I think what happened is that your web browser opened on a 404 error page instead of a list of skins. That's because the web site was reorganized but BootSkin was not updated to use the new URL for that list. Fortunately there is a simple workaround to fix that.
The old URL is built into BootSkin.exe but fortunately the new URL is exactly the same length and changing it doesn't break the program.
- Find a hex editor and install it,
- Make a copy of BootSkin.exe
- Open the copy with the editor.
- Find "https://www.wincustomize.com/skins.asp?library=32" at these points:
version 1.05: 81028 [HEX 1C384] - 1.02: 76224 [HEX 129C0] - 1.03: 76248 [HEX 129D8]
- Replace it with "https://www.wincustomize.com/explore/bootskins_xp"
- Save your change and close the editor.
- Make sure it is still exactly the right length. [1.05: 270,336 bytes - 1.03 and 1.02: 262,144 bytes]
- Run and test your copy to make sure you didn't break it.
- Check that your skin is in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\BootScreen\Parameters; REG_SZ INIPath.
[e.g. C:\Program Files\Stardock\WinCustomize\BootSkin\Skins\TestEdition\BootSkin.ini]
- Move your original BootSkin.exe to the "skins" or "url" folder [if you want to keep a backup].
- Put your updated copy in place [or rename it if you copied it as "Copy of BootSkin.exe" in the same folder].
Of course, you could just let BootSkin take you to the error page and go to "BootSkins XP" in the site's "Explore" menu. This would just save you that step and should be pretty safe because it puts the skin location into the registry using Windows' own system call, so there's no way it can corrupt your registry.
