Location of the OEM Windows 7 Secure Desktop Background

If you have a computer (usually a laptop) from a particularly flamboyant manufacturer, there very well may be an OEM background for the secure desktop (the logon and lock screen). If you want to change it, you'll need to poke around in the Windows system directories.

The location of the secure desktop background is:

C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgroundDefault.jpg

You can drop in any JPG that is less than 256KB for backgroundDefault.jpg and it will be used. If you don't want to bother with that and you just want the normal Windows background, go to this registry key:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

Change the OEMBackground value to 0 and Windows will supply its own.