I am looking for a way to remove that annoying watermark that lists the build number and such in windows vista beta 2 5365. Has anyone done this or know how to do this???? I am using it as my main OS just to see how it performs. I have had no stability problems yet, but i am having a problem running my games, ill figure that out though. Any help would be appreciated.

Why is this in the Customizing Windows Vista forum in the first place ? In the first place, there is a reason why Microsoft put that watermark at the bottom left of the screen. It's a BETA software and it is not meant to be removed. If you are an official tester, which posting this puts it into serious doubt, then you should know that it is strictly not legal.

PSG22

Let him do whatever he wants with the watermark dude, no need to b!tch.

Yup, there be no removing thy watermark boyo

Can't believe I just even considered typing that, let alone actually going for it..

Isn't the watermark hardcoded in?

I haven't tried it, but in XP you can add or remove it by changing a registry key. Microsoft may have changed it, and I don't know where it is located anyway.

its in registry i can remember if it hklm or hkcu but its like /desktop/paint version or somthing if i remember rightly ill look soon maybe make a reg edit for you.

that doesn't work for beta versions. there's an option you can toggle somewhere if you right click on the desktop that will hide it. It's not something like "hide watermark," but I can't remember which one it is (the menu structure is different in Vista and i'm not in it right now). uncheck "show icons" maybe?

yes ther was a way in the preivious builds but i think that microsoft patched it up right now and ther is nothing u can do about it. what i wud suggest is what y_notm said. uncheck show icons and see if that works.

cant wait to dload beta 2. i hope connect wont be hammered by other beta testers. cuz this is the only one worth dloading from connect.

Tony's right. If you uncheck "Show Desktop Icons", that's a quick solution. But if you're really that concerned about a freaking watermark, go figure...life has more important things than that.

well, i abandoned vista, i couldent get my games to run, and its not worth it to dual boot, but thank for the help.

^^ Obviously you weren't a legitamate tester anyways 0_o. People don't abandon "Beta" software - they make it better.

what do u mean it wasnt worth it to dual boot?

cuz im gonna dual boot soon with Beta2. ive waited all this time to install Vista but wanted to wait till Beta2.

so...whats the down side?

well if i can get what i want from 1 OS ill use 1 for now, ill try the next release and see if that works.

dude, it dual boots fine, i have vista beta 2 and 3 previous versions on xp quad-booted or whatever lol. this lord of war guy is just a big noob

And people reprimanded me for being a good person when I pointed out his faults .

PSG22™

I don't understand why you all have to be such d**** to him... after all, you just DID make the comment that beta's aren't dropped, they are improved... then you say that removing something is illegal. So which is it? Is it illegal to improve software now? Because I don't remember anything in the EULA that said he couldn't remove an annoying watermark from his desktop... People, if you're not going to help him, then don't even bother to comment if all you're going to do is be an ass to him. This gets to me almost as much as all of those "we're going to report you to Microsoft Security" MSDN Forum posters for using pirated software, that was FREE to begin with. Duh.

Considering he has not said he is an official BETA tester and how Neowin frowns on anything about piracy, I think it's safe to say that there are enough reasons for us to doubt and question his intentions.

PSG22™

well now that the BETA 2 is out there is no point in going on about being official as it's now public.

Right click on the desktop and click on View > then untick the box that says "Show desktop icons" that should remove it.

but it DOESN'T work if you have dual moniters like me, it only gets rid of the watermark on the primary screen