How do I change the ISO default wallpaper?

PerhapsAverage

PerhapsAverage

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I am using NTLite for the first time, with a windows 10 LTSC 21H2 ISO. I have been working on it for around 20 or so minutes. But I can not find out where to change the default wallpaper.
 
PerhapsAverage said:
I am using NTLite for the first time, with a windows 10 LTSC 21H2 ISO. I have been working on it for around 20 or so minutes. But I can not find out where to change the default wallpaper.
Click to expand...

Ahem .... have you tried looking in the 'Guides ' section ?

Wallpaper Locations, Resolutions, and bit depths

Windows 10 and 11's default desktop wallpapers are stored in C:\Windows\Web. This folder usually contains subfolders named after different wallpaper themes (such as “Flowers” or “Windows”) or resolutions (“4K”). You can find the default Windows 10 and 11's wallpaper, which is the one with the...
www.ntlite.com www.ntlite.com
 
The Aero theme gets installed on user-creation and overwrites any changes you've made to the personalizations that themes handle, such as wallpaper. To fix this, prevent the Aero theme from being installed, then check the other spoilers for related tweaks:
; Start > Settings > Personalization > Themes > Custom
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes]
"InstallTheme"=""
"InstallThemeLight"=""

; Start > Settings > Personalization > Themes > Custom
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WOW6432Node\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes]
"InstallTheme"=""
"InstallThemeLight"=""

If you want a picture as your wallpaper, add these keys and modify the path to point to your wallpaper:
; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Background > Picture
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"WallPaper"="C:\\Windows\\Web\\Custom\\Wallpaper.png"

; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Background > Picture
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers]
"BackgroundType"=dword:00000000

If you want a solid black color as your wallpaper, add these keys:
; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Background > Solid color
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"WallPaper"=""

; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Background > Solid color
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers]
"BackgroundType"=dword:00000001

; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Choose your background color > Black
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Colors]
"Background"="0 0 0"

I would also only use a wallpaper that is the exact resolution of your monitor. In addition to that, if you are using a JPG file then Windows will compress it substantially, resulting in a huge loss of image quality, so I added a tweak for that too:
; Hidden > Wallpaper > Image compression > Off
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"JPEGImportQuality"=dword:00000064

Note: A program like GIMP is great for editing wallpapers to resize/crop them. Save these keys in a proper registry file, then integrate that registry file using NTLite (not post-setup) to have these tweaks work for all users and apply out of the box on a clean install.
 
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X: is the temporary drive letter for WinPE when it boots off the USB. It doesn't exist on a finished system.
 
One method for using a custom wallpaper is to select from one of the many options already bundled in Windows, so that another picture doesn't have to be added to the installation media. To do this, take the list of file paths that Taosd made in the first reply to this thread and change my custom registry key to use the path of the newly chosen wallpaper.

If you want to use your own custom picture then you would mount Windows in NTLite to paste your custom file into the WIM, and change the registry tweak to point to a new folder, which is how the registry key I posted is currently written. The tweaking method shown below has an advantage over every alternative, in that this one avoids interactions and conflicts with System File Checker and security permissions:
1) Run NTLite as an administrator. Once it is loaded, go to "Image" at the top, click "Add" then select "Image directory" and point to the Windows image folder you want to modify. Right-click on the Windows image and select "Load" and wait until it is finished. Right-click on the image again and now select "Explore mount directory" which lets you browse the files inside.

2) Inside the mounted directory, go into the "Windows" folder, then the "Web" folder, and now right-click and create a new folder (you should also see folders for 4K, Screen, and Wallpaper here). Name the new folder Custom with a capital C and then open it and paste your custom picture inside, and be sure to name this picture as Wallpaper with a capital W. If your picture is not already in .png format you will either need to convert it, or edit the relevant registry key so that the 2 instances of "Wallpaper.png" now appear as "Wallpaper.jpg" or whichever format your picture is in.

3) At this point you would add your .reg file to integrate the personalization registry keys previously discussed. After you finish with the mounted directory, exit out of that window and go back into the NTLite program. On the left menu, select "Registry" and then click "Add" from the menu at the top, choose "Registry files" and point it to your registry file.

4) To finalize the changes, click "Apply" from the menu on the left, then click "Process" and wait for it to finish. Exit out of NTLite, then copy all the files inside the edited Windows image folder to a formatted USB (NTFS or exFat), then boot to that USB to install your modified Windows.

Note: The wallpaper filepath in the registry key should always be C: drive unless you are manually changing your Windows drives or have some other configuration which affects how the default drive letters are assigned.
 
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I have a feeling now after reading your post about X: drive that you aren't talking about the desktop wallpaper, and probably want to edit the Windows Setup background and installers, like how some custom gaming ISO do?
 
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WinPE's wallpaper is easy to replace on the mounted boot.wim's image folder. Changing Setup.exe's graphics requires ResourceHacker, and by forum rules we can't really discuss any executable mods here. The answers to that question are not hard to find elsewhere.
 
Hellbovine said:
I have a feeling now after reading your post about X: drive that you aren't talking about the desktop wallpaper, and probably want to edit the Windows Setup background and installers, like how some custom gaming ISO do?
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No, I just want to edit the desktop Wallpaper. nothing else.
 
Simple - replace D\: with mounthdir of NTLite image and username with your own and point it to the image you want to have instead - remember Web folder structure in Windows from origin pic to replace:
takeown /f "D:\NTLite\Temp\NLTmpMnt\Windows\Web" /r /d y

ICACLS "D:\NTLite\Temp\NLTmpMnt\Windows\Web" /grant ”USERNAME”:F /T

RD /s /q D:\NTLite\Temp\NLTmpMnt\Windows\Web
Click to expand...
 
Hello, i want to set an specific image as wallpaper for an specific user. i`m not sure where to execute the commands postet by fransis11
Has this to be done in the post-setup section or somewhere else?
many thanks in advance!
 
Not possible - every user gets same wallpaper from /Web folder.
The CMD is executed on a loaded NTL image before start Apply - in the example D:\ drive.
 
Hellbovine said:
If you want a picture as your wallpaper, add these keys, and modify the path to point to your wallpaper:
; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Background > Picture
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"WallPaper"="C:\\Windows\\Web\\Custom\\Wallpaper.png"

; Start > Settings > Personalization > Background > Background > Picture
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer\Wallpapers]
"BackgroundType"=dword:00000000
Click to expand...
Hey, but where would i go about creating that folder and where do i put the image file? i have no clue.
 
XoBot said:
Hey, but where would i go about creating that folder and where do i put the image file? i have no clue.
Click to expand...
I usually delete wallpapers and lock screen wallpapers in ntlite and manually copy the wallpapers to the directory
Open the image directory and rename the wallpaper to img0 and img100
Wallpaper: C: \ Windows \ Web \ Wallpaper \ Windows \ img0.jpg
Lock screen wallpaper: C: \ Windows \ Web \ Screen \ img100.jpg
No need to change any registry, Windows will automatically use the wallpaper I copied. The disadvantage of this method is that it can only use JPG format.
 
XoBot said:
Hey, but where would i go about creating that folder and where do i put the image file? i have no clue.
Click to expand...
There's instructions in the spoiler of the follow-up reply (link). The NTLite tool has been updated since then, so some of the steps may be slightly off, but it should still be easy to figure out, otherwise let me know where the issue is and I'll update it.
 
Mr. Yu said:
I usually delete wallpapers and lock screen wallpapers in ntlite and manually copy the wallpapers to the directory
Open the image directory and rename the wallpaper to img0 and img100
Wallpaper: C: \ Windows \ Web \ Wallpaper \ Windows \ img0.jpg
Lock screen wallpaper: C: \ Windows \ Web \ Screen \ img100.jpg
No need to change any registry, Windows will automatically use the wallpaper I copied. The disadvantage of this method is that it can only use JPG format.
Click to expand...
I always do this method too by of course using a third party software to delete the preset wallpaper and lockscreen photos. And also you need to delete the wallpapers inside the 4K folder for the pasted photo to work as your current wallpaper.
 
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