Brand a device (Industry 8.1)
7/8/2014
Review the branding elements that can be changed on your Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry (Industry 8.1) device.
You can suppress almost all Windows brand elements in Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry (Industry 8.1), and replace many elements with your own corporate brand elements. By default, devices that run the Industry 8.1 OS display identifiable Windows 8.1 UI elements such as startup and shutdown screens, the Windows 8.1 Welcome screen, the Explorer shell, dialog boxes, and so on.
You can download a large-scale technical poster that describes how to add and configure lockdown and branding features in your Industry 8.1 operating system.
Change branding elements
The following table shows how you can change the branding.
UI element |
To change the branding |
|---|---|
Active shell sessions |
Use Shell Launcher to launch any application as a shell instead of the standard Windows 8.1. You can also launch different applications for different users or user groups. For more information, see Shell Launcher. |
BitLocker screen |
To hide this screen, turn BitLocker off. In Control Panel, tap or click System and Security > BitLocker Drive Encryption > Suspend protection. |
Block Shutdown Resolver Screen (BSDR) |
Configure custom sign-in settings to suppress the Blocked Shutdown Resolver (BSDR) screen and automatically end applications while the OS waits for applications to close before a shutdown. For more information, see Custom Logon. |
Firmware startup screen |
This screen is customizable by the firmware manufacturer. You cannot customize this screen by using Industry 8.1 because the OS is not loaded yet at this point. |
Lock screen |
Use Keyboard Filter to block the Windows logo key+L key combination that brings up the lock screen. For more information about Keyboard Filter, see Keyboard Filter. |
Operating system selection screen |
Set the default OS and then set the startup timeout value to 0 (zero) to hide this screen. Change these values by using the BCDEdit /default and BCDEdit /timeout commands. For more information about BCDEdit, download BCDEdit Commands for Boot Environment in the Microsoft Download Center. |
Startup branding |
You can suppress Windows 8.1 elements that appear when Industry 8.1 starts or resumes. You can suppress the crash screen when Industry 8.1 encounters an error that it cannot recover from. For more information, see Unbranded Boot. |
Windows dialog boxes |
Use Dialog Filter to prevent undesirable dialog boxes and pop-up windows from displaying on the screen. For more information, see Dialog Filter. |
Windows Security screen |
Use Keyboard Filter to block the Ctr+Alt+Delete key combination that brings up the Windows Security screen. |
Windows Welcome screen |
Configure sign-in settings to suppress all elements of the UI. You can also provide a custom credential provider to modify the sign-in UI. For more information, see Custom Logon. |
Windows Store app |
Configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to start a Windows Store app immediately after a user signs in to a Windows Embedded 8.1 Industry (Industry 8.1) device and restart the app when the app exits. You can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to launch different apps for different users. If the Windows Store app is written specifically to work with Windows 8 Application Launcher, you can configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to perform a specified action based on an exit value returned by the app. For example, you could configure Windows 8 Application Launcher to shut down or restart the device when the app exits. For more information about Windows 8 Application Launcher, see Windows 8 Application Launcher. |