Change the Login Screen UI Background in Windows 7

I FINALLY figured it out how to do it... when I got my laptop from dell it had a real neat chrome looking background, but then i did a reinstall of windows... after seeing the awful blue butterfly default 7 background I decided it would be my quest to figure out how to change it for myself some credit to Rafael Rivera for figuring out the last piece i needed (the background image has to have a specific name). but anyway on to the exciting stuff!

1. make sure you have the following path: "C:/Windows/System32/oobe/Info/Backgrounds" (the /Info/Background part may need to be created, make sure you are logged in as an admin.)

2. Put the image you want in the Backgrounds folder, the image must be a JPEG format and a supported resolution (see list at bottom)

3. Rename the image to backgroundDefault.jpg

4. Now the technical part starts... open up regedit.exe and navigate to "Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background"
add the key "OEMBackground" this is a DWORD value and should be set to "1"

EDIT: Okay so i decided to add this in for those who aren't as tech savvy and don't trust themselves with the almighty registry editor... download this file and just double click on it... it will add the registry file for you and you can completely skip over step 4

5. Restart your computer and enjoy the awesome


SUPPORTED IMAGE RESOLUTIONS:
must be less than 256 KB
768x1280
900x1440
960x1280
1024x1280
1280x1024
1024x768
1280x960
1600x1200
1440x900
1920x1200
1280x768
1360x768

You're my hero

lol thank you sir i try my best

The MacGuffin wrote:
You're my hero

<3

did you do it?

Yar, changed.

I even got rid of that pesky windows 7 logo.

i don't really see that as pesky... where do you change that btw?

You need the beta to Resource hacker (actually an install this time) and edit this file:

C:\Windows\Branding\Basebrd\basebrd.dll

You can just delete the bitmaps, I have and there's no side effects of doing so.

maybe i'll make my own brandings!

Go for it.

Don't forget the transparency.

yah turns out its harder than i thought... (bitmaps don't agree with transparency very well...)

GIMP!
There's hundreds of tutorials floating around on the interwebs.

yeah theres something about 256 indexed color... photoshop wasn't being very helpful

You see, it's for the more technical atmosphere where GIMP overpowers Photoshop.

For instance, .dll bitmapping.

okay true... but there are still so many things about gimp i don't like

Yeah, like the terrible navigation.

well its pretty much the same stuff i don't like in photoshop... except in photoshop theres easy workarounds

Okay, then try paint.net next time you're on your windows partition.