How do I change the Windows 7 boot animation?

Solution 1:

I believe this is what you're after: http://www.coderforlife.com/projects/win7boot/

If you want some examples of what you can do, these are some of the better replacement animations readily available:

http://zangio.deviantart.com/art/Win7-Boot-Animation-STARGATE-189992814

http://die77.deviantart.com/art/Laptop-ed-win7-bootscreen-188894205

http://zangio.deviantart.com/art/Win7-Boot-Animation-7spiral-189458286?q=sort%3Atime+gallery%3Azangio&qo=4

http://zangio.deviantart.com/art/Win7-Boot-Animation-ACDC-190250214

http://zangio.deviantart.com/art/Win7-Boot-Animation-sliding-7-188125276

http://fnxrak.deviantart.com/art/Windows-8-BootScreen-193989599?q=in%3Acustomization%2Fskins%2Fwindows7%20sort%3Atime%20boot&qo=0

http://ozzy8031.deviantart.com/art/Glow-Windows7-Boot-Replacement-186155298?q=boost%3Apopular%20in%3Acustomization%2Fskins%2Fwindows7%20boot&qo=1

If you want to make your own the program is pretty flexible but the one main requirement is making sure your animation contains 105 frames. You can of course use duplicates if you can't come up with that many unique frames of animation.

Solution 2:

The only tool I know so far that can do it is TuneUp Utilities 2010 (which btw, is also a nice tool to keep your Windows 7 stable and cleaned).

It's possible that other tools will start to emerge. However the official Microsoft position was stated long ago (bottom of the page). So any solution will only be presented in the shape of third-party tools and most likely Microsoft will never provide a direct way for you to do it.