Windows 7: can not change user account picture on logon screen

Hi everybody,

I've been trying to change my user account picture in the control panel, it worked, and it showed up in the start menu, but it didn't change in the logon screen (still dell default icon). Does anybody know what's wrong?



My system is Dell precision M6600, win7pro 64-bit. My user account has administrator right (in fact I am the only user).

Thanks!

I hope this tutorial will help you to get rid of Dell's stuff.

Clean Up Factory Bloatware

I had this issue too. I had to change the picture two times to get it to stick. I forget if I still have the problem or if it was fixed in one of my system restores.

Anyway, change it twice even if it looks as though it changes the 1st time. You can "change" it to the same picture - even though technically that's not a change, is it?

Peace!

No luck. Changed several times, the logon icon remain the same.

Ok, are you comfortable using RegEdit?

See what your profilelist tells you about your logon screen icon.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList\S-1-5-21-xxxxxxxxxxx]

I'm sorry I can't be specific, I glanced at Logon Screen - Fix Showing Only "Other User" and Last Logged On User and it seems to talk about a similar issue, or at least it might provide a clue to solve the issue you have. Read that and see if you think it applies.

Of course, I would have already tried the cleanup Bloat suggestion. It's always a good idea to remove the OEM crap, or better yet - not install it in the first place.

Peace!

Hi Slartybart and Arc,

Thanks both of you. I have tried clean up the bloatware except reinstall the system. No luck.

There are 9 registries under my user name, and I think the logon screen icon is"ProfileImagePath". The type is "reg_expand_sz", data is: "C:\users\myusername". I don't see any icon picture under that folder.

Thanks for all the help.

The ProfileImagePath isn't the logon screen - it does sound like it might be though, doesn't it.

It's actually the location of your profile - the starting point when you login, and the "root" path for your user. So, anything windows needs for your user, it drills down from there - to appdata, documents, what ever is associated with your user.I don't know if you gave up, but I'll try to find something else.

I suppose an easy thing to try would be to find the Dell icon and rename it.

Navigate to C:\ in Explorer enter kind:picture in the search window - this will find all images (gif, jpg, png....)

Not ready to give up yet. I tried to the search, ended up with ~2800 pictures. Looked through all of them, none bears the black dell label (there are couples of blue Dell pictures). Thank for your help!

this might set you straight

davehc
Premier Member
I have no knowledge of DEll's specialising but, try this:
Type gpedit.msc in the run box

Open Computer Configuration - Administrative Accounts - Control Panel - User Accounts.
Double click the entry there "Apply the default--etc."
Enable it.
Now, if you reboot, hopefully you will be in the default Windows 7 gui., in here, you should be able to change the user account logon picture, in the way you have tried.

---

You got one of these?

First, a check is made to determine if the customization functionality is enabled or not. More precisely,

a DWORD value named OEMBackground in the HKLMSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionAuthenticationLogonUIBackground
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.

---

You piqued my curiosity with this. I'm sure there's someone more knowledgeable on this subject, but since I'm hooked, I'll keep looking around, for a while anyway.

Hi Slartybart,
The first one (apply default----etc), I've tried a while ago, not working.
The second part: yes, I changed the logon UI background (enabled), but even if I disable it, still not working.
Don't spend too much time on this, I really appreciate your effort!