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**Brink** · 11 Jan 2008

How to Change a User Account Logon Display Picture in Vista

Information

This will show you how to change your user account or another user account logon display picture to a image that you want.

Note

You can select to use any BMP, DIB, RLE, GIF, JPG, or PNG image file for the display picture. The image can only be up to 128 x 128 pixels in size to prevent it from being automatically cropped to fit the user display box. If it is bigger than this, just resize it. Otherwise, your image may be cut off or not centered properly.

Tip

Accounts	Default Picture Location
All - Picture Folder	C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures
Guest	C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\guest.bmp
Standard	C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\user.bmp
Administrator	C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\user.bmp

These are hidden system files. To see them, see OPTION TWO here: How to Hide or Show Hidden Files and Folders in Vista
The image you use for the Standard/Administrator and Guest accounts must use the same names (EX: user.bmp or guest.bmp) above for it to be used as the default image unless you select a picture from within the picture folder.

EXAMPLE: User Display Picture in Start Menu

Here's How:

1. Click on the display picture in the Start menu. (See example above)

A) Go to step 3 or 4.

OR

2. Open the Control Panel. (Classic View)

A) Click on the User Accounts icon.

3. To Change the Display Picture for Your User Account

A) Click on the Click to play Tutorial Video link below.

http://www.vistax64.com/download/fla...ay_Picture.swf

4. To Change the Display Picture for Another User Account
NOTE: You can only change another user account's display picture from within a Administrator account.

A) Click on the Click to play Tutorial Video link below.

http://www.vistax64.com/download/fla...ay_Picture.swf

That's it,
Shawn

Related Tutorials

**Hogtowner** · 19 Aug 2008

Shawn (and to anyone else who might know),

Great tutorial as usual.

I take a really nice picture expressing my personality and passions, crop it down to miniscule size. Alright, it is only an icon after all. Then Vista puts that dag-blamed haze over the top of the picture. Folks look at the screen and say, "what's that supposed to be?" "Looks sorta like a faded old-timey pitcher taken with a toy camra."

Any way to get Vista to stop and desist from the practice of bleaching out my photo? I guess I could try to differentially darken the top half of the photo, but boy what a lot of work. Why'd they do this anyway?

Thanks for your input.

**Brink** · 20 Aug 2008

Hi Hogtowner,

The display picture never did have much quality to it. I do not know if this will help much, but you might try using the image as is without editing to see how it displays. If not well, then crop only a little at a time to see how it works.

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Tutorial	Tutorial Starter	Category	Comments	Last Post
User Logon Display Picture - Set Default for All Users	Brink	Tutorials	13	19 Aug 2010
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User Account Picture Size	Daniel Jameson	Vista General	1	19 Feb 2009
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