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It took a while to gleen the WEB for information on how to do this. The attached instructions will guide you through the necessary steps to set and lockdown the Windows 7 PCs login screen to your desired look. Once implemented, no matter who logs in, no user "Personalize" changes will make your Company Log or Warning Message disappear.

How to Change Windows 7 Logon Screen Background

Figure 1 shows a normal Windows 7 login screen background. The Windows users can easily change the "User Icon" image via the user interface for changing the logon screen user icon. However, Windows 7 doesn't have a built-in Logon changer for customizing and changing logon background.

Figure 1

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The Windows 7 logon background image is in the Windows System32\OOBE file folder

C:\Windows\System32\oobe\\

called background.bmp (1024 x 768 pixels in size). You cannot change the logon screen image by just renaming the default background wallpaper and copying a new background image into the oobe folder. If you try to rename the default login screen image background.bmp, you receive an error message (Figure 2).

Figure 2

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The following instructions give you a work-around that will allow you to change the Windows 7 logon background.

1. From the Windows 7 start menu search text field enter regedit (Figure 3) and press Enter to open the Windows 7 Registry Editor.
   

   Figure 3

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   The User Account Control (UAC) prompts for permission (Figure 4) to execute the Registry Editor program. Click on the "Yes" button to allow the Windows Registry tool to open.

   

   Figure 4

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2. Path to following the Windows 7 registry location.

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

   If an OEMBackground DWORD entry already exists (Figure 5), set the value of OEMBackground to 1. If not, Right-Click on the "Background" folder and select new DWORD. Set the name to OEMBackground and its value to 1 as shown in the below screenshot. After changing the OEMBackground setting, you can close the Windows 7 registry tool.

   

   Figure 5

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3. You now need to create two folders to store the background image you will use to set Logon background for Windows 7.
   
   1. Info folder. Open the C:\Windows\System32\Oobe folder and create a new file folder named Info (Figure 6). NOTE: You need to confirm this operation by selecting Continue button (Figure 7).
      

      Figure 6

      

      Figure 7

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   2. backgrounds folder. Now create a folder called backgrounds inside the Info folder. NOTE: You need to confirm this operation by selecting Continue button (Figure 7).
4. Copy the image you want to use as the logon background to the "C:\Windows\System32\Oobe \Info\Backgrounds" folder and rename it as backgrounddefault.jpg. NOTE: You need to confirm this operation by selecting Continue button (Figure 8).
   

   Figure 8

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5. From the Windows 7 start menu search text field enter GRPEDIT.MSC (Figure 9) and press Enter to open the Windows 7 Local Group Policy Editor. Path to the "Always use custom logon background" setting option and change it to Enabled (Figure 9). This setting will make it impossible for a user to "reset" the logon background when they change their "Appearance and Personalization" settings.
   

   Figure 9

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6. For Novell Client users, the "Novell Client 2 SP1 for Windows 7" client doesn't allow you to set the "UserName" logon name. Even if you add it to using the Registry editor (Figure 10), when you reboot the PC it won't show unless you make the following change.
   

   Figure 10

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   Open the Windows 7 Local Group Policy Editor, by typing GRPEDIT.MSC in the search field and press enter. Edit the Windows Settings – Security Settings – Local Policies – Security Options – Interactive logon: Do not display last user name setting to Disabled (Figure 11).

   

   Figure 11

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After completing all above steps, you Logon graphic should hold to this new setting. Test your configuration by changing an Administrator's "Personalize" settings. Also create a user account and change the user's account "Personalize" settings.

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Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.