Windows 7 Supports Login Screen Customization Without 3rd Party Software, How-to Instructions Inside

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Did you know? Windows 7 allows you to easily change the background of login screen, so you can use any of your favorite wallpaper as login screen background without using any 3rd party software.

How to do that? Just follow these simple steps:

1. Type regedit in RUN or Startmenu search box and press Enter. It'll open Registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

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

3. Now in right-side pane, change value of OEMBackground to 1

Enable_Custom_Login_Backgrounds_in_.png

PS: You can use following ready-made registry script to enable custom login backgrounds, no need to manually apply the hack using 1-3 steps:

Download Registry Script

4. Now go to following folder:

%windir%\System32\oobe

Here %windir% represents "Windows" folder present in the system drive where Windows 7 is installed.

5. Create a new folder "info" inside oobe folder. Then again create a new folder "backgrounds" inside info folder. So the final path would be:

%windir%\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds

6. Now copy any desired wallpaper to this new "backgrounds" folder but following conditions must be followed:

  • The image name must be backgroundDefault.jpg.
  • The image size must be less than 256 KB.
  • The image format must be JPG.

Copy_Custom_Login_Backgrounds_in_Wi.png

7. That's it. Once you copy the wallpaper to "backgrounds" folder, your Windows 7 login screen will start using this new wallpaper as background. You can check the new login screen background by logging off or locking Windows.

Custom_Login_Background_in_Win_7.png

PS: You can also use custom sized images based upon your screen resolution with the following names:

  • backgroundDefault.jpg
  • background768x1280.jpg (0.6)
  • background900x1440.jpg (0.625)
  • background960x1280.jpg (0.75)
  • background1024x1280.jpg (0.8)
  • background1280x1024.jpg (1.25)
  • background1024x768.jpg (1.33-)
  • background1280x960.jpg (1.33-)
  • background1600x1200.jpg (1.33-)
  • background1440x900.jpg (1.6)
  • background1920x1200.jpg (1.6)
  • background1280x768.jpg (1.66-)
  • background1360x768.jpg (1.770833-)

NOTE: The backgroundDefault.jpg image is loaded and stretched-to-fit when a resolution/ratio-specific background cannot be found. If the background cannot be loaded (e.g. image physically too large, incorrect ratio, etc.), the default image is loaded from imagesres.dll file.

Also check How to Customize Windows 7 Login Screen Text and Button Set.

If you want to use a free tool to customize Windows 7 login screen, check following list:

Ultimate Collection of the Best Free Tools to Customize Windows 7 Login Screen

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