http://boothack.xaker.ru/

(click on Progress for the tasty info)

This basically means that the boot screen can now be completely customized. The only limit is that it's still 16 colors (though the palette can be arbitrarily changed) and it's still VGA 640x480, which means anything too graphical-intensive will lag.

I'm looking for ideas to add a quick animation (the boot screen is displayed maximum 5 seconds on modern computers).

This should work on all versions/service packs of Windows XP, though I still have to figure out how to make an universal patcher.

http://www.stardock.com/products/bootskin/

been out for ages

edit oops this thing looks different.. but I doubt it's real..

thats nice.. is that pascal? but how it is completely customizable this i dont understand.. because the bitmap is found inside NTOSKRNL.EXE and its a bitmap resource.. how would you let NTOSKRNL.EXE run a script instead? but its a very nice idea.. good luck!