So I’ve been playing around with ResEdit and various other things for the last few days and working on customizing macOS in various different ways and I’ve put together this little guide for anyone that might wanna reskin their macOS in the future and more just getting my finds out here since there’s not much specific talk about how to do this programs like Mac identifier already handle some of these tasks but this is more of a technical look at how to do it
This will cover stuff like changing the boot screen and what the system reports as in about windows in OS7-OS9, only thing I really won’t be touching is customizing what the computer reports as in system 7 as I don’t quite understand that yet and there is a bit more out there about how to do that specifically and stuff like Mac identifer let’s you do that easy, I might potentially update it and add that if I feel in the future
**Replacing Boot Screen and About Window Images**
For these I will be describing the files in this format
[description of image],[PICT Resource #],[Resolution]
Replace The Following PICT Resources in the System File for the boot screen depending on what you want to replace (for editing the existing ones you can either import them from the resource fork and export to png using a old classic version of Photoshop or use a modern tool like ResForge to export in TIFF)
For 7.X-9.X
Main Boot Screen, -16506, 422 x 323
Main Welcome Text, -20241, 317 x 25
Main Debugger On Text, -20239, 317 x 25
Main Extensions Off Text, -20237, 317 x 25
Main Starting Up Text, -20235, 317 x 25
Most of the time these are the only ones you would need to replace for the fact that these are the ones that show 95% of the time is booting up macOS in full color but for good measure, you could copy them to the other ones in case you really don’t want anything macOS to show and they still load they’ll just be a bit crunched to whatever the color depth is at that time
For the About Windows these are stored as the following PICT resources in the Finder file
For 8.X
Banner, 4000, 250 x 84
Mac OS icon, 4001, 61 x 48
For 9.X
Banner, 4000, 454 x 90
**Replacing The Strings of OS and Version Text**
This is just editing text but this but this should cover everything you need to cover the main mentions of macOS from the system about windows (only thing that can really see through it is system profiler bc I think that reads the main version strings directly and tampering with those is not a good idea and may cause your system to be not bootable anymore)
Finder File:
STR#:
For 7.x
#10000 - System Software and System Enabler Strings
For 8.X and 9.X
#4000 - MacOS Name Strings
System File:
Both VERS Resources have short strings used for Get Info Windows so Replace both with space whatever version X.X you want [it also will just display anything you put there no matter if it’s numbers or text] if there’s no space in between there will be no spacing between os name and number
Hope this can help anyone out who wants to do this, but can’t find much info about it like me when I first started this endeavor
Enjoy!
This will cover stuff like changing the boot screen and what the system reports as in about windows in OS7-OS9, only thing I really won’t be touching is customizing what the computer reports as in system 7 as I don’t quite understand that yet and there is a bit more out there about how to do that specifically and stuff like Mac identifer let’s you do that easy, I might potentially update it and add that if I feel in the future
**Replacing Boot Screen and About Window Images**
For these I will be describing the files in this format
[description of image],[PICT Resource #],[Resolution]
Replace The Following PICT Resources in the System File for the boot screen depending on what you want to replace (for editing the existing ones you can either import them from the resource fork and export to png using a old classic version of Photoshop or use a modern tool like ResForge to export in TIFF)
For 7.X-9.X
Main Boot Screen, -16506, 422 x 323
Main Welcome Text, -20241, 317 x 25
Main Debugger On Text, -20239, 317 x 25
Main Extensions Off Text, -20237, 317 x 25
Main Starting Up Text, -20235, 317 x 25
Most of the time these are the only ones you would need to replace for the fact that these are the ones that show 95% of the time is booting up macOS in full color but for good measure, you could copy them to the other ones in case you really don’t want anything macOS to show and they still load they’ll just be a bit crunched to whatever the color depth is at that time
For the About Windows these are stored as the following PICT resources in the Finder file
For 8.X
Banner, 4000, 250 x 84
Mac OS icon, 4001, 61 x 48
For 9.X
Banner, 4000, 454 x 90
**Replacing The Strings of OS and Version Text**
This is just editing text but this but this should cover everything you need to cover the main mentions of macOS from the system about windows (only thing that can really see through it is system profiler bc I think that reads the main version strings directly and tampering with those is not a good idea and may cause your system to be not bootable anymore)
Finder File:
STR#:
For 7.x
#10000 - System Software and System Enabler Strings
For 8.X and 9.X
#4000 - MacOS Name Strings
System File:
Both VERS Resources have short strings used for Get Info Windows so Replace both with space whatever version X.X you want [it also will just display anything you put there no matter if it’s numbers or text] if there’s no space in between there will be no spacing between os name and number
Hope this can help anyone out who wants to do this, but can’t find much info about it like me when I first started this endeavor
Enjoy!
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