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How to disable a logon screen background image?

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Thursday, November 15, 2018 11:51 AM

I would like to disable the logon background picture in Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB, and I tried to do as described in https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/windows/en-US/fe400d11-8480-4e93-8f00-c03b2ee31a3f/how-to-change-login-screen-background-image-in-windows-10-pro-1511-and-1607-?forum=win10itprosetup answer, by adding “DisableLogonBackgroundImage” under “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System” with the value “00000001”.

But seems that it does not work always. When I log in to a new user for the first time and then almost immediately log out, the default image is shown. Also, it is shown sometimes when I log out of the user which is logged in by default.

Setting it manually through GUI works (go to lock screen settings and turn off "Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen" for each user), but I would like to automate the process. Also not sure it it will persist sysprep /generalize.

Also it works if I turn on the "Force a specific default lock screen and logon image" policy and specify invalid path to an image, but that is sort of a hack, so I don't want to use it.

How to disable a logon screen background image correctly?

All replies (6)

Thursday, November 15, 2018 12:18 PM

“DisableLogonBackgroundImage”  reg key wont work anymore:

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/e63bcdd9-bd8e-49fa-a839-b041f4dde9f9/user-logon-backgroundhero-image-not-able-to-change?forum=win10itprogeneral

Some other workarounds:

https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/2058586-windows-10-pro-1703-login-lock-screen-customization-possible-still?page=2#entry-7499691

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Thursday, November 15, 2018 1:43 PM

Hi Nelson, see the last post in your first link, it says "Microsoft has added the ability to turn off the background in the current Insider build so you'll see it in the GA release eventually". And the thread is from 2015 year, in the thread I linked which is from 2017, a moderator advises to use the DisableLogonBackgroundImage to disable the logon background picture so looks like it should work. Or not?

Friday, November 16, 2018 5:41 AM

Hi egeorgi,

Thanks for posting your query.

I have tested and succeeded, please follow the steps:

1. Before modify the registry, we need to backup it: How to back up and restore the registry in Windows

2. Type regedit in search box and enter.

3. Browse to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System

4. Right-click on System and select New> DWORD(32-bit) Value.

5. Name it DisableLogonBackgroundImage and set the value to 1. (If you want to enable the logon background picture, set the value back to 0).

6. Close regedit and restart. Check the logon background。

Best regards,

Yilia 

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Friday, November 16, 2018 6:28 AM

Hi Yilia, as I wrote I tried this, but the logon screen appears after a new user would log in and log out.

But  seems that it is because it interferes with some other setting I use. I was not able to reproduce this issue on an image without users configured to meet our needs, I will write here when I will find the root cause.

Best regards, George

Monday, November 19, 2018 2:45 AM

Hi George,

Thanks for your reply.

You can try to set the Lock screen to a pure picture:

1. Right-Click the desktop and select Personalize.

2. Select Lock screen and choose Background as Picture.

3. Download a pure picture.

4. Browse and choose it. 

If you have any concerns or problems, please feel free to post here.

Best regards,

Yilia

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Monday, December 10, 2018 1:07 PM

Hi Yilia,

Sorry for a long delay before reply, now I'm back to this issue.

Thank you for your help! In this way (right-click, Personalize...) you can also disable logon picture, and it works fine. But I want to automate the process and also to make it work for all users. I also thought about setting a picture with pure color using a local computer group policy. But I wanted to ensure that this issue does not indicate that there is something wrong with the way we apply the policies and they don't override each other, because we have more important and less visible policies, like "Turn off Autoplay". And I still want to be sure about this.

I managed to pinpoint a minimum setup to reproduce this issue:

  1. Install a pure Windows 10 Enterprise 2016 LTSB image, without answer file. Create a User1 user during OOBE.
  2. Create another user User2
  3. Add “DisableLogonBackgroundImage” under “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\System” with the value “00000001”.
  4. Reboot. At this step everything is fine. There is a picture on a lock screen, but nice light blue background on logon screen as expected.
  5. Enable "Do not display the lock screen" policy in local computer GPO under path "Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Personalization".
  6. Reboot
  7. Log off from User1 after reboot, you will see no lock screen, but there will be dark blue background on logon screen. Same dark blue screen appears when you customize lock screen and assign broken path to the image. If you select another user, the default picture will appear. If you select User1 again, you will see the default picture. If you log in to any user and log out, you again see nice light blue background on all users. If you reboot again and log off, same behavior - dark blue background that becomes a picture after selecting another user.

It looks like a bug, but there is no local group policy corresponding to "DisableLogonBackgroundImage", although it is in the same location as other local group policies. (see https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/ie/en-US/92210c43-394d-4b9d-bd8b-1abc2b9e06d5/use-group-policy-to-change-log-on-screen-background-image?forum=win10itprogeneral. It says "You will need to use Group Policy Preferences to add the registry setting", and according to a book "Group Policy Fundamentals, Security, and the Managed Desktop, 2nd Edition", "Group Policy Preferences are not available as Local Group Policy Objects"). So it looks like it is not officially supported way to disable logon background image for all users.

Best regards, George