Windows Valley

by

Ramesh Kumar

How to change Welcome/Logon screen background

Surprised ! but its true. Now you can change Welcome/logon screen’s background in Windows 7 and its supported officially. Microsoft has made a change to customize or ability to load JPG images as background of the welcome/logon screen without using any third party software.

Windows 7 Welcome Screen

Although the functionality was designed for ease of OEMs to set their own backgrounds to Welcome/logon screen. It can be done by changing few registry settings and you can set your own background.

How To:

  1. Run Registry Editor and navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background
  2. Now create a DWORD value called OEMBackground and set it to 1
  3. Now copy your image file (JPG file) into %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds and rename it to backgroundDefault.jpg (By default info & backgrounds folders don’t exist, so create them)

NOTE: Image must be less than 256kb in size.

Applies To:

  • Windows 7 Ultimate
  • Windows 7 Enterprise
  • Windows 7 Professional
  • Windows 7 Home Premium
  • Windows 7 Home Basic

33 responses to “How to change Welcome/Logon screen background”

  1. priyank Avatar
    priyank

    hey there is only default in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE..
    nothing software….

    Reply
  2. Steve Avatar
    Steve

    I did as written above and it only changed the Login Window and not the Windows Starting Screen. Please advise!

    Reply
  3. sandip shaw Avatar
    sandip shaw

    I tried whatever was suggested here, still I’m not able to get it done. But I found the instructions were not pretty much clear.

    First, what do you mean by ” create a DWORD “…. when I accessed the registry path, I found one OEMBackground all ready existing with a value of ‘0’ | Should I delete the existing one and create a new one with same name string and then change the value ?

    Second, the default MS Windows background image file size is 2.25Mb. So, why do we have to put a file ” less than 256kb in size. ”

    Third, should I leave the default MS Windows background image inside the folder as it was or can we delete it?

    I’m expecting some descriptive answer to light up the dark side of my understanding.

    Thanks and regards,
    Sandip.

    Reply
  4. K-RoK Avatar
    K-RoK

    OEMBackground already exists, but value is set to 0, I set it to 1 and worked like a charm

    Reply
  5. Jonty Agra Avatar
    Jonty Agra

    thanx..it works…… <3

    Reply
  6. randall Avatar
    randall

    it works i just did it

    Reply
  7. Clay Avatar
    Clay

    I can’t get this to work. I am running Windows 7 ultimate 64-bit. Any help would be appreciated because the original screens are quite disappointing.

    Reply
    1. Admin Avatar
      Admin

      Did you follow the steps as instructed? What was the size of file?

  8. Tom Avatar
    Tom

    Great, Thanks!!!

    Reply
  9. gaurav Avatar
    gaurav

    i created the file but then also when i am pasting the inage that i want on the start up screne , it is saying that the folder does not exist …
    pls help ..

    Reply
    1. Author Avatar
      Author

      Create info & backgrounds folders manually, if they don’t exist.

  10. asharib Avatar
    asharib

    hey i cant find the file :
    %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds

    plz help!!!

    Reply
    1. Author Avatar
      Author

      Go to C:WindowsSystem32oobe and then create info & backgrounds. By default these two folders don’t exist, so create them.

    2. Jonty Agra Avatar
      Jonty Agra

      dis is not a default folder ….creat dem…

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