Change the logon screen in Windows 7

So, everyday, in the morning, you get up, freshen up, and think, how great it would have been if someone served me a cup of coffee. What a great start it would be! What if your Windows 7 computer/laptop does the same to you? Of-course, with the current technology, it could neither make you any coffee or serve you anything. Yet, it could greet you a good morning or a simple hello, whenever you turn it on, with a nice Logon Screen.


Q.So what actually is a logon screen?
Ans.A logon screen is the screen in which you click the account thumbnail you want your Windows PC to log into. 

In this simple tutorial, we would learn how to change that default boring background of it to some cool/sci-fi/whacky/custom image that we could chose. A bit of change, may sometime please us. So, let's get started.


Method  1: Manual Method

Step 1: Open Run(Win+R) and type "regedit" without the quotes.

Step 2: Right click on HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE and select Find.

Step 3: Search for "OEMBackground", which should be in Computer/HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE/SOFTWARE/Microsoft/WindowsCurrentVersion/Authentication/LogonUIBackground. If the key does not exist, add a new DWORD value with the name OEMBackground.

Step 4: Double click on the entry OEMBackground, and change the value from 0 to 1.

Step 5: Open Windows Explorer and go to the following path: "%windir%system32oobe."

Step 6: Create a new folder named "info", and open it.

Step 7: Create a new folder within info named "backgrounds".

Step 8: Rename your desired wallpaper as "backgroundDefault.jpg" and place it inside the folder backgrounds (images must be less than 245KB in size).

Method 2: Via Third Party Software

If you are uncomfortable with manually tinkering with the registry -- or simply have better things to be doing with your time -- we understand. Various third-party applications can change Windows 7's default logon wallpaper, but our personal favorite is Tweak.com's Logon Changer.

The software is ridiculously easy to use, doesn't require installation, and it even has built-in tools to automatically resize and recompress your images while leaving the original file untouched. The Logon Changer also lets you quickly change your logon wallpaper back to the Windows 7 default.

That should pull off the trick we are trying to do. Just log off or reboot your PC to test. Sit back, and relax!