Change the Windows 7 logon screen wallpaper

Nearly everyone who works on a computer likes to customize his or her experience. Whether it's about productivity or merely cosmetic, we like to change things to suit our work habits and tastes. alas, we can make very few changes to the logon screen through the normal Windows interface.However, if you know where to look and aren't afraid to make a few Registry tweaks; you can customize the Windows logon screen.(all credit to Greg Shultz). As always, backup your registry before you make any change to it.


Unlike in some previous versions of Windows, Microsoft built-in the ability to change logon screen wallpaper so that it would be easier for OEMs to customize Windows 7 for their customers.End users and IT pros can use this same trick. Perhaps you want to put your company's logon on the logon screen or a picture of your family or your pet or me.


1. Open Regedit in the Search box. Then, select the appropriate result and press [Enter].
if User Account Control pops up, click the Yes button.



2. locate and right-click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE key and select the Find command.
type OEMBackground in the text box and make sure that only the Values check box is
selected.

find the following key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

3. locate and double-click the OEMBackground value. When you see the Edit DWORD dialog
box, change the value data from 0 to 1.

(If the OEMBackground value doesn't exist in the Background key, you'll need to create
it by pulling down the Edit menu from that key and select New | DWORD (32-bit) Value.)

4. Click OK to close the Edit DWORD dialog box, and then close the Registry Editor.

After editing the Registry, you'll need to create a couple of folders.

5. To begin, launch Windows Explorer. Then navigate to the C:\Windows\System32\Oobe folder.

6. Once you access the Oobe folder, click the New Folder button in the Windows Explorer toolbar. Click Continue in the confirmation dialog box and name the new folder "info."


7. Now, open the info folder, click the New Folder button again and name the second new folder backgrounds.

8. Pick an image for your new logon screen wallpaper. Any image can be used, but there are a few requirements.

(a) It must be in JPG format
(b) The file can't be larger than 256K
(c) Its dimensions should match your current screen resolution
(d) you must name the file backgroundDefault.jpg


9. Copy this image to the Windows\System32\Oobe\info\backgrounds folder, you'll encounter a confirmation dialog box. Click Continue to complete the process.


10. You may find that the shadowing on the logon screen buttons and text doesn't really work with your new background. This also can be changed..Microsoft made it easy to adjust or disable the text and button shadows to accommodate your particular image with another quick registry tweak.

11. relaunch the

Registry Editor and navigate to the key: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI

12. Once you open the LogonUI folder, create a new DWORD value called ButtonSet. You can then configure the shadow by setting the value data to one of the following numbers:

0 -- Light shadow

1 -- Dark shadow

2 -- No shadow

and thats it.

Also, if you ever want to go back to the logon screen's original wallpaper, you can reverse the steps outlined. or simply rename your image file to anything other than backgroundDefault. Both of these should do the trick.