Where is the Windows 8 lock screen images?

How to change Windows 8 lock screen image manually? do not use the Control Panel, thank you.

Open the Charms bar on the right. Click on Settings and at the bottom click on Change PC Settings and you can browse for any picture to use.

Jim

No, i do not want to use PC Settings, only want to change it using program, thank you.

YOU CAN CHANGE IT FROM THE CHARMS BAR ONLY..GO TO PC SETTINGS -> THERE IS AN OPTION OF PERSONALIZE

Why is it so important you avoid using PC Settings to do it? It doesn't make sense to me why anyone would fight so hard to avoid using a simple settings panel.

gayxq said:

How to change Windows 8 lock screen image manually? do not use the Control Panel, thank you.

Click to expand...

I honestly don't get why you would want to find a work round for something that is so easily accessible?
Simply bring up the charm bar Win-key+C or hover mouse pointer to the right of the screen, click setting the setting control panel pop's up hit personalize, Lock screen and browse for your dam image.
IMO:The only reason I can thing of why anyone wouldn't want to do it this way is that section of windows is locked if this is the case support the company and pay for the product, its only right the when using the O/S for some time to come.

You must agree that it was more simple to right click the desktop in all previous Windows version no ?

You still can do that area 66, for the desktop wallpaper and so on. This guy's changing stuff for the "Metro" side, whose settings are all centralized under the "Metro" side as well. However, Trevers is right, you cannot change this stuff if you haven't activated your license key.

If this guy is trying to avoid so hard to use the PC Settings panel to change the lock screen, it's possible it's because he's not activating his copy of Windows 8 and therefore is locked out of changing these settings.

maybe he's running on a netbook with a screen resolution way below the minimum required for metro?
In which case he should just go back to Windows 7.


Also: if you view the photo in the metro pictures app, you can do it from within that app.

Friends, I don't think activation resolves this issue. I have purchased and activated my copy of Win 8 pro, and despite doing this I am not able to change the lock screen image and set the user account picture. An error message is displayed on trying to change either of these - it is 'Lock Screen Error' and 'User Picture Error'. I had posted a query on the Microsoft support site too, but have not received any response.

I can respond for myself .... it's because the picture on start up keeps reverting back to the space needle. The lock screen pic is only used if you lock the screen after you logon. I don't want to see that ugly space needle pic ever. The only wy to accomplish that seems to be to find the pic on the hard drive and replace it with a pic I like, giving it the name of the old pic. That is why it's necessary to know where the pics are kept. Otherwise, my PC, with software I paid for, is going to have this ugly space needle cartoon pic displayed every time I start up the PC. What is that pic, a left over from a 1989 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator? I hate that pic.

Now if you don't know the answer to where is that ugly pic stored, or if you know it's in code and can't be changed because it's not an actual image (I kind of doubt that), why don't you just admit you don't know instead of questioning the OP's right to ask the question?

And if anyone here knows the answer, why don't you just give it?

Lazure said:

Why is it so important you avoid using PC Settings to do it? It doesn't make sense to me why anyone would fight so hard to avoid using a simple settings panel.

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I don't know where the pic is stored, but the only reason I can think of that you're having the space needle show up at startup, is because you're using multiple user accounts or you're logging completely out of your current user account before shutting down.

My Windows 8 lock screen at startup matches what I chose in my PC Settings.

Are you using multiple users and/or using the Log Out function before shutting down?

Yes. Sometimes I login as admin. Sometimes I login as myself with admin privileges. I find that having admin privileges on my user account doesn't really give me full admin privileges. When I am done using the computer I use the shutdown command. When I start it up, there's the space needle. Sorry if I got a little obnoxious.

Lazure said:

I don't know where the pic is stored, but the only reason I can think of that you're having the space needle show up at startup, is because you're using multiple user accounts or you're logging completely out of your current user account before shutting down.

My Windows 8 lock screen at startup matches what I chose in my PC Settings.

Are you using multiple users and/or using the Log Out function before shutting down?

Click to expand...

bobspez said:

Yes. Sometimes I login as admin. Sometimes I login as myself with admin privileges. I find that having admin privileges on my user account doesn't really give me full admin privileges. When I am done using the computer I use the shutdown command. When I start it up, there's the space needle. Sorry if I got a little obnoxious.

Lazure said:

I don't know where the pic is stored, but the only reason I can think of that you're having the space needle show up at startup, is because you're using multiple user accounts or you're logging completely out of your current user account before shutting down.

My Windows 8 lock screen at startup matches what I chose in my PC Settings.

Are you using multiple users and/or using the Log Out function before shutting down?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

That's done on purpose. Your user account is admin enough that you can elevate when needed, but by default you are limited. It's a security feature that's been around since Vista. Did you disable UAC?

Anyhow, I guess it uses the default space needle when multiple users are present as to not show favoritism towards any particular user. Though, to be honest, they could have just used the last used lock screen. Oh well, that's MS's weirdness for ya. I wonder if there's a way to modify the 'default' profile in Windows 8, I wonder if that's where the purple color and space needle pic is determined? Back in the day, the default profile was often modified by network administrators so that new users created in say, a college, would automatically have a certain look and feel and UI settings by default. Is this still true today in modern versions of Windows?

Thanks for the reply. I don't disable UAC because I like to know what is happening. I often just run the command prompt as admin to bypass the Win8 "security" features. I can see security being in place on a network for users without admin privileges. But admin privileges used to be called "super-user" privileges for a reason, and there should be no restrictions. I have no problem with warnings, but creating roadblocks that a user with admin privileges needs to work around is just ridiculous.
A unix admin on a multimillion dollar network can destroy the whole network and every server on it with just one command per server. When the servers reboot, they will be wiped.
I'll keep looking for the name of the space needle image. If I find it I'll post it. If anyone else does, I hope they will do the same.

Lazure said:

That's done on purpose. Your user account is admin enough that you can elevate when needed, but by default you are limited. It's a security feature that's been around since Vista. Did you disable UAC?

Anyhow, I guess it uses the default space needle when multiple users are present as to not show favoritism towards any particular user. Though, to be honest, they could have just used the last used lock screen. Oh well, that's MS's weirdness for ya. I wonder if there's a way to modify the 'default' profile in Windows 8, I wonder if that's where the purple color and space needle pic is determined? Back in the day, the default profile was often modified by network administrators so that new users created in say, a college, would automatically have a certain look and feel and UI settings by default. Is this still true today in modern versions of Windows?

Click to expand...

bobspez said:

Thanks for the reply. I don't disable UAC because I like to know what is happening. I often just run the command prompt as admin to bypass the Win8 "security" features. I can see security being in place on a network for users without admin privileges. But admin privileges used to be called "super-user" privileges for a reason, and there should be no restrictions. I have no problem with warnings, but creating roadblocks that a user with admin privileges needs to work around is just ridiculous.
A unix admin on a multimillion dollar network can destroy the whole network and every server on it with just one command per server. When the servers reboot, they will be wiped.
I'll keep looking for the name of the space needle image. If I find it I'll post it. If anyone else does, I hope they will do the same.

Lazure said:

That's done on purpose. Your user account is admin enough that you can elevate when needed, but by default you are limited. It's a security feature that's been around since Vista. Did you disable UAC?

Anyhow, I guess it uses the default space needle when multiple users are present as to not show favoritism towards any particular user. Though, to be honest, they could have just used the last used lock screen. Oh well, that's MS's weirdness for ya. I wonder if there's a way to modify the 'default' profile in Windows 8, I wonder if that's where the purple color and space needle pic is determined? Back in the day, the default profile was often modified by network administrators so that new users created in say, a college, would automatically have a certain look and feel and UI settings by default. Is this still true today in modern versions of Windows?

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

This link may give you some places to look.

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/2639-lock-screen-background-image-change-windows-8-a.html

bobspez said:

I can respond for myself .... it's because the picture on start up keeps reverting back to the space needle. The lock screen pic is only used if you lock the screen after you logon. I don't want to see that ugly space needle pic ever. The only wy to accomplish that seems to be to find the pic on the hard drive and replace it with a pic I like, giving it the name of the old pic. That is why it's necessary to know where the pics are kept. Otherwise, my PC, with software I paid for, is going to have this ugly space needle cartoon pic displayed every time I start up the PC. What is that pic, a left over from a 1989 version of Microsoft Flight Simulator? I hate that pic.

Now if you don't know the answer to where is that ugly pic stored, or if you know it's in code and can't be changed because it's not an actual image (I kind of doubt that), why don't you just admit you don't know instead of questioning the OP's right to ask the question?

And if anyone here knows the answer, why don't you just give it?

Lazure said:

Why is it so important you avoid using PC Settings to do it? It doesn't make sense to me why anyone would fight so hard to avoid using a simple settings panel.

Click to expand...

Click to expand...

People seem to be confused between the 2 screens. The Lock screen is the screen that can be set using PC Settings and it shows when you click on Lock. The other screen is globally set for multiple users and displayed when you click on Sign Out or on Startup which is the Space Needle screen. I gave the answer to this about a month ago:

http://www.eightforums.com/customiz...creen-different-lock-screen-2.html#post153836

Maybe Shawn would be kind enough to put it in the tutorial section because I saw 3 different posts asking the same question.

bobspez, I think a lot of confusion is due to you not calling that screen the right thing. It's not the lock screen you're referring to with the Seattle pic. That's the login background. topgundcp has the link above to locate that file. You can also Google search on how to change the Windows 8 Login Background. Why MS chose not to allow a user to easily configure this is anyone's wild guess.

You can also Google search on how to change the Windows 8 Login Background

Click to expand...

@mbratch
It's in the tutorial:
http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...ange-background-color-windows-8-a.html?filter

Thanks to all who joined in. I figured it out.
As Labeeman said, the space needle picture is C:\Windows\Web\Screen\img100.png
That pic has permissions set to Read&Executre and Read for all users except the
user TrustedInstaller who has full permissions. I opened a command prompt as
admin an ran the
takeown /f C:\Windows\Web\Screen\img100.png /a
command give the Administrator ownership of the file and the
icacls C:\Windows\Web\Screen\img100.png /grant Administrator:F
command to give the Administrator permission to change the file.
At this point both the Administrator and the TrustedInstaller users
had full permissions. I then changed the pic and gave the new pic the original name
but that didn't fix anything, so I reset everything.
As far as I can tell, the pre login image is the lockscreen image of the last
person who was logged in prior to shutdown.
So, I just logged in as each of my two user accounts and used the Charm Panel/Settings/Change PC Settings
to select the same lock screen image for both of the users on my PC. Now that image always comes up as the
pre login image (and the lock screen images as well).

mbratch said:

bobspez, I think a lot of confusion is due to you not calling that screen the right thing. It's not the lock screen you're referring to with the Seattle pic. That's the login background. topgundcp has the link above to locate that file. You can also Google search on how to change the Windows 8 Login Background. Why MS chose not to allow a user to easily configure this is anyone's wild guess.

Click to expand...