Comments on: Make Windows XP Use a Custom Theme for the Classic Logon Screen

By: Elliot Taylor

Elliot Taylor — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:20:37 +0000

I cant find the folder in the registry!What should i do?

By: Alfredo

Alfredo — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:48:22 +0000

After changing the theme to Vista’s style the font displayed when the logon screen is displayed is the same as the XP Luna theme it is white and the background is black just like the theme (VISTARTM Theme). How do I make the Segoe UI font appear on the logon screen.

How can I take a snapshot of how it looks like so I could get some assistance?

By: Tom

Tom — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:37:13 +0000

I made the logon screen saver open up explorer.exe and then then I log off wait 20 min and explorer.exe pops up then I go to Control Panel and set my background and style.

By: Jake Stevens

Jake Stevens — Sat, 30 Aug 2008 22:40:20 +0000

Nice one, thanks. i saw at my local school had done this and i have spent years trying to find out how to change this. once again, thank you!!!!!!!!

By: krhainos

krhainos — Wed, 21 May 2008 00:13:19 +0000

@BigGunn
To be completely honest, it’ll be different depending on your edition of Windows. Browse through everything under Bitmap until you find the images that correspond to your edition of Windows. There are a total of three images to make the “hack” possible — two banner logos (msginal.dll Bitmap resources #101 and #107 for me), and a strip of color that scrolls for activity (blue and orange in XP, #103)

I believe the images need to be 256-color (8-bit color), and you should stick to the original dimensions — pay attention! Despite two banners looking the same, one’s taller than the other. I don’t remember if i had to tinker with the Dialog resources to make larger images possible. Backup and explore!

Keep in mind, a ruined msgina.dll will result in Windows throwing up an error instead of the login screen, and you’ll be stuck in a reboot loop. So be prepared to have a way to replace the original file without booting Windows (a live CD or console would work)

By: BigGunn

BigGunn — Mon, 19 May 2008 23:56:18 +0000

@krhainos

which one of the bitmap folders in Resource Hacker needs to be changed? I have lots!

By: krhainos

krhainos — Fri, 16 May 2008 20:04:29 +0000

The folks who are hardcore and want to take it a step further can take a copy of Resource Hacker and do bitmap replacement on msgina.dll (for XP Home, XP Pro users) or winbrand.dll (for TabletPC and MCE) and change the banner logo that appears around the OS.

http://krhainos.tk/ginadll.png is what I had before I went to Vista.

By: Kafka

Kafka — Fri, 16 May 2008 18:14:04 +0000

Good stuff. How about changing the image on the dialogue box (where it says “Microsoft Windows XP Professional” or whatever your version is)?

By: rothgar

rothgar — Fri, 16 May 2008 15:46:10 +0000

You can also just change you background by setting this key to whatever you want (bmp only)
HKEY_USERS\Default\Control Panel\Desktop\Wallpaper
you can change the default screensaver (pre-login) with this key
HKEY_USERS\Default\Control Panel\Desktop\SCRNSAVE.EXE
One note on the screensaver is if you are setting it to show pictures you need to put your pictures in
“c:\windows\system32\config\systemprofile\My Documents”

By: Ayush

Ayush — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:22:22 +0000

I usually just copy the theme info from HKCU..ThemeManager (current theme settings) to HKU\.Default..ThemeManager. Much easier than guessing/copying scheme names/file paths..