Change The Windows 7 Logon Background

Windows 7 comes packed with a lot of new and interesting backgrounds. However Windows 7 fails to include an easy way to change the background you see every single time you login to your computer. Perhaps you want a little flavor, or maybe you just don’t like the built-in background. Whatever the case may be, with this groovy trick you can change the background for both your Windows 7 logon screen and the menu you see whenever you hit CTRL+ALT+DEL .


A few things to note about your background image

Windows will only recognize an image of the following resolutions:

768×1280
960×1280
900×1440
1024×768
1024×1280
1280×768
1280×960
1280×1024
1360×768
1440×900
1600×1200
1920×1200

Any image used as a background must be smaller than 256 KB in file size, regardless of resolution. The image used must be saved in .jpg format.

Okay… that handles the fine print, lets get started.

How To Change The WIndows 7 Logon Background And CTRL+ALT+DEL Menu Background

1. On your Start Menu, Type in regedit and Press Enter or Click the regedit program shortcut.



2. Once you are in the registry editor, browse to

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

Double-Click the key OEMBackground and change the value from 0 to 1.




3. Do the same thing for the registry key found at

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

You may have to create the key, to do so Right-Click Anywhere on the window, and then Click New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. Name the key UseOEMBackground then Double-Click the key like before, and Change the value to 1.




4. Save the image you want to C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds and name it backgroundDefault.jpg

If the location does not exist, read below.



4.b The info and background folders may not exist, and in that case you will need to create both of them. Simply Click the New Folder button, and Name the first one Info and then go into it. Now inside of the info folder, create a new folder again and Name it backgrounds.



All done!

Now both your logon and your Ctrl+Alt+Del menu should have the background you selected. To test it just logout or Press Ctrl+Alt+Del.