How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

Speed Up My PC

It’s always fun tweaking our system modifying Windows dll’s editing texts, etc. People even took editing the start button text in Windows 7 as a challenge – untill we released the Start Button ToolTip Text Changer. In this article I’ll show you how to edit the text in the Charms Bar on Windows 8 consumer preview.

Change Windows 8 Charms Bar Text

First you will need to download Resource Hacker to accomplish this task.  It’s a freeware and you can download it from here.

Step 1:

Quickly create a system restore point first. Then go to C:\Windows\System 32\en-US

Step 2:

Locate twinui.dll.mui file and copy it to your desktop.

image thumb How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

Step 3:

Right click on twinui.dll.mui and click on Open with and scroll down and select “Look for an app on this PC”.

image thumb1 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

Step 4:

Now go to the installation directory of Resource Hacker and select  ResHacker.exe.

Step 5:

Now you’ll see a similar screen as seen in the picture below

image thumb2 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

Step 6:

Expand “String Table” and scroll down to “444” or “445” and select “1033”.

image thumb3 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

Step 7:

Now you can change the text you like and click on “Compile Script” and go to File and click on Save.

image thumb4 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

Step 8:

Now on your Desktop you’ll see two different files twinui.dll.mui and twinui.dll_original.mui. Now you have to copy twinui.dll.mui to C:\Windows\System 32\en-US. Before you paste the file you need to Take Ownership of the file.

  • Right click on twinui.dll.mui under C:\Windows\System 32\en-US and go to Properties
  • Go to the Security tab and click on Advanced

image thumb5 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

  • Now click on “Change” under Owner

image thumb6 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

  • Type in your Username and click Ok

image thumb7 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

  • Now select your Username from the “Permission Entries” and click on “Add

image thumb8 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

  • Now select “Select a Principal” and type in your username

image thumb9 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

  • Now click on “Full Control” and click Ok

image thumb10 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

  • Click Ok again and click the Properties.

Now you can rename the file to twinui.dll.mui.old and copy the modified twinui.dll.mui.

Step 9:

The final step is to restart the “Windows Explorer” from Task Manager

image thumb11 How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

and you’ll have your modified Charm Bar.

last thumb How to Edit the Text of Items in Windows 8 Charms Bar

In case if you want to revert, delete the Modified twinui.dll.mui and rename twinui.dll.mui.old back to twinui.dll.mui and restart the Windows Explorer again.

Thanks to Mike at Beatmasters-Winlite-blog.de for this tip.

Posted by on , in Category Windows with Tags
Shyam aka “Captain Jack” is a Microsoft MVP and a Windows Enthusiast whose area of expertise is Crash Dump Analysis and Advanced Windows troubleshooting. He has developed Windows based Tools like SF IE Restorator for troubleshooting Internet Explorer issues and SF Diagnostic Tool for collecting Crash dump files for troubleshooting purpose. He blogs at captaindbg.com.
  • http://www.kapilarya.com/ Kapil Arya

    After tweaking and replacing twinui.dll.mui, Windows lost all the metro stuff. Any help??

    Seems that file got corrupted!

  • Ovidiu Sava

    Tell me my friend,this method eliminates the opening W8 CP metro interface and opens like windows 7?
    I think it’s the nicest thing I ever read for a couple of weeks about how to change the interface wich look ugly and unusefull for me (metro UI) for my desktop computer.