The login screen is the first thing you see when you open Windows. In a way, it’s your little window into your Windows experience, so you want to make it look good.
It used to be unusually complicated to change the login screen from the default one Windows chose for you, but now it’s become a whole lot easier thanks to a little workaround that’s integrated right into the OS. In this quick article we’ll show you how to change your Windows login screen on both Windows 11 and Windows 10.
Change Login Screen Image in Windows 11
The UI in Windows 11 isn’t drastically different from what it used to be in Windows 10, but there are a few little tweaks and differences to how you do things.
To change your login screen image in Windows 11, right-click an empty space on your desktop and click “Personalise”.
In the new window, click “Lock screen”, then the dropdown next to “Personalise your lock screen” and “Picture.”
Here you can pick from existing Windows 11 backgrounds, or click “Browse photos” to look for a picture on your PC to use as the lock screen background, as demonstrated below.
Change Login Screen Image in Windows 10
1. First up, right-click an empty space on the desktop and click “Personalize.”
2. Next, click “Lock screen” in the pane on the left (yes, we know this isn’t the same as the login screen – bear with us!), then under the “Background” dropdown menu you can choose between three options for your lock screen image:
- Windows spotlight will show you a different pretty image each day courtesy of Microsoft.
- Picture lets you select a specific image to have on your lock screen.
- Slideshow lets you select a folder (or folders) where your login screen will cycle through the images (you can press ‘Advanced slideshow settings’ to fine-tune how the image slideshow will work.)
Once you’ve selected the background you want for your lock screen, scroll down in the lock screen window to the option that says “Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen.” Click the slider to “On,” and your login screen will now have the same image as your lock screen, which you can control from this window!
That’s all you need to do to change your login screen and have Windows greet you each day with exactly the image you want. If you want to do more personalization to your Windows desktop, check out our guide on how to set the daily Bing wallpaper as your Windows desktop background, as well as our list of awesome Windows screensavers (yes, they still exist!)
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