMyDrive.cmd from the \_ISO folder to add various .mnu files to the Main Menu. This will allow you to experiment with different ‘themes’ by changing the contents MyE2B.cfg file and reloading the E2B menu.