GP #LifeHacks 106: Change the Dynamics GP Splash Screen

Changing the Dynamics GP Splash Screen is not only fun and cool (yeah, I said it!) but it is very useful as well!
If you are not familiar with a splash screen, Wikipedia describes it like this:
A splash screen is a graphical control element consisting of a window containing an image, a logo, and the current version of the software. A splash screen usually appears while a game or program is launching.
Ok, not bad… so the GP Splash Screen looks like this:

So how do we change it? And what is so cool about it? Keep reading and I will walk you through the steps.

I am not 100% sure how I learned how to do this… I am, however, 100% certain that I did not figure it out own my own. Given that, I looked through my bookmarks and found a link to this article by David Musgrave. I feel certain this his post had something to do with the birth of this LifeHack. Dave is a friend of mine so I will give him credit – not all of it, just some 😊 (I vaguely remember reading about this in one of my old Accolade Books, couldn’t find it, but I think it was in there too). If others have posted about this – share the links with me, I’d love to put them in my bookmarks.
By default, the file splash.bmp is NOT in the application folder – C:Program Files (x86)Microsoft DynamicsGP 2018 (or something very similar – this is the location the Dynamics.exe file is located in).
Again, by default, the file SPLASH.BMP is NOT there… but, if you put one there, Dynamics GP will use that file instead of the native splash screen. It really is that easy!
From my experimenting, the BMP file has to be around 490X280 in pixel count… I can’t confirm this but it’s close. I’ve tried some splash screens from previous versions and they change a little so I am sticking to that estimate. If anyone knows the exact size, let me know!
If your image is larger than the space allowed for the splash screen, it gets truncated (not resized) from the top left, out and down. So, for example, I made a new splash screen 1.5x its original size and then launched GP – this is what it looks like:

If you want to revert to the standard GP splash screen, just rename the splash.bmp to something else or delete it all together.

Good Uses for this?

Now, there are some definite fun uses I can see with this, especially surrounding April Fool’s day or just with someone you like to good around with on a regular basis (hey, don’t blame me!) but we will leave those to our imagination (Post comments if you have some good/fun ideas).
As for practical uses, consider doing this on a Test or DEV environment… Or perhaps use your company logo instead… just to have the software launch with a more ‘internal’ look and feel.

I hope this helpful and that maybe you can have a little fun with it too!
Thanks for reading!
Shawn