Resetting IE toolbar graphics to default values

Many software packages offered by internet service providers contain "customized" versions of Internet Explorer that feature graphics specific to the company distributing them. As an example, the IE version offered by default by my ISP replaced the default "Windows spinning globe" toolbar icon with its own (IMHO ugly) logo.

In addition, some websites and/or other software can also affect the visual layout of IE, some even adding background images to the toolbar area (rendering the text almost unreadable).

Irritated to the point of madness by the modified logo, I tried to figure out how to get back to the boring, but less flashy, default animation. Since I couldn't find any setup item corresponding to this in the normal IE control panel, it became clear that the solution lay in the Registry.

Prompted by Reghakr's FAQ post "IE6 Homepage Rewrite", I started looking at the various entries under HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer, including the Toolbar and Main keys, where I found entries corresponding the bitmaps that my ISP had substituted. I also figured out how to reset the IE browser window text - this, too, had been changed...

If you have the same problem, and want to get rid of non-default graphics for IE, then create a text file with the following lines [NOT the ones starting with =] and save it with the extension .REG. Then locate the file with Windows Explorer and double-click it to replace the corresponding registry keys. (Of course you should first create a backup of the Registry!!!)

=========== file starts==========
REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar]
"BrandBitmap"=""
"SmBrandBitmap"=""
"BackBitmap"=""
"BigBitmap"=""
"SmallBitmap"=""

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Window Title"="Microsoft Internet Explorer"

======== file ends ============

Correspondingly, if you wish to customize the graphics yourself, you can simply create your own bitmaps:

BigBitmap: 38x38 pixels, 256 colors (stationary)
SmallBitmap: 22x22 pixels, 256 colors (stationary)
BrandBitmap: a series of 38x38 bitmaps arranged in a column, representing the animation sequence - 10 animation steps correspond to a 38X380 pixel file...
SmBrandBitmap: same sequence as BrandBitmap, only composed of 22x22 bitmaps
BackBitmap: background image for the toolbar field, for example 1050x80 pixels, 16 million colors

Edit the Registry entries to point to the corresponding bitmap files, for example
"BigBitmap"="C:\MyIE\MyBigBitmap.bmp"

Hope this can help someone...