Win7 Domain Login Screen

[fairm010]

I have a Win 7 Enterprise domain, with Server 2008. On the logon screen I want to change the blank box (that would usually be filled with a picture related to that user) to a picture that will always be the same.

 

Please help!

[3s-gtech]

This is a hugely time consuming task - many on here have done it but it involves hacking .dll files to change the images within. I tried it for a bit, gave up in the end - my time and sanity was worth more than a picture in the box! Check the Windows 7 forums stickies.

[DMcCoy]

The problem is that the account used is "other" which by it's very nature isn't linked to any known account, so no picture is shown. This has been confirmed by MS (on technet forums at least) as working as designed.

[fairm010]

3s-gtech, do you have any how-to on this? We would love to have this done, and it will give us something to play with in the office!

 

If its too much work we will give it a miss!

 

Thanks guys

[featured_spectre]

took me the better part of 4 days before i gave in...I just couldnt get it to work.

[fairm010]

OK, dont worry Thanks!

[Cue]

You guys are making this sound a lot harder than it really is.

 

Resource hacker, authui.dll, bing bang bosh edit an image and you're done. Resource Hacker can be found here.

 

And here are the steps:

 

I dont know if this will work in Windows Vista as I have not attempted it yet, but it does work in both 7 x64 and x86.

 

In both Windows Vista and Windows 7 when you enable the “don’t show last username” policy in group policy or in the registry, the user account frame will be shown as an empty frame instead of with the users account picture. The following steps will enable a custom image or logo to be inserted into the frame for all users.

 

 

Warning: Changing system files or their settings can have an unwanted effect on the computer and can even make them unbootable. After this file is changed no user will be able to choose an individual picture.

 

 

Do the following at your own risk.

 

 

 

In order to add a logo to the frame you must first take ownership of C:\Windows\System32\authui.dll. You can do this by doing the following using explorer, navigate to the System32 folder, right click on authui.dll, click on properties, click on the security tab, click on advanced, click on the Owner tab, click on the Administrators group, then click apply. Click on the permissions tab, click on administrators, click on edit, tick the allow box for the full control permission, click OK on any remaining dialog boxes.

 

Using the resource editor open the authui.dll file, browse to bitmap, then to 12223. Then you want to export/save the file as a bmp file.

 

Open both your desired image and the bmp file in the bmp editor. Resize your desired image to roughly 120x120. Copy the image to the picture frame and position as desired. Once everything is the way you want, save the file.

 

In the resource editor again, you want to replace the 12223 bitmap with the custom image created. After this is done, save authui.dll and you should be able to see the effects immediately, if not reboot.

 

Source (9th down).

 

Enjoy.*

 

* You do this at your own risk, I cannot be held responsible for any damage caused through using these steps, nor can anyone else involved in the providing of these steps.

[fairm010]

Exactly what i was looking for, thanks so much!

[Wickedgenius]

Just thought it was worth noting that with a bit of trial and error you can completely remove the picture box and move things around a bit to get the login screen looking really quite nice using the resource hacker that Cue posted.

 

After a lot of messing around I even got it looking a bit like the old XP screen

[3s-gtech]

My main worries were with a Windows update changing the dll and undoing all the work put into it. Plus all the resource editors I used like ResEdit gave awful results for the image.

[Wickedgenius]

My main worries were with a Windows update changing the dll and undoing all the work put into it. Plus all the resource editors I used like ResEdit gave awful results for the image.

 

Do they tend to change these particular dlls regularly?

When I tried it it was on a machine which was being used to test Windows 7 and so it wasn't like it for long, especially seeing as how the thing couldn't activate because of a messed up BIOS

[somabc]

Do they tend to change these particular dlls regularly?

When I tried it it was on a machine which was being used to test Windows 7 and so it wasn't like it for long, especially seeing as how the thing couldn't activate because of a messed up BIOS

 

It will change with the next service pack

[Arthur]

My main worries were with a Windows update changing the dll and undoing all the work put into it.

As Somabc mentioned, the file will be replaced when you install SP1. However, given that service packs are not released that often, it's not too much of a hassle to edit the DLL again.

 

Exactly what i was looking for, thanks so much!

fairm010. Out of interest, did you get it working using the instructions Cue posted? I tried those myself a while ago and couldn't get the logo to show up until I edited the alpha channel of bitmap 12223.

[fairm010]

I gave it a go, followed the instructions step by step. I logged off once the changed were made, and the screen blacked out, Mouse still active. We would love to do this, but its quite a hassle, MS were meant to improve Group Policy, surely they would have added capability for this!

[Wickedgenius]

Don't know how helpful it will be if your are trying to add a permanent picture but I found this on a Technet forum thread, may just be a case of changing a few lines instead of deleting it all:

 

Moved instructions to my blog: http://wickedgenius.tumblr.com/post/967384884/removing-the-picture-frame-from-the-windows-7-login

Edited August 17, 2010 by Wickedgenius

[EduTech]

Maybe try adding it to your blog wickedgenuis ??

[Gatt]

I tried messing with AuthUI - gave up as it didnt work or put my PC into a reboot loop...

 

Also not sure on the legality of it.. IIRC hacking the GINA.dll in XP was considered to be in violation of the MS EULA.. so I suspect the same to be true with AuthUI.dll, otherwise I am sure MS would have allowed it to be changed in a similar fashion to the login Background...

[fairm010]

I will give this a shot tomorrow, will let you know how it goes!

[pritchardavid]

I will try this tomorrow too

 

Brillant timeing to, about to update the windows 7 images

 

 

Seems there are loads of new updates, plus the mantory profile doesnt seem to be working correctly with serif so that need sorting out to, not really sure what to do with the application data to be honest

[fairm010]

We had issues with Man profiles too... We got it working perfectly, then we hit a snag, we need multiple profiles! as far as we are aware the profile MUST be called mandatory, which we cant have

[Gatt]

We had issues with Man profiles too... We got it working perfectly, then we hit a snag, we need multiple profiles! as far as we are aware the profile MUST be called mandatory, which we cant have

 

I thought all you had to do was change the NTUSER.DAT to NTUSER.MAN and name the "default" profile folder on the server to ".man" and point the users to \\server\share\.man which then created a local copy along the lines of jbloggs.man ??

 

It's been a while since I used mandatory profiles, but IIRC that is all you need to do..

[fairm010]

We found it only worked when it was called "mandatory" also it must have a .v2 suffix to distinguish between Win 7 clients and XP.

[Wickedgenius]

Maybe try adding it to your blog wickedgenuis ??

 

Hadn't thought of that, thanks EduTech.

 

World of Wicked, Removing the Picture Frame from the Windows 7 Login Screen

[Arthur]

World of Wicked, Removing the Picture Frame from the Windows 7 Login Screen

It might also be worth mentioning a program called Logon Workshop too, as this makes it really easy to customize everything else on the logon screen.

[fairm010]

Handy, but all we want to do is change the picture, this has no option for that. Thanks anyway