Seeing the same old blue screen each time you login to Windows XP can get quite boring for you with passing time. Probably the best way to get rid of this blue screen is to use the direct login feature and not see the welcome screen at all but for multi user computers the welcome screen acts as a login portal and you can not disable it whatsoever. However there is a simple trick to change the welcome screen which I will be teaching you.
Change Windows Welcome (Login) Screen
Just make sure that you have the “Use welcome screen” option activated in Control Panel –> Users Accounts –> Logon and Logoff Options before trying to apply this trick.
Basically there are two ways to change your login screen. one is to either replace your default login screen with your new one and the other method is to play with the registry such that it recognizes the new login screen as the default one and luckily I am going to teach you how to apply this trick in both ways.
First I will teach you how to over write your existing login screen with your new one. Here are the steps
- Make a backup copy of C:windowssystem32logonui.exe
- Rename your new login screen to logonui.exe
- Overwrite the existing login screen file with your new login screen
and thats it you are done.
Second method that I am teaching you will help Windows identify your new login screen as the default one. The good thing about this trick it that you don’t have to delete or replace your original login screen file. Here it goes.
- Copy your custom login screen file under another name, let’s say logonuiA.exe, to C:Windowssystem3
- Open Start menu –> Run –> and type Regedit
- Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE –> SOFTWARE –> Microsoft –> Windows NT –> CurrentVersion –> Winlogon and change the value for UIHost to logonuiA.exe.
Rever To your Old Login Screen
If you ever feel like restoring your original login screen then all you have to do is use the backup copy of logonui.exe and paste it in C:windowssystem32 and select over write.
Saad Hamid is a blogger and technology enthusiast from Pakistan. Connect with him on
{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
Where can I get the log-on screen pictured above? It looks really cool.
Yup! Please tell me where you got that login screen from, Dj
errr … :/ … okay … but from where can i get login screen from
??
Previously I used StyleXP to change the default theme. I have tried the first method mentioned by you.
Hey, great post DJ! I was actually planning to do a post on this
. I use StyleXP to change my login screen, but I think the first method is a lot easier.
Guys I do not exactly know the name of that blue login screen that you can see in the above screenshot but if you want to find custom login screens hop on to ThemeXP which is perhaps the biggest login screen repository.
Soon I will be posting a tutorial to make your own login screens too
dude do you know hot to use the XP Visual Styles ??
Checkout this post. It tells you how to apply 3rd party visual styles on Windows XP.
Cool stuff, but the article is not clear enough. What exactly is a “login screen file?” Do you download it from somewhere? Or is it a BMP, GIF, or JPEG image? Is it an executable, like the second tip suggests? Or is the executable merely a bitmap renamed to .EXE?
The login screen file is a win32 executable binary that carries the login screen options. You can download such files from ThemeXP.
Thanks i had like the biggest problem ever cos i installed a patch for my welcome screen and i hated it and i couldn’t find the file so i used dat wee trick and i changed it back to the default
Thanks
Great tip, seems microsoft has noticed the usability and has included in upcoming windows 7 os.
etetr
dumb !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1
I can make the background image like tat one you've shown above. But, how do you arrange the position of the textbox and buttons.
I want more tricks to edit somthing else
where i can get the log-on screen
To get a login screen is easy!!!
A) If you want the one that system has, go to C:WINDOWSsystem32winlogon.exe or something like that then open with ResHack.
B) Download a program that will manage your logging screen, there is one from Stardock but i dont remember the name .
Tuneup Utilities is the best idea for all these things.