Is there somewhere in windows 7 where I can change the lame background image for the login screen. I know there are a bunch of hacks and utilities and regedit changes and garbage like that to change it the 'hacker-way'. But seriously does windows 7 not have a built-in way to change this? Or even make it look like the standard windows xp login ie: user/pass/domain

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While I agree that it should be baked in ... What's up with the hacking-hate? – Adrien Jul 20 '11 at 19:10
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4 Answers

Reading through the search results, they actually do let you without any hacking, but it's still a bit hackerish. From this site:

Use the following Group Policy setting in Windows 7

  1. Start the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)
  2. Go to the following branch:
    Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | Logon
  3. Set the following option to Enabled
    Always use custom logon background

The next step, it says, is to copy your background into C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds\ as backgroundDefault.jpg.

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The built-in way is not exposed to users via any nice interface, but it's simple enough to do it yourself -- I wouldn't describe it as a "hacker-way".

If you want the user/pass/domain style, you can get that by enabling the group policy setting for "do not show last username". If you have Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate or Enterprise, you can change it by opening gpedit.msc from the Run box, and navigating to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options, and finding "Interactive logon: do not display last user name". If you have Windows 7 Home, you will have to change it in the registry by going to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and changing the value from 0 to 1.

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As far as I can tell there are supposedly "official ways" to change it but they still require a registry file to be run. There are also miscellaneous programs, hacks, etc. to do it but here's a little guide they claim is the "official way" to change it.

Hope this helps!

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It is a shame that it isn't a baked in feature of Windows 7.

I use the Tweaks.com Logon Changer from CNet's download.com. I like it because it will automatically resize any picture to work for your machine.

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