It is a solid color background that matches the color scheme that you choose for the Start screen.
There is no way to change the background of the Sign-in screen. In addition to an interesting image, the Lock screen also displays the date and time as well as notifications from pertinent apps. That way, you have something interesting to look at while the Lock screen is on the display. Since the Lock screen can remain visible on the screen for a while, Microsoft has made it easy for you to change that background image to whatever you choose. If you dismiss the Lock screen to reveal the Sign-in screen, but do not enter a password within 30 seconds, the Lock screen reappears. In Windows 8, you immediately see the Lock screen when you turn on the PC.
Because it could possibly remain visible for a while, people wanted to be able to change the background so that they would have something interesting to look at while the Logon screen was showing.
Now, in Windows 7 when you turned on the PC, you immediately saw the Logon screen and it remained on the screen until you typed your password. These two screens are shown in Figure A.įigure A When you enter Windows 8, you see the Lock screen followed by the Sign-in screen. When you turn on a Windows 8 system, you first see the Lock screen, which prominently displays the time and date, and then you see the Sign-in screen, which displays the user account(s) and prompts you to enter a password. To begin with there are actually two screens that you see when you enter Windows 8 and neither of them is actually called the Logon screen. Well, recently I've been hearing from readers wondering if there was a way to change the logon screen background in Windows 8. In Change and customize Windows 7's Logon screen wallpaper, I showed you how to do it by editing the registry and in An awesome tool for customizing the Windows 7 Logon screen wallpaper, I showed you how to do it with the Windows 7 Logon Background Changer. In the past I wrote a couple of articles about changing the Logon screen wallpaper in Windows 7 and it appeared to be a very popular topic.