If you want to customize your computer during Windows startup or during its closure, in this guide I will show you how to customize the login and block screen on Windows 7, 8.1 and 10.
This will give us the opportunity to change the background by choosing between the images provided by the operating system itself, or insert an image to our liking, to be shown at each PC startup directly in the login screen.
Customize login screen on Windows 10 and 8.1
For computer owners with Windows 10 or 8.1 installed, the procedure to follow is as follows:
Open the Start menu, type in “Settings” and click on it.
In the window that opens, click on “Personalization”, then on “Lock screen”.
Here you can choose which image to appear on the lock screen (when you lock the PC) among the backgrounds already present in the system. Alternatively, you can use a solid color or a slideshow of images as an alternative (you can choose what to display in the drop-down menu under “Background”).
To add a custom image, click “Browse” under the “Choose your image” section and browse through your PC folders until you find the image that interests you.
If we want to make the image and the settings of the start and lock screen the same, activate the “Show the background image of the lock screen in the login screen” item.
In order to make these changes, make sure that Windows 10 is regularly activated by license; otherwise, it will not be possible to customize it.
How to change the login and lock screen on Windows 7
Method 1
If you want to change the background of the login and lock screen on a PC running Windows 7 (this method also works on Windows 8.1 and 10), you can use a program like Logon Changer, very easy to use and available for download …
Download the program and install it (the installation may require the additional installation of the .NET Framework 3.5 during the installation.
Once the installation is complete, start the program. An interface will appear with your current login background and a series of buttons, which perform the following functions …
- “Change Logon Screen”, with which to set a new image in the login and unlock screen;
- “Test”, button that takes you back to the operating system login, to see how the changed image looks;
- “Revert to Default Logon Screen”, to reset the original default image.
To change your background image on the screen, click on “Change Logon Screen”. If the image is too large for Windows standards, a copy of the image will automatically be created and adapted to the right resolution of the PC. When the image is correctly applied, a confirmation message will appear with the words “New Logon Background Successfully Installed”.
Method 2
For those who are more familiar with the computer and want to modify the windows startup screen without using third-party software, you can follow this procedure. The phases of which it is composed are two, one that foresees the modification of a value of the windows registry and the second one the loading of an image in a specific folder.
Step 1: Change value in the Windows registry
First of all, we need to modify a single value of the Windows registry by starting the System Log Editor. To do this, press “Start”, type ” regedit ” and then press Enter. In the Registry Editor, access the following key …
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background
In the right pane, you will find the “OEMBackground” entry. If it is not present, you can create it by right clicking, “New” and then “DWORD Value (32 bit)” and then naming the new value “OEMBackground”.
Returning to us, on the “OEMBackground” value, set the value to “1” in the “Value data” box, then click “OK”.
Note: if a new theme is selected in the “Appearance and customization” window, the value of the newly modified key will return to 0 and therefore you will have to perform this registry modification again.
Step 2: Loading the background image
The image to be loaded as a background, to be optimal, must respect 2 rules …
- Have a size less than 256 KB, so it may be necessary to compress the image in JPG format.
- Use an image that has the same resolution as your monitor so that it is not stretched or distorted.
Windows searches for the background image in a specific folder …
C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds
If this does not exist, you will need to create this folder and load the image into it, making sure to rename it “backgroundDefault.jpg”.
You won’t have to do anything else. Now, every time you turn on or turn off the computer, the image you set will appear as a lock screen.