How To: Remove or Modify the Start Button Balloon Tip

This will permanently remove or change the Start Button "Start" (Duh!) balloon tip.

I'm using ResHack v3.5.2 Beta for this tutorial.

GoTo C:\Windows\en-US and Take Ownership of and then copy the explorer.exe.mui to somewhere safe.
If you are running a 64 bit system you should also modify the explorer.exe.mui which is located in C:\Windows\SysWOW64\en-US

Now open your explorer.exe.mui(s) in ResHack and navigate to String Table 34, line 533. Modify / delete to your liking.

Before:

Code:

STRINGTABLE
LANGUAGE LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US
{
530,     "Unable to run command.\nThe folder '%1' has been removed."
533,     "Start" << Line to modify or delete
534,     "&Undo %s"
535,     "Cascade"
536,     "Show side by side"
537,     "Minimize all"
538,     "Show stacked"
542,     "Hide"
543,     "Show hidden icons"
}

After:

Code:

STRINGTABLE
LANGUAGE LANG_ENGLISH, SUBLANG_ENGLISH_US
{
530,     "Unable to run command.\nThe folder '%1' has been removed."
534,     "&Undo %s"
535,     "Cascade"
536,     "Show side by side"
537,     "Minimize all"
538,     "Show stacked"
542,     "Hide"
543,     "Show hidden icons"
}

Once you have modified or deleted the 533 entry click the compile script button. Then in the menu bar click File and in its drop-down menu click Save. Close ResHack.

Now go to your original folder(s) again and rename your original explorer.exe.mui(s) files (explorer0ld.exe.mui ?) then copy and paste your modified explorer.exe.mui file(s) into place.

After a re-boot your start button balloon tip will have changed / disappeared.

Elmer, thanks so much for the tut and for correctly pointing at the right version of ResHacker to edit MUI files, but... I'd like to add the following infos.

First of all, on a 64bit Windows 7 OS, there are copies of explorer.exe.mui not only in

C:\Windows\en-US
and
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\en-US

(of course the en-US folder being pretty much interchangeable with the localization ID of the language the OS is in, e.g. it-IT)

but also in

C:\Windows\winsxs\amd64_microsoft-windows-explorer.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_61e778c48d52d19b
and
C:\Windows\winsxs\wow64_microsoft-windows-explorer.resources_31bf3856ad364e35_6.1.7600.16385_en-us_6c3c2316c1b39396

(or something like that.
winsxs is the components store folder,
and, again, the en-us you see in the path is interchangeable with your localization ID string).

So, on a 64 bit OS you should also edit those files.

That said, after you have edited all those MUIs, you need update the MUI cache too.

This is the way:

- Run a command prompt as Administrator
- Move to folder C:\Windows\System32 and type mcbuilder, then press ENTER
- Wait for the operation to be completed, then restart the PC
- Now you're really done!