When you login to your Windows 7 computer (assuming you haven’t
used something like this tutorial to turn on automatic login), you’ll generally
see a login window with a background looking something like this.
set pic
It’s fine; there’s nothing wrong with it. But sometimes a change is good so
in this article we’ll show you how to change the background image behind the
login screen to anything you want.
The first step is to open up the Start Menu by clicking the orb in the lower
left corner of the screen.
Now, in the Start Menu search box, type regedit, to open up the Registry
Editor.
When the Registry Editor appears in the Start Menu, click the Enter key to
launch it. You should see a window like this.
Now, right-click on the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE folder, and choose
the Find option.
The search window will appear so perform a search for OEMBackground.
It will eventually be found under
Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background
(you could navigate there directly, but the search function is probably quicker
than typing all that into the path bar.
Note: it’s possible that OEMBackground doesn’t exist on your system; if this
is the case, adding a new DWORD value with the name of OEMBackground will fix
things.
Once you can see the OEMBackground entry, double click to reveal its
properties, and change the value from 0 (the default) to 1 (which will allow us
– or the computer’s OEM as intended – to change the login screen background).
Once this is finished you can close the Registry Editor and open up Windows
Explorer. We want to go to %windir%\system32\oobe, so enter that into the path
bar.
You’ll now need to create an info folder (all lowercase), and then a new
folder, named backgrounds (also lowercase), inside the info folder. Depending
on your computer’s OEM, you may find these folders already exist and may
already have images in them, placed there by Dell or HP or IBM, etc.
Now simply select a favorite wallpaper. It should be in JPG format and less
than 245 KB in size (and ideally the exact dimensions of your display to avoid
stretching). Name this image backgroundDefault.jpg and place it in the
backgrounds folder.
You can now restart, lock your screen or logout to see your new login
screen.
Congratulations! This isn’t the simplest process, and isn’t as
simple as using a program like Windows 7 Logon Background Changer, but if you
want to get into the particulars regarding what programs like that are doing,
this is a good way to go, if a bit more complex.