Ever wanted to change the default background of the Windows 7 logon screen? It is easier than you might imagine. While there are loads of 3rd party tools out there that will do this, and more, we’ve got a nice technique that won’t require you to install any additional software at all.

All you have to do is change a single registry value and put an image file in the correct location. You can set any image you like as your logon screen. To change Windows 7 logon screen, please follow these steps:

Step 1: Enable Custom Backgrounds

Firstly, to enable the background of the logon screen to be changed, we need to make a change in the registry editor. Click your Start button and type in regedit and press enter.

Navigate to: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

Here you’ll hopefully see an DWORD value named OEMBackground. If it isn’t there then you’ll need to create it – right-click in the right hand pane and choose New. Create a new DWORD value and call it OEMBackground.

Double click on the DWORD and set its value to 1.

Step 2: Select A Background Image

Windows will look for your background image in C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds – by default the info folder won’t exist, so create it inside of the oobe folder, open it up and then create a backgrounds folder. Place the image that you want to have as the background inside of here. For best results try to use an image which is the same size as your screen resolution so that it doesn’t get stretched or distorted. It is important to note that the maximum allowed size of the image is 256kb.

That’s all there is to it – the image will be the background for the logon screen with immediate effect, you don’t even need to restart your computer. If you are following the steps while reading this then press the Windows logo key+L to lock your screen and you’ll see the background image is the one you have selected.