Bitmap displayed during boot

[Steve Swift]

My employer has just replaced my old PC with a newer one. During the
boot process, after the VGA screen with the progress bar, a bitmap
C:\WINDOWS\blueback.bmp is displayed. It is the Corporate Logo. I prefer
the standard XP boot behaviour.

I've tracked this down to the registry entry:

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="c:\\windows\\blueback.bmp"

What I tried first was to rename blueback.bmp to blueback.old.bmp as
that would be easy to undo if it caused a problem.

Of course the logo no longer appears, but instead I get a blank, black
screen for several seconds. I think a standard XP system would display a
monochrome "Microsoft Blue" screen at this point, until the Welcome
Screen replaced it.

I managed to get at the registry on my old XP system, and in that one,
I'd deleted the "Wallpaper" entry altogether.

Would someone with a vanilla XP take a look to see if the Wallpaper
entry is there, and if it is, what does it point at? If it points at
blueback.bmp then I have a replacement one; I'd welcome a copy of the
original version.

I've just deleted the entry on my new PC, but I'm in the middle of a
long-running backup, so I won't find if I've done the right thing for a
day or possibly two.

 

[thanatoid]

My employer has just replaced my old PC with a newer one.
During the boot process, after the VGA screen with the
progress bar, a bitmap C:\WINDOWS\blueback.bmp is
displayed. It is the Corporate Logo. I prefer the standard
XP boot behaviour.

<SNIP>

There are several image viewers with a basic function to let you
choose any format image file (which ideally - so it looks good -
should be the /exact/ pixel dimensions of your resolution),
convert it to BMP and set it as your wallpaper until YOU change
it. Messing with the registry especially in XP, especially with
wallpapers, for some reason, is very bizarre.

So get one of those and use it.

Or a wallpaper utility. Wallsmart is a super simple and
excellent one.
Butt-ugly icons but you can change them with Resource Hacker or
Resource Tuner.

http://www.bumpersoft.com/Desktop_Enhancements/Wallpaper/Utiliti
es/D_289_index.htm

or

http://www.bumpersoft.com/Desktop_Enhancements/Wallpaper/Utiliti
es/
if you want to have LOTS of choices...

To make the text under icons transparent you need to enable
"show shadow under icon text" (or something like that) in
Control Panel.

 

[thanatoid]

In message <[email protected]>,
thanatoid <[email protected]> writes:

1. Since it's his employer's machine, they may have locked
him out from the normal wallpaper-changing route. (In which
case I'm surprised he has access to the relevant registry
key either.) 2. I don't think he's talking about the normal
desktop wallpaper anyway, that is on the desktop during
normal operation, but something that occurs during the boot
sequence. If you reread his OP, he talks about "black for a
few seconds" (or something like that) after he'd deleted
something, not the final state.

There are more than one contradictions in his post. He does not
know the correct terminology. But you'd be surprised how many
people can't tell the difference (let alone use the correct
terminology between the BIOS sequence and OS starting up.

I gave him some advice anyway - what the hell. I am certainly
not going to get into discussing how to change the BIOS boot
screen which can only be done on SOME machines and is a major
PITA.

<SNIP>

 

[Tim Meddick]

The picture displayed is merely the one specified by the registry value for the
default wallpaper :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="C:\WINDOWS\blueback.bmp"

Simply locate this value in the registry using [regedit.exe] and change it to what
you want.

The original value in XP for this is the word "none" which makes Windows display just
the light-blue background to the welcome screen with no writing.

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Steve Swift]

There are several image viewers with a basic function to let you
choose any format image file

I found that deleting the registry entry HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control
Panel\Desktop\wallpaper (which was pointing to blueback.bmp) caused the
default XP behaviour to come back — the screen "Windows is starting" now
appears in my boot sequence between the "VGA" phase and the Welcome Screen.

Note: This is nothing whatsoever to do with desktop backgrounds (or
wallpapers if you like).

 

[Steve Swift]

The original value in XP for this is the word "none" which makes Windows
display just the light-blue background to the welcome screen with no
writing.

Aha! This was what I wanted. Thank you.

I found (by trial and error) that having this entry, but not actually
pointing at an existing file, the "Windows is starting" screen didn't
appear, which gave me a longish period looking at a blank black display.

I deleted the entry, and the "Windows is starting" screen came back.

I've now put the entry back, as "none". I'll wait until my next forced
restart to see what happens as I've just fixed a problem (soundcard
driver) that was causing me to reboot every day, and I'm relishing a
reboot-free period.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Steve,
the OP is not talking about the XP Progress bar, but the behaviour that
between the end of the "XP Loading..." & pulsating bar and the "Welcome" screen
showing, if the registry key mentioned is set to something other than "none" (the
default) or just being set with no value, then Windows displays the "Default
wallpaper" for just a couple of seconds just before the Welcome screen appears.

On a fresh install, where this value has not been modified, a light-blue background
similar to the Welcome screen with no writing appears.


But, once the wallpaper for the first profile created, is set, then the value for :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="none"

....gets changed automatically from it's default to the same wallpaper.


Using this effect, it is possible to reset this value to display a sort of "splash
screen", as I said, between the end of the "Windows XP" & progress bar and the
appearance of the "Welcome" screen.

Instead of just saying "it's got nothing to do with wallpapers", why don't you check
out what I am saying for yourself?

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Tim Meddick]

Sorry, I got confused for a while there, I see you are the OP!

But, when you say "it has nothing to do with wallpapers" you are mistaken.

What causes the "blueback.bmp" image to be displayed, is the registry value for
"default wallpaper"!

That is; if you had not changed the value for this from "blueback.bmp", then, if you
created a new user profile, it would assign the new user with "bueblack.bmp" for
it's wallpaper.

That is the meaning of "default wallpaper"!

In fact, all the reg values under the key :

HKEY_USERS\.Default

....are used to generate new profiles.

So, by changing values under this reg-key, you can change how a brand new user
profile will look and behave...

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

Steve,
the OP is not talking about the XP Progress bar, but the behaviour that
between the end of the "XP Loading..." & pulsating bar and the "Welcome" screen
showing, if the registry key mentioned is set to something other than "none" (the
default) or just being set with no value, then Windows displays the "Default
wallpaper" for just a couple of seconds just before the Welcome screen appears.

On a fresh install, where this value has not been modified, a light-blue background
similar to the Welcome screen with no writing appears.


But, once the wallpaper for the first profile created, is set, then the value for :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="none"

...gets changed automatically from it's default to the same wallpaper.


Using this effect, it is possible to reset this value to display a sort of "splash
screen", as I said, between the end of the "Windows XP" & progress bar and the
appearance of the "Welcome" screen.

Instead of just saying "it's got nothing to do with wallpapers", why don't you
check out what I am saying for yourself?

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Steve Swift]

Sorry, I got confused for a while there, I see you are the OP!

You should have kept quiet! My original post has disappeared, and I
wasn't sure that I hadn't accidentally joined onto someone else's thread.

But, when you say "it has nothing to do with wallpapers" you are
mistaken.
What causes the "blueback.bmp" image to be displayed, is the registry
value for "default wallpaper"!

All I know is that when I deleted the registry key
[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control
Panel\Desktop]"Wallpaper"="c:\\windows\\blueback.bmp" two things seemed
to happen:

1. The Blueback.bmp image no longer appeared (no surprise there)
2. The "Windows is starting" "page", which normally appears between the
"VGA" startup phase, and the Welcome Screen, started appearing again.

I'm not certain about #2. It may just be that my perception is awry as
the new PC that I have now does everything faster than my previous PC.

Whatever, I'm happy with the outcome, which is (as far as I can tell)
the appearance of the out-of-the box XP boot progress. Until my own
choice of wallpaper appears, that is.

 

[Steve Swift]

What _was_ Blueblack.bmp - the company logo you didn't like? It seems
odd that a company should bother to install something that is only
visible for a few seconds; if they were going to impose themselves in
such a way, I'd have thought they'd have put is as the desktop
background, and locked users out of changing it.

It's an IBM branded bitmap (as in Big Blue). It appeared early in the
boot process, and may well have been the default wallpaper, but since I
always chose my own desktop bitmap, it doesn't persist long, and doesn't
appear at all now. I can't explain my motive for wanting to remove it;
it just irritates me for some reason.

IBM doesn't actually lock down much at all on the systems that it ships
to us, just stuff like antivirus settings, and some firewall stuff. It's
a pleasant environment for the technically competent. And fiddlers like
me. There's nearly always a way around the restrictions anyway, if you
try hard enough. I even like the fact that we are still mostly on XP. At
my age, I like things that don't change. I got my new PC on January 6th,
to replace my previous 5-year old one, and was instantly right at home,
with all the skills/tricks that I've learned still working (not to
mention software that I'd purchased). I can now look forward to another
5 years honing those skills. It will be interesting to see what happens
when XP goes out of support. We purchased an extension to Win95 support
the last time we were in this situation.

 

[Tim Meddick]

That's right, where a single profile is already set up, either in the factory, outlet
or by the end user, the wallpaper first used is translated to the "default profile"
and becomes the wallpaper of any new profile created.

It's also a "quirk" of XP's to display the wallpaper defined in :

[HKU\.Default\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"=""

....will also display itself for anything from 5 -15 seconds, just before the
"Welcome" screen appears.

Some people use this behaviour as a "splash screen", as it appears before the
"Welcome" screen, it will be visible to all users of the machine. As in the Kelly's
Corner "Tweak" item below :

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/regs_edits/customsplash.vbs

from Kelly's Corner "Tweaks" page :

http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

 

[Etal]

The picture displayed is merely the one specified by the
registry value for the default wallpaper :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="C:\WINDOWS\blueback.bmp"

Simply locate this value in the registry using [regedit.exe]
and change it to what you want.

The original value in XP for this is the word "none" which
makes Windows display just the light-blue background to the
welcome screen with no writing.

( I don't use 'Welcome Screen' ("LogonType"=dword:00000000) )

When i don't specify a wallpaper picture as background at the
logon window, i sometimes get tired of having the background
light-blue and after backing up the key, i change the value of:

[HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows
NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon]
"Background"="64 32 128"
; (Purple background)
; "Background"="37 133 39" (Green background)

 

[Tim Meddick]

Very interesting.

However, I would again stress that in order for your alternative background colour to
be displayed, the value for "Wallpaper" must be set to either "" or "none" .

i.e. :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="none"

==

Cheers, Tim Meddick, Peckham, London.

The picture displayed is merely the one specified by the
registry value for the default wallpaper :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop] "Wallpaper"="C:\WINDOWS\blueback.bmp"

Simply locate this value in the registry using [regedit.exe]
and change it to what you want.

The original value in XP for this is the word "none" which
makes Windows display just the light-blue background to the
welcome screen with no writing.

( I don't use 'Welcome Screen' ("LogonType"=dword:00000000) )

When i don't specify a wallpaper picture as background at the logon window, i
sometimes get tired of having the background light-blue and after backing up the
key, i change the value of:

[HKey_Local_Machine\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon]
"Background"="64 32 128"
; (Purple background)
; "Background"="37 133 39" (Green background)


--
Nah-ah. I'm staying out of this. ... Now, here's my opinion.

Please followup in the newsgroup.
E-mail address is invalid due to spam-control.

 

[Etal]

Very interesting.

However, I would again stress that in order for your
alternative background colour to be displayed, the value for
"Wallpaper" must be set to either "" or "none" .

i.e. :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="none"

Yes, where i specify a wallpaper for the login-desktop i have it
fill the whole desktop, so whatever color i may have the
background set to is hard to see.

When composing my previous followup, i suddenly realized the
light-blue background you talked about that one sees when using a
Welcome Screen was different from what i see, but i posted it
anyway just in case someone logging in like me sees it and want
to experiment.

The picture displayed is merely the one specified by the
registry value for the default wallpaper :

[HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop]
"Wallpaper"="C:\WINDOWS\blueback.bmp"

Simply locate this value in the registry using
[regedit.exe] and change it to what you want.

The original value in XP for this is the word "none" which
makes Windows display just the light-blue background to
the welcome screen with no writing.

( I don't use 'Welcome Screen' ("LogonType"=dword:00000000)
)

When i don't specify a wallpaper picture as background at
the logon window, i sometimes get tired of having the
background light-blue and after backing up the key, i change
the value of:

[HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\WinLogon]
"Background"="64 32 128" ; (Purple background) ;
"Background"="37 133 39" (Green background)