Difficulty changing the splash screen on my m14x

I made a series of splash screens (based on Alienware's original default - I just modified the colors a bit and made purple, blue, etc.) to change the splash from red to something else. I saw that the registry key value for a custom splash screen was already enabled (set to 1), and that the info/backgrounds folder was already created with the Alienware's default splash. I named the replacement image to match and replaced/overwrote the splash screen file. Unfortunately, now instead of Alienware's default red or my new blue, I just see the default Windows 7 splash screen. What did I do wrong? :-/

Thanks for any help/advice.

EDIT: Just for clarity: I did all the above as the administrator. I even tried using CMD as admin to do the copy, but there was no change. Still stuck with the default Win7 splash.

 

are you sure that the image name in folder is 'backgrounddefault' ?

 

Positive. I named the image "backgrounddefault" and when I moved it to the backgrounds folder I was asked if I wanted to replace the existing, keep both, etc. - so the file name of the new image was not "unique".

Interestingly enough, the first time I rebooted after making the change I got a black screen like it was going to try and load the image, but then it loaded the Windows 7 default. Every time after that it has gone immediately to the Windows 7 splash screen.

I tried checking the permissions on the image to see if I inadvertently screwed up some setting that it needed, but I can't see a difference in permissions between the image and the containing folder/directory. That said, I checked the permissions by going to the properties and not using cmd (I have more experience with Unix-based OSes so I'd like to figure out how to check all the permissions in there as well, maybe there is something that I can't see just by looking through the dialog box's options).

 

just so that to udnerstand what you did, i will write these steps down. just acknowledge them as you go.

1) create C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds folder. If it already exists, copy your image in it to replace the earlier pic. it should be the only pic in the folder. remove any other pic

2) Go to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background

and set DWORD value 1 for OEMBACKGROUND

So was this exactly what you did ?

 

Yes - the DWORD value was already set to 1 for OEMBACKGROUND, so I left it alone. (OEMBACKGROUND was in the path you specified.) So I replaced the existing pic with the new pic I made - there is only one pic in the folder and that one pic has the appropriate file name.

 

I took screenshots of the registry editor and of explorer, hope this helps.

 

also , what is the format of the pic? is it JPEG?
cuz mine is JPEG and that makes me think that windows probably require it to be JPEG

Edit:
also , make sure the file size is around 300kb or less.
mine is around 220kb. If you edited it yourself using software like adobe photoshop, chances are that your file size will be around 700kb+ . try to tone it down to 250- ish kb range or less. and that picture format is .jpg

 

It was .jpg, I just changed it now to .jpeg to see if it made any difference (even though it's the same file type), but there was no change - it still pulls the default Windows 7 screen.

 

what about file size?

 

Sorry I didn't see your edit - it looks like my file size was about 500 kb, which I didn't think was too large but apparently it was. I increased the compression for the image by a little bit and now it's hovering around 100 kb and it loads! Thank you so much!

 

dats good news.
You know, there is this program called tweakslogon. it pretty much does the same thing without you having to do anything except for selecting pic. its easy and saves time! do try it

 

I will take a look, thanks!