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63 Responses to “Change Login Background in Windows Vista”

Dan says:
July 25th, 2007 at 11:53 pm

Pfft. I see what you did there, Spike. You stole that CG image from some fantasy game concept-character or something. -Lame-.

*Wink* I’m just joking with you, man.

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Change Logon Background in Vista « Bon Echo Tech Blog 2.0 says:
July 26th, 2007 at 2:55 pm

[…] Change logon screen background in Windows Vista […]

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ophis says:
August 1st, 2007 at 4:15 pm

Perfect explanation, worked in one go here, tanks

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Leiv says:
August 5th, 2007 at 5:22 pm

thanks alot for this.
and i agree why should it be so hard changing the back ground on the log on screen…

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Brandon says:
August 6th, 2007 at 1:04 pm

It won’t let me save it, Says I need the proper permissions… What did I do wrong?

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Jake says:
August 7th, 2007 at 1:04 am

You need to take full ownership and then full permissions of the file. Google it ;)

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MR says:
August 15th, 2007 at 5:35 pm

Can you stretch over two monitors?

Right now only one monitor is showing the picure.

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Jake says:
August 15th, 2007 at 9:41 pm

Can you stretch over two monitors?

Right now only one monitor is showing the picure.

Whats the other one showing?

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Grizz0 says:
August 21st, 2007 at 12:40 pm

I found that you cannot use bitmap (.bmp) images for this. It must be a .jpg

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tevin says:
August 21st, 2007 at 1:51 pm

Yeah I did it yo but the image just came up black in lock errr.

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lordy says:
September 20th, 2007 at 4:59 pm

Nice - works a treat!

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Sri says:
December 11th, 2007 at 3:05 am

I could not find imageres.dll file

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Idetrorce says:
December 15th, 2007 at 10:16 am

very interesting, but I don’t agree with you
Idetrorce

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Martin says:
December 18th, 2007 at 7:03 am

Nice, dude!
Works like a charm! How to take ownership can be found @ http://www.joejoe.org/forum/index.php?s=5d471241bb82644bb4f9842089099f90&showtopic=6253&pid=152065&st=0&#entry152065

When having multiple monitors, the other one just shows black color ,not turned off, but black backgroundcolor :(

/Martin

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Mathew says:
December 18th, 2007 at 1:17 pm

Thanks! Worked like a charm.

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Ryan says:
December 22nd, 2007 at 1:22 am

I tried to do this and I messed something up. Now I can’t control any of my windows programs. When I need to give permission for a program to run I am not able to. I can’t run system restore or check the volume for errors. I need help please!

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V4mp says:
January 31st, 2008 at 4:03 pm

Awesome worked right away, thanks alot!

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Mads says:
February 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am

I am experiencing exactly the same problem as Ryan, which happened right after using the trick that Martin links so, so be carefull :-/

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Matt says:
February 20th, 2008 at 3:28 am

everything up to renaming imageres.dll has worked. no option to rename…?

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JerkyChew says:
February 29th, 2008 at 2:16 pm

Ryan and Mads, it sounds like you changed ownership of either your windows folder, or the system32 folder, or both. You may be boned; See if you can change the owner back to system or whoever normally owns those folders.

Worked great for me - One thing of note: You can’t delete the imageres.dll file but you can rename it. Once I renamed it I was able to save the file in reshack. Now if only there was a way to span monitors! Win2K3 spanned both monitors when locked, I hope somebody figures out a way to do it in Vista! I’m running ultramon which lets me span one image across both monitors, I wonder what would happen if I loaded up a 2560×1024 image…

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Emgey says:
February 29th, 2008 at 5:46 pm

Somehow the new imageres.dll was not saved under system32 causing me a bunch of problems, such as no access to to most control panel options, permissions, and renaming files. Safe mode seem to let me rename the original imageres.dll file to solve theses issues. After that i tried again, got it right, and it worked like a charm ^^

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depps says:
March 27th, 2008 at 6:39 pm

DO NOT DO IT PEOPLE!

This f@ked up my comp. Had to run restore disk on boot-up.

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Anonymous says:
March 28th, 2008 at 4:29 pm

@ depps, maybe you didn’t follow the instructions correctly? Works fine for me. If you’re really a slacker though and can’t hack it yourself use a program like Logonstudio Vista to change your background.

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anon says:
March 31st, 2008 at 4:04 pm

This will only screw up your PC if you do it wrong. For people who don’t know what they’re doing, you shouldn’t be screwing around in your sys32 folder to BEGIN with. Take the advice of the guy above me and install Logonstudio vista. Google it. It’s free, easy to use, and works like a charm. While the OP’s hack does work, I’d suggest Logonstudio to 99% of the people who probably have tried this and failed. It just has a few point and click options, and your done. No .dll renaming, no resource hacking, and most importantly, no way the majority of you pc-illiterate people out there can fuck up your computer.

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Floostuct says:
March 31st, 2008 at 9:50 pm

Do you know if some company use the same marketing concept as Webkinz?

I’m writing a few articles right now and want to get some info and opinions.

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Sepiraph says:
April 3rd, 2008 at 11:43 pm

Thanks for this trick, works fine.

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Stefan says:
April 4th, 2008 at 5:39 am

THIS TOOL(HACK=BUG) is bullshit. It fucks up your system. DON’T USE IT!

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Computer Club Post #1 | Breathe ‘n Stop says:
April 10th, 2008 at 3:42 am

[…] http://spikex.net/blog/2007/07/18/change-login-background-in-windows-vista/ […]

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doug says:
April 13th, 2008 at 6:11 pm

i found a program that lets you change the logon screen without all this.

http://www.download.com/1200-2018-5186348.html?tag=vtsplashpc

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ShYnE says:
April 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

This tool does not mess up your computer. These steps are perfect and will work exactly as stated. But dont try to tell people that this tool and this method do not work and that ResHack is is bullshit. Just because some of you messed your pc’s up dont mean the method dont work…it means you dont know what you are doing. PERIOD… Same for registry hacks…If you dont know what youre doing, stay away from it. If you feel comfortable that you can follow a few simple instructions, then give it a try…Key thing is to make backups of files that you attempt to change…likewise with registry keys…Quit whining people.

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b says:
April 20th, 2008 at 11:57 am

this worked fine for me, but does anyone know how to take a screen shot of the login screen?

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RRyan says:
April 26th, 2008 at 1:03 am

I fucked it up and now I am stuck with the black background.

How do I fix it?

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Greg says:
June 4th, 2008 at 1:30 pm

This worked perfectly.

I agree that it’s not for novice users; most of the folks who reportedly screwed up their PCs probably shouldn’t have been messing around with a hack like this anyway. For them, LogonStudio is a better solution.

For the rest of us, I prefer not having to install an unnecessary program on my PC.

Microsoft should take note here and develop a TweakUI Vista PowerToy to do some of these nifty customizations.

I do have a related question, please. Is there a way to change the color of the screen text on the login screen to black (for use with light colored backgrounds)? Thanks much!

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kraut says:
June 8th, 2008 at 6:08 am

i can only agree with Greg. Thanks for the tipp that 5031 is the default screen size for all other resolutions..

@Greg: i did something like that in XP with reshack and logonui… but it was horrible and don’t know how the structure on vista might be :-(

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redlab says:
June 19th, 2008 at 8:30 am

@all who says it sucks.
1. You are not mature enough to fool with these things.
2. Learn through mistakes! Don’t flame others, and if you even have trouble to find sys32 or
3. sys32 is FUN to toy with!!!!

ShYnE says:
April 17th, 2008 at 5:16 pm

This tool does not mess up your computer. These steps are perfect and will work exactly as stated. But dont try to tell people that this tool and this method do not work and that ResHack is is bullshit. Just because some of you messed your pc’s up dont mean the method dont work…it means you dont know what you are doing.

SPOKEN VERY WELL!!

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doogi says:
June 20th, 2008 at 1:02 am

how change system32 permission HELP ME

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doogi says:
June 20th, 2008 at 1:04 am

CAN’T replace imageres.dll

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Sakkraya says:
June 26th, 2008 at 6:40 pm

Thanks for the instructions, works perfectly. Cheers!

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ken says:
July 1st, 2008 at 5:55 pm

thanks alot. works great! It works just as promised, yaaay!

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MasterCJ says:
July 4th, 2008 at 8:50 pm

Close the comments, everything that needs to be said has been said.

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Flint says:
July 5th, 2008 at 11:32 pm

So far, all of the sites that are on the internet say the above instructions — what I have been searching for, is ……

How in the hell do I change the location of the accounts listing, how do I change the shape of the account picture/avatar — you know, all of the cool little tweaks that ResHacker is capable of changing for XP logon screens….

Anyone know any of those things??

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UniversalSailor says:
July 19th, 2008 at 10:13 pm

Ok now i have a questiong that you all might be wondering or just know better then me. I have been able to change my longon screen to a picture using a similar method (this one works well i used it on my work computer)
Here is the question is there any way that you can make the background a movie clip or maybe that little pict above your user name a movie clip??? i really wanna know this.

Also for bonus points how do you change the boot sound?

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Levent says:
August 1st, 2008 at 3:46 am

Thnx for your help
great tool

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simon says:
August 12th, 2008 at 4:36 pm

Wow, thanks.

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Hazz Tazz says:
August 17th, 2008 at 3:05 pm

wORKS FINE FOR ME….. nICE WORK

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WereHatter says:
September 14th, 2008 at 1:50 pm

Thanks so much! I forgot that ResHacker even existed and that it could do so much good. Worked great on the first try!

Anymore good ideas or small hacks?

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Vista locked computer wallpaper change - Page 2 - Windows Vista Forums says:
September 16th, 2008 at 1:39 pm

[…] Re: Vista locked computer wallpaper change Geek and a Half » Blog Archive » Change Login Background in Windows Vista Super easy with the right tool. Follow the guys instructions. […]

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the_syco says:
September 17th, 2008 at 2:16 am

Cheers for the links.

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thi ha says:
September 18th, 2008 at 2:26 am

Thanks. It works.

For those who failed are
1. You didn’t read the instructions properly or
2. You didn’t understand the instructions or
3. You didn’t know how to follow up the instructions
4. You may not have the permission (which is crap!)

keep up the good work, dude.

cheers,
thi ha

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Andrew says:
September 30th, 2008 at 3:38 am

LOL
that doesn’t even make any sense!

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Verbosity says:
October 6th, 2008 at 4:26 pm

Thanks for the tip. Here’s some extra information that could help a few people. Well, it would have helped me!

(1) Producing the pictures

The pictures should be in “progressive JPEG” format. Regular JPEG will not work. The original pictures also are set to 100 dpi x 100 dpi, so I conservatively did the same.

To produce my pictures, I used IrfanView (free for non-commercial use). With IrfanView 4.10, once you have a picture resized correctly:
- Menu: Image / Information
In the image information dialogue box, set the
“Resolution” to 100 dpi x 100 dpi and click
“Change”.
- Menu: File / Save as
In the file save dialogue box:
- Select type “JPG/JPEG format”
- Enable “Show options dialog”
- In the options dialogue box, enable “Save
as progressive JPG”.
- Save your file.

(2) Replacing the resources

Resource Hacker is indeed a good choice to replace the resources. Don’t use Microsoft Visual Studio to edit the DLL: it does not flush the old resources and you’ll end up with a file twice the original size!

(3) Installing the modified DLL

I could not just copy the DLL back over the original, because the file was “in use”. I didn’t try editing in place (i.e., I worked on a copy of the file), but it would have probably refused to save for the same reason. It’s possible to rename a file that is mapped by a process (and then copy a new one in its place) but, in this particular case, doing so invites disaster: once the file is renamed, UAC will stop functioning. The UAC confirmation dialogue box fetches its icon from the DLL, and it will give up upon failing to find it, as if you had clicked “Cancel” or “Skip”. At that point, you won’t be able to do anything that requires administrative privileges (including renaming back the original DLL or copying your new custom version in its place). Perhaps you could log as “Administrator” (I believe that UAC is disabled for that account) and copy the DLL with that account; but the Administrator account is disabled by default and enabling it requires… going through UAC. You’re screwed.

The simplest escape route is using the Vista recovery console. Fortunately, that’s easy but you need your installation DVD. From memory:
(a) Boot on your Vista installation DVD.
(b) Pass the language/keyboard selection.
(c) Instead of clicking “Install”, select “Repair”
(at the bottom).
(d) Choose your installation of Vista in the list
(already selected if it’s the only one).
(e) Select “command prompt” in the menu.
(f) Go to the System32 folder by typing:
cd “C:\Windows\System32″
(g) Copy your new version (or a backup of the
original if you need). For example,
if the DLL that you want to copy is on your
desktop and your user name is “johndoe”,
type:
copy “C:\Users\johndoe\Desktop\imageres.dll” .
(h) Exit by typing:
exit
(i) Restart normally.

By the way, a plain black background is easy to make and, in the end, much better than the abstract art shipped with Vista!

Good luck to all.

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JohnDoe says:
October 14th, 2008 at 4:32 pm

Everybody talks about using recovery disk and getting stuck after messing up their DLL’s. Has anyone ever heard of Safe Mode? When the computer is booting up hit F8 after the hardware loads up and before the Vista logo comes up. Go to Safe mode and forget about UAC dialogs and permissions!

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Arcadias says:
November 11th, 2008 at 5:28 pm

Ok I did what you said, whoever write this blog, and my stuff got all messed up. Lucky for you i did a system recovery and everything is ok again. I dont care if I get smashed about this, but i am going to speak my mind. Honestly bro, you got balls for posting such a disrespectful blog. Your telling people to modify their windows system files, and if they mess up f em basically. I think thats rude, disrespectful, and upseting. You saying “if it doesnt work try again or go crying” bro honestly you dont need to be a jerk to people. Your little step by step doesnt work, it not full of useful information, its all half info. Seriously man if your gonna tell people to modify their system files and if it doesnt work f em? You got some nerve. And whats this about you not holding anyones hand? Again disrespectful. What if people want to only get the info from you, what then?? Next time you post something like this, try to take into consideration other peoples personal computer and also take into consideration the consequences of telling people what to do when it comes to modifying system files. I am prolly going to get flamed or booted or whatever, but I just want to speak my mind. Show some respect for others before you post something like this again….I’m done.

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November 12th, 2008 at 3:37 pm

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goodstuff says:
November 13th, 2008 at 9:42 am

Arcadias,

No one pointed a gun to your head and told you to do it.
This worked like a charm for me. Tata bonehead. And thanks to the Author for this tip.

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Mikey says:
November 14th, 2008 at 12:32 am

Any suggestions on how to do this automatically from a script/program very early in the boot process? I have a need to dynamically generate/install a logon screen at boot time that includes assorted system data.

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ian says:
November 18th, 2008 at 9:30 pm

There is a program taht allows you do change your backround. heres the link http://www.toggle.com/lv/group/view/kl36758/LogonStudio_Vista.htm

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