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By cpremo

How to Change Windows 7 Logon Screen Background

This Document will show you how to set a Windows 7 PCs initial Login screen so it will display your Corporate Login image. Thesesettings will ensure that user changes to the Windows environment wont change your Login Screen.

Figure 1 shows a normal Windows 7 login screen background. The Windows users can easily change the User Icon image via theuser interface for changing the logon screen user icon. However, Windows 7 doesnt have a built-in Logon changer for customizing andchanging logon background.

Figure 1

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The Windows 7 logon background image is in the Windows System32\OOBE file folder

C:\Windows\System32\oobe\\

called background.bmp (1024 x 768 pixels in size). You cannot change the logon screen imageby just renaming the default background wallpaper and copying a new background image into theoobe folder. If you try to rename the default login screen image background.bmp, you receive an error message (Figure 2).

Figure 2

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The following instructions give you a work-around that will allow you to change the Windows 7logon background.

1. From the Windows 7 start menu search text field enter regedit (Figure 3) and press Enter toopen the Windows 7 Registry Editor.

Figure 3

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The User Account Control (UAC) prompts for permission (Figure 4) to execute the RegistryEditor program. Click on the Yes button to allow the Windows Registry tool to open.

Figure 4

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2. Path to following the Windows 7 registry location.

Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

If an OEMBackground DWORD entry already exists (Figure 5), set the value of OEMBackground to 1. If not, Right-Click on theBackground folder and select new DWORD. Set the name to OEMBackground and its value to 1 as shown in the belowscreenshot. After changing the OEMBackground setting, you can close the Windows 7 registry tool.

Figure 5

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3. You now need to create two folders to store the background image you will use to set Logonbackground for Windows 7.

a. Info folder. Open the C:\Windows\System32\Oobe folder and create a new file foldernamed Info (Figure 6). NOTE: You need to confirm this operation by selecting Continue button (Figure 7).

Figure 7

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b. backgrounds folder. Now create a folder called backgrounds inside the Info folder. NOTE: You need to confirm this operation by selecting Continue button (Figure 7).

4. Copy the image you want to use as the logon background to theC:\Windows\System32\Oobe \Info\Backgrounds folder and rename it asbackgrounddefault.jpg. NOTE: You need to confirm this operation by selecting Continuebutton (Figure 8).

Figure 8

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5. From the Windows 7 start menu search text field enter GRPEDIT.MSC (Figure 9) and pressEnter to open the Windows 7 Local Group Policy Editor. Path to the Always use customlogon background setting option and change it to Enabled (Figure 9). This setting will makeit impossible for a user to reset the logon background when they change their Appearanceand Personalization settings.

Figure 9

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6. For Novell Client users, the Novell Client 2 SP1 for Windows 7 client doesnt allow you toset the UserName logon name. Even if you add it to using the Registry editor (Figure 10),when you reboot the PC it wont show unless you make the following change.

Figure 10

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Open the Windows 7 Local Group Policy Editor, by typing GRPEDIT.MSC in the search fieldand press enter. Edit the Windows Settings Security Settings Local Policies SecurityOptions Interactive logon: Do not display last user name setting to Disabled (Figure 11).

Figure 11

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After completing all above steps, you Logon graphic should hold to this new setting. Test yourconfiguration by changing an Administrators Personalize settings. Also create a user accountand change the users account Personalize settings.

Figure 12

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How to Change Windows 7 Logon Screen Background