changing the registry.

By now, you have a modified explorer sitting in the /inf/ subfolder, so we need to tell Windows to use that one, instead of the original one still resting untouched.
To do this, we need to make just one simple registry modification. To open up the registry, ress start (something else soon ) -> run and type regedit. In the registry editor window that opens, navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\ SOFTWARE/Microsoft/ Windows NT\ CurrentVersion\ Winlogon and look for the registry entry “shell”. Click it.
Change the explorer.exe to inf/explorer.exe or whereever you saved the modified explorer.
And believe it or not, you’re done! All you have to do now is reboot or log out and bacö in to see the changes. Enjoy your new custom Windows XP start button!