How to Change Vista Box Art and Add Extra Information to the Vista

Game Explorer (VGE)

-by Ryan Richter
As you can see - Windows Vista doesnt automatically download details for every game you drag into the VGE. It is possible
to manually change the box art and add more information yourself, as this guide will demonstrate. The first 2 games, Test
Drive Unlimited and NFS Carbon, have been fixed using this method. You will need to install a game that does get its
information automatically from the Internet, which is why I have installed NFS High Stakes. You cant make use of new games
that have the
label - as the information is built in and these games dont use the Internet service.

What we have to do in this case is find the registry keys for NFS High Stakes and change all of the data to describe our new
game - Ford Racing 3. Dont worry about the original game box art - Vista will download it again the next time you play the
game or add a shortcut to your desktop for it.
First, we need to get the box art image off the Internet. Navigate to www.allgame.com and search for the box art you want.
Choose the PC version of the game from the search results. Right click the box art image and click Save Picture As... and
save it to the root of the C:\. Dont worry too much about the filename as well be renaming it soon.

Now click the Start button and choose Run (or press WinKey + R) and type in: regedit

The Windows Registry loads. Navigate to the following key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\GameUX
You will see a sub-key called Games which holds the standard Windows Games (ie Solitaire) and then other long keys. There
is one key for each user account on your computer that has accessed the VGE. Find the one that corresponds to your account
by looking at the game titles within them.

On this computer there is only one active user account - so we dont have to worry about finding out the user S-ID. If in
doubt, you can run the command: whoami /all from a command prompt to see your User S-ID among other things.
Select the game that has the correct box art - in this case NFS High Stakes. You have to check each Game ID (GUID) on the
left part of the screen and look on the right next to Title to find it. Change the following Values:
AppExePath - Change this to the .exe file for Ford Racing 3 (in your Program Files directory somewhere).
BoxArt - Change this to the file that you downloaded in your C:\.
ConfigApplicationPath - Change this to the folder that contains the .exe file for Ford Racing 3.
Description - Add a description for your game. This can be a couple of paragraphs long if wanted.
DeveloperName - The company the created the game.
DeveloperUrl - The Internet Address for that developer.
Genre - Enter in a genre for the game (eg Sports, Racing, RPG, etc).
PublisherName - Usually the same as the developer name.
PublisherUrl - Usually the same as the developer URL.
ReleaseCountry - The country that the game was released in. Type in your country if youre not sure.
ReleaseDate - The date the game was released. Must be in this format: yyyy-mm-dd (with those dashes).
Title - The name of the game. Type it in the way you want it to be displayed in the VGE.
The Title and 2 application paths are necessary changes (plus you obviously want to change the box art). The other changes
are optional - you can leave them blank if you wish to.
Minimize the registry and open up the VGE. The game should appear there but with the wrong box art.

Close the VGE again (dont minimize it - close it). Go to Control Panel -> Folder Options -> View Settings tab and change the
option so that Windows will show Hidden Files and Folders. Now navigate to the following directory:
C:\Users\<your_username>\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\GameExplorer\GamesBoxArt
You will see the box art for all your titles so far. Select the file that needs to be changed (NFS High Stakes in this case). Press
F2 to rename it. We dont want to rename this file, but we do want to copy its filename - so hit Ctrl+C. Leave this folder open
and go to the C:\ where the new picture is. Select it and press F2 to rename. This time press Ctrl+V to rename the file so that
it matches the GUID in the registry.

Now, copy this picture file and go back to the GamesBoxArt folder where you were just at before. Paste the file there and
overwrite the existing file. The picture will now have been updated.

There is just one more thing left to do. In the registry we changed the BoxArt value to point to the root of the C:\ - we now
need to change it to show the file in the GamesBoxArt directory.

Click OK and exit the registry. Exit all the other folders you have been working with. Now open up the VGE and you will find
that the box art and all other information has been manually updated by you.

You probably think that its all done now. Not quite.
Youll see that the old fr3 icon is still there - you can right-click it and Remove it (dont hide it).
Now right-click the new Ford racing 3 (or whatever game youre doing) icon and choose Customise...
Select the first command (which should read Play) and click Edit.

Youll now get the shortcut properties dialog box.

As you can see, it still links to the old game (NFS High Stakes in this case). Change the two textboxes to link to the new game.
Note that the first textbox is for the game .exe file and the second box is for the folder that contains the .exe file. Click OK
and youre done.
To add the old game back to the VGE - open up the Program Files folder that has the .exe file for the game.
Right-click the .exe file for the game and drag it into the VGE. It will appear there but it wont update yet. Right-click the .exe
file again (within the Program Files directory) and click Send to -> Desktop (Create Shortcut). As soon as you do this, a new
icon should appear in the VGE which will update in a few seconds. Press F5 while in the VGE to keep refreshing it. Now just
delete the other NFS High Stakes (or your old game) icon that wont update.
You can now repeat this step for all your other games. You can continue to use the same old game (eg NFS High Stakes) as
your guinea pig every time you want manually update a game. These steps are used mainly to change the box art. If you only
need to change the Title or another small detail - all you have to do is change the registry value.