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Jonathan Mergy

69 comments

  • Finally, just about the only person on the internet who actually understands the difference between the login screen and the *pre-login* screen. Awesome work figuring this out.

    Notes from my experience (for anyone else trying this):
    – In order for this to work for me, I first had to remove the img100.jpg file in C:\Windows\Web\Screen (I just renamed it img106.jpg) and then follow the steps described above. Failure to do so would cause the LockScreen_Z folder and its contents to be recreated on reboot and the sea cave image to return.
    – With no img100.jpg in C:\Windows\Web\Screen at reboot, a light blue background is all that is shown on the pre-login screen. Saving a different image as img100.jpg in this folder and rebooting would cause that image to be copied to the LockScreen_Z folder and applied to the pre-login screen (only the first time, there-after, all the steps unfortunately have to be repeated)
    – I found another copy of img100.jpg in the following folder: C:\Windows\WinSxS\amd64_microsoft-windows-t..nbackgrounds-client_31bf3856ad364e35_10.0.10586.0_none_699c5beca3c8f021. I imagine the folder name may be different on other Windows 10 installations. Manipulating the img100.jpg file in this folder appeared to have no effect on the pre-login screen.
    – The ownership settings and permissions on the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData folder appear to be reset on each reboot. Use “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects” when modifying them to save time and hassle.

    Thanks again!

  • Great help on the latest and greatest clean install of “Anniversary” garbage. How Microsoft is still in business is beyond me. Good Grief!

  • Just wanted to thank you and Scott for your insight on this very annoying issue.
    So I did some addition experimenting and found that if you pre-populate the “C:\Windows\Web\Screen” folder with your own images the image named img100.jpg will get “assigned” to the pre-login screen on reboot. So now instead of eliminating that image I can use my own.
    So I made a little batch file ( must be run in an administrative command window) and will pass it on for what it is worth.
    Now if someone can get this to work at startup we can autorotate the image.
    ————– cmd script follows ———–
    C:
    CD \Windows\Web\Screen
    ren img100.jpg img99.jpg
    ren img101.jpg img100.jpg
    ren img102.jpg img101.jpg
    ren img103.jpg img102.jpg
    ren img104.jpg img103.jpg
    ren img99.jpg img104.jpg
    cd \ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows
    takeown /F SystemData /R /A /D Y
    Rem The /R makes it recursive, and the /A assigns Admin group, /D is default answer for “are you sure” prompts.
    del SystemData\S-1-5-18\ReadOnly\LockScreen_Z\*.jpg
    ————- end script ———–

  • I took this a step further.
    I run the batch file as a scheduled task triggered by system startup, and runs under the SYSTEM account.
    Because it now runs under the system account that owns the image, the “takeown” lines can be removed. I no longer need to take ownership because I am getting the owner to do the task.

    I now get a new image each time I restart the the PC, once changed the image persists during logoff/logon and only changes after shutdown/restart, or if I choose to run the batch file manually again.

  • Great post. I have a question: I like to delete that _Z folder using Group policy. Can anyone help? Thanks in advance

  • Run CMD as an admin
    go to the location
    C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData\S-1-5-18\ReadOnly
    using CD.. (1 step back) or ex. cd Mircosoft (go into Microsoft folder)
    Type: DEL LockScreen_Z
    Folder is now empty and you can remove it manually

    When using CMD or Powershell type exactly the same letters case sensitive and everything (Best practice)

  • OK, This problem has been bugging me forever! I tried the steps above and it didn’t work. It’s just keeps recreating the folders and file (and resetting the permissions…)

    I have 2 user accounts on my PC and – this is the really annoying thing – It only affects one of them! The other user always has a “Spotlight” image that gets auto-rotated peridoically (once every 2-3 days maybe?) and I’m stuck with the same old Cave picture at “pre-login”. Highly annoying! I dont really want to have a blank blue screen or a set of my own images – I want to understand (and then hopefully fix!) why one user gets spotlight and the other doesn’t. I want the spotlight images as well…

    Any help appreiciated.

  • I ran into exactly the same problem as those above, I could change the image on my lock screen but not that of my sign-in screen. I managed to fix this using the steps below:

    1.) Open Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen
    2.) Set “Background” to “Windows spotlight”
    3.) Enable “Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen”
    4.) Restart your PC
    5.) Open Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen
    6.) Set “Background” to “Picture”
    7.) Pick your preferred picture

    It seems that by changing the value of “Background” to “Windows spotlight” and then back to “Picture”, Windows 10 actually decides to respect the “Show lock screen background picture on the sign-in screen” option.

    I now have consistent sign-in and lock screens… finally.

    Good luck!

  • Update – So I set the ownership of the C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData\S-1-5-18\ folder to my own user account and then it all went a bit haywire – the pre-login wallpaper was always just a shade of blue for all users and we kept getting the same salt plains picture from spotlight for all users no matter what I did to the permissions or files in side the child directories. Not exactly the desired fix. I tried renaming the directory with the hope thtat Windows would again recreate a new version with all the right permissions and it didn’t do it for a while. I left it for a couple of days, did the slightly different rename – this time I renamed the whole “SystemData” folder to “SystemData_Old” and rebooted and now everything is working the way I would have expected in the first place – there are different pre-login wall papers for all users.

  • Oops!
    Can’t even see contents of SystemData folder.
    In fact, Properties > Security > Advanced says “Unable to display current owner”.
    Is there anything that can be done about that?

  • Thank you so much. After 4 hours of searching through the Internet I FINALLY found something that actually got rid me of stuck Windows Spotlight image I was unable to change for several months.

      • Hi Jonathan,

        I have found an alternate and simple solution to fix the sign-in screen NOT showing the lock screen image.

        Launch the Group Policy Editor console by typing “gpedit” in the search screen and hitting enter. Now, under Local Computer Policy–>Computer Configuration–>Administrative Templates–> Control Panel–>Personalization.

        Now, select the property “Force a specific default lock screen and logon image”. By default, it will be set to ” Not configured”. Change it to “Enabled” by selecting the appropriate radio button. Now, under the “Options” screen, give the path to the Lock Screen Image. Click “Apply” and hit “Ok”. Now, reboot the system to see the image you selected appear at both the logon screen as well as at the lock screen.

        It is that simple and you can change the images as you want. That is, if you want a different logon screen image and lock screen image – don’t select the option to set the lock screen image as the logon screen mage at the Personalization page. Super Cool. Cheers.

      • Hi Jonathan,

        I have found an alternate and simple solution to fix the sign-in screen NOT showing the lock screen image.

        Launch the Group Policy Editor console by typing “gpedit” in the search screen and hitting enter. Now, under Local Computer Policy–>Computer Configuration–>Administrative Templates–> Control Panel–>Personalization.

        Now, select the property “Force a specific default lock screen and logon image”. By default, it will be set to ” Not configured”. Change it to “Enabled” by selecting the appropriate radio button. Now, under the “Options” screen, give the path to the Lock Screen Image. Click “Apply” and hit “Ok”. Now, reboot the system to see the image you selected appear at both the logon screen as well as at the lock screen.

        It is that simple and you can change the images as you want. That is, if you want a different logon screen image and lock screen image – don’t select the option to set the lock screen image as the logon screen mage at the Personalization page. Super Cool and Cheers.

  • Awesome, thank you! I found my pesky image in another subfolder inside SystemData. It was actually an infographic I created and I have no clue how it got there. Definitely appreciate the solution and to be free of frequent reminders of my amateur graphic design skills.

  • Big, big, thank you for ridding my Windows 10 login screen of that infernal img100.jpg image!

    It’s even more annoying than clippy from Microsoft Office!

    Why are Microsoft’s defaults always so . . .downright creepy ??

  • Hi Jonathan!
    Thanks a lot!
    After searching and searching again on google but not solving anything, I finally found your site.
    Now I can drink my Italian cafe in peace. 🙂
    Frank.

  • You are a Champ. Been hunting for this for a while and now i have it. I use Active Boot Disk v10 to easily access and modify the files and folder without having to worry about Windows security forbidding changes.

    • Great idea. I recently reinstalled Windows 10 to get off the Insider builds cleanly and had to check the site to do this again because I saw that beach cave image again and had flashbacks!

  • But I love turtle and chicken island (I’ve looked at them so much the one on the left I called chicken and the one on the right I call turtle)

  • I tried so far :
    take ownership manually

    trying Bryan’s batch script commands as admin: Access is denied.

    C:\Windows\Web\Screen>cd C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\Windows\SystemData\S-1-5-18\ReadOnly
    Access is denied. (as admin)

    Chris Nankervis method, it has no permananet effect

    editing grpup policy to use a specific image

    any idea how to get rig of that freaking cave image ?

    Windows 1909

  • But who should you revert ownership of SystemData to afterwards? You can’t see who owns SystemData until after you change it!

    • Any day I can help someone trying to get away from the beach cave is a good day. Thanks for taking the time to comment that this was helpful. I really appreciate knowing this helped someone out there!

  • Thank you Jonathan! Thought I’d go mad but now I won’t need that straight jacket!

    Just reinstalled on a new computer and was forced to deal with this again after years of blissful ignorance. Have to echo Scott in saying this is the only page I’ve seen that understands the specifics of what we are trying to change.

    Also thanks to many nice commenters that shed light on the sometimes byzantine inner workings of Windows! (I think Cris’s “change, then change back” is what I must have done previously.)

  • Been working on this for 8 hours now, I still get my old (purple) cold boot login screen. The rest is oke. Does anyone know where that is located?

  • This was an amazing fix, and the only one I found after an hour of searching that actually worked. Thank you!!!

      • This is the only website on the entire internet that helped me with this dumb and boring problem.
        Days searching for the solution
        The image of the cave was driving me crazy
        Thank you!!

        • Thanks for posting!

          Crazy insane this is not easier to fix. It’s one of those things that is minor, but builds and builds because it’s annoying right? Glad this helped!
          Best,
          Jonathan

  • WHAT A NIGHTMARE. I have been plagued by the “boot up cave” for YEEEEARS. It’s in my brain forever now. It haunts me. It haunts all of us. And yet no one at MS seems to mind this spectre. Nor has anyone at MS looked up the word “personalization”. This is the kind of thing they’re famous for: dumb, irritating, non-customizable tech. NIGHTMARE. Anyway. Just a quick note of THANKS for having (still) the only webpage in about a trillion webpages that (a) understands this issue, and (b) offers actual solutions. For me it was as simple as someone’s suggestion above. (go to lock screen, choose spotlight, enable show picture, reboot, then back to lock screen, and switch off spotlight to picture, and choose your own picture). This worked for me. For now. Thanks again.

  • I’m in Win 11 and my lockscreen issue is different. The lockscreen displays my specified picture for less than 1/2 second. No way to do a slide show or Spotlight. Any suggestions welcome… (besides reinstalling OS!)

    • Marc – thanks for commenting here. I’m also running Windows 11 as well but have not been burdened with the “cave” for a while. Hoping someone reading here can provide some insight on this.

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