Easily change your Logon Background in Windows 7!
Rafael from WithinWindows has done it again. He has discovered a new logon UI background customization trick that Microsoft has put in Windows 7 for OEMs. It requires a registry change and a few folder changes but does it without the need of any third party tools or hacks.
This does require a bit of work to get it working. First of all you’ll have to enable the functionality in the registry by creating ( if missing ) a DWORD value named OEMBackground in HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background and enable its value to 1 or to 0 if you want to disable the functionality. Or you can just use this registry file I created, to quickly enable it.
After you’re done, you’ll have to check if this location exists in you Windows installation %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds. If not, create it. Than use an image which is the same size as your desktop resolution and use the following file names, depending on the resolution of your image.
- backgroundDefault.jpg
- background768×1280.jpg (0.6)
- background900×1440.jpg (0.625)
- background960×1280.jpg (0.75)
- background1024×1280.jpg (0.8)
- background1280×1024.jpg (1.25)
- background1024×768.jpg (1.33-)
- background1280×960.jpg (1.33-)
- background1600×1200.jpg (1.33-)
- background1440×900.jpg (1.6)
- background1920×1200.jpg (1.6)
- background1280×768.jpg (1.66-)
- background1360×768.jpg (1.770833-)
If your resolution isn’t present in this list, don’t worry. Windows will pick a resolution closest to your desktop resolution. Also, keep in mind that the image must be less than 256kb in size.
Now, lets see if and when Rafael finds a method to customize the Windows 7 boot screen. 
Subscribe to our RSS feed to stay updated with our latest blog posts!
Join our Facebook fanpage or follow us on Twitter to stay up to date on all things different about Microsoft, Apple and the Internet.
March 16, 2009 - 10:25 am
How to : Easily change your Logon Background in Windows 7! http://tinyurl.com/c9ege9
March 16, 2009 - 8:05 pm
256k isn’t very big for a high resolution image, what’s the reason for the limit?
March 16, 2009 - 8:07 pm
Larger images could potentially slow down your startup. Maybe that’s why they’ve put such a limit.
I’ll actually try to find out why from some Microsoftie.
June 1, 2009 - 1:45 am
I reckon it may be to prevent OEM’s from filling the logon background with random junk, multiple logos and the like.
It’s a shame logon screens will vary between OEMs, but the 256K limit should ensure that no OEM is able to make a particularly awful background and ruin the UX!
March 17, 2009 - 5:14 pm
Easily change your Logon Background in #Windows7 : http://tinyurl.com/c9ege9 [no 3rd party tools or hacking, just a bit of work]