Customising Windows 7 Login Background

Posted by on 06 Oct 2009 by Neko with Scythe in Featured, Guides, Thoughts

Well, with Windows 7 being available in the retail channel a few weeks from now, I thought I’d do a really quick write up on how to customise your shiny new Windows 7 machine’s login screen. I’ve been running the RTM build of Windows 7 with this modification and everything’s been great so it should be relatively safe to introduce it to other peeps. =)

I can already feel the less technically oriented members in the audience cringe.

Windows 7’s login screen as compared to it’s predecessors, it much easier to customise, and way less prone errors. There’s no need to mess with fancy pants DLLs and resource hackers, or download any dubious third-party software. You can most probably skip the “bribe my geeky friend for help” bit too.

Convinced?

Here’s a really quick 10minutes run through.

start the group policy editor (gpedit.msc) using your favourite method.
go to the following branch: Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Logon
set “Always use custom logon background” to enabled.
select the image you want to use as your background. it must be of the same dimensions as your primary monitor’s desktop resolution. the filesize must be less than 256kb, must be of jpg format, and must be saved as “backgroundDefault.jpg”. take note of the case!
browse to “c:\windows\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds”. if the directories are not available, create them.
paste the image we have selected in step 4 into the directory in step 5.
Done!

For those whose head’s swimming, here’s what you are waiting for. The illustrated guide. =)

First, to run the Group Policy Editor, go to your Start Menu, and browse to “All Programs > Accessories > Run”. Click on it.
When that’s done, fill in the phrase “gpedit.msc”, and click “ok” as shown below.
Group Policy Editor will launch. Using the left panel, browse to “Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > System > Logon”. This is what you’ll see.
Double click on “Always use custom logon background”. A dialog will pop up, select “Enabled” then click “ok”. Congratulations! You have applied the settings. Now time to load in the actual image.
To prepare your image, we would need to know the desktop resolution of your primary monitor. Clear your desktop, and right click on it. Choose “Screen resolution” as shown below.
The screen resolution dialog will pop up. Take note of the resolution settings for your monitor. For my case, my monitor is set to 1024pixels in height, and 768pixels in width. Now, make sure the background image you have selected or created is of that exact resolution, of filesize not more than 256kb, and is of jpg format.
Using the same method we used for the Run dialog(step 1), we shall start the windows explorer, as shown below.
Browse to “c:\windows\system32\oobe\”. Click on “New folder” to create a new folder.
You’ll most probably get prompted to give permission to modify the folder. Click continue.
Enter “info” as the new folder name, and press enter. Now, repeat stem 8,9,10 for “c:\windows\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds\”.
When you are done creating the folders, place the image you have created into the “c:\windows\system32\00be\info\backgrounds\” folder. Remember to make sure the filename is the same as shown in the picture. Logout to review your handiwork! You are done. =)