This can be done by editing the registry entry :

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]

And setting the 'Window Title' value to what you want, such as 'Mozilla Is A Better Browser'.


You will find that there are actually four logo's used in the Internet Explorer. The four logo's consist of two sizes, and two 'modes' for each size (math is 2 ^ 2 = 4 for you brainiacs out there). In this article, we discuss how to implement these logos.

First, the two modes are : busy and idle. Simple enough. The busy mode is used when the internet explorer is 'busy' trying to get information from the Internet, or whenever it is actually busy. The idle mode is displayed when the Internet Explorer is not getting information about anything. Simple enough. Your typical views are the "busy" mode is a spinning globe. The idle mode is the windows logo.

Since we've already pointed out that the busy mode and the idle mode also have two different sizes, you can guess that they will be the same sizes for both modes. The sizes are for 'small' logo's and 'large' logos (graphic buttons versus text buttons in your browser). The small logo will always be 22x22 pixels, and the large logo will always be 38x38 pixels.

At the same time, if no idle logo is defined, the first frame of the busy logo will be used as the idle logo (no animation).


When we create an animated logo, we actually create one that is a different size. First, we choose the size that we are going to be working with (e.g. 38x38 pixels). Then, we find out how many frames we're going to need for the logo. Say we need 20 frames. We multiply the height of our needed image by the number of frames (math again, 38 * 20 = 760), and we create our image of 38x760 pixels. Every 38 pixels down, this will be a new frame. As a good analogy, the image would be similar to a roll of film, where equal sized frames (images) are a stacked vertically within the large image. For example, a local ISP called ReliaNet in Ogden, Utah, might want their logo installed into Internet Explorer, using the following animation :

For the small logo, the same image would be resized to 22x440 pixels (again, more math, at 22 * 20 = 440).

Once our animated images are ready to go, we need to make a registry modification. This requires running a registry editing tool, such as regedit, and browsing to the appropriate key.

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar]

Create two new string values, or modify the existing values, named 'SmBrandBitmap' and 'BrandBitmap' and set their values to equal the full filename of the small (22 pixel) image and large (38 pixel) image respectively.


When we create the non-animated logo's, we create a logo similar to our animated logo's that is only 1 frame, or exactly 38x38 pixels or 22x22 pixels. This image is used when the application is idle. The registry key we use to enable these logo's is :

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]

In here, we create two string values named 'SmallBitmap' and 'BigBitmap', and set the values to equal the filenames of the images.

In order to return to the default logo's for Internet Explorer, open up the registry keys :

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Toolbar]

Delete the 'BrandBitmap' and 'SmBrandBitmap' string values. This will remove the animated logo!

Open up the registry key :

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]

and delete the 'SmallBitmap' and 'BigBitmap" values from the key. This will delete the idle logo's!.

Restart Internet Explorer or Outlook Express for the change to take effect.