Windows 7 to officially support logon UI background customization
link: original article - section: windows
As you probably know, Windows 7 build 7057, a build recently leaked to the public, sports a new (yet ugly) login UI background.
Delivering on the “more customizable” promise, Windows 7 now supports the ability to load images into the background of the login screen without the use of third-party software or manual hacks.
First, a check is made to determine if the customization functionality is enabled or not. More precisely, a DWORD value named OEMBackground in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background key is checked. Its data, of Boolean type, defines whether or not this behavior is turned on, i.e. 1 for enabled, 0 for disabled. This value may not exist by default, depending on your system.
Afterwards, if customization is enabled, the primary monitor’s screen height and width are retrieved via calls to GetSystemMetrics. These values are used in the computation of the screen width (w)/height (h) ratio. For example, my desktop resolution is 1920×1200. The ratio, computed by the division of w/h, is 1.6:1.
The result of this computation is looked up in an internal table that drives what image to load on disk. Although I don’t have a large enough monitor to test, it appears resolutions higher than 1920×1200 will force the loading and zooming of an image of closest compatibility (i.e. same ratio, smaller image).
As this is an OEM feature images are derived from %windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds. Like the registry value, this folder may not exist by default. The following files (sorted by width-to-height ratio) are supported in this folder:
* backgroundDefault.jpg
* background768×1280.jpg (0.6)
* background900×1440.jpg (0.625)
* background960×1280.jpg (0.75)
* background1024×1280.jpg (0.8)
* background1280×1024.jpg (1.25)
* background1024×768.jpg (1.33-)
* background1280×960.jpg (1.33-)
* background1600×1200.jpg (1.33-)
* background1440×900.jpg (1.6)
* background1920×1200.jpg (1.6)
* background1280×768.jpg (1.66-)
* background1360×768.jpg (1.770833-)
NOTE: Images must be less than 256kb in size. Thanks for pushing me to investigate, Jay C.
