Permanently Changing The Background In Windows 7 Starter

As you may have noticed, Microsoft has decided not to allow users to change the background in Windows 7 Starter. Several "solutions" exist to this problem but most of them are temporary, don't work at all, or require downloading software. The solution I have come up with is completely permanent and only requires slightly modifying one system file.

Step 1 How This Works

Microsoft has become increasingly sneaky when it comes to Windows restrictions. The file shell32.dll controls many visual attributes of windows such as the background image. On any other edition of windows, the user can open control panel and change the background by opening display properties or personalization settings and setting to what over their heart desires. Once they set the image and hit apply, it calls a function in shell32.dll that sets the background. In Windows 7 though, it is much different. The entire background change interface has been removed and the path to the default background image is hardcoded into the code of shell32.dll. The path hardcoded into shell32.dll is "%windir%\\Web\\Wallpaper\\Windows\\img0.jpg". The seemingly obvious solution to this problem is just to replace img0.jpg with your own custom image. But like I said, Microsoft has gotten sneaky. In shell32.dll there is also a hash of img0.dll to prevent it from being swapped with something else. For those of you that don't know, a hash is like a fingerprint of a file. Every file has its own completely unique fingerprint. Even changing one bit in a file would change it's fingerprint. Shell32.dll conatins a SHA256 hash of img0.jpg so if this file is changed or replaced, you get a black background.  Unfortunantly though, Microsoft didn't anticipate the modification of system files. What we will do is change the name of the file hardcoded in shell32.dll to img1.jpg and we will replace the hash in shell32.dll with the one of our own image. This way windows thinks our new background is the default one and is more than happy to show it. To some of you this may seem very complicated but it should make more sense as you read the rest of the instructable.

Comments

[celesty_esty]

Hi there! Thanks for the info but I am unable to locate shell32.dll on my net book. Is there a way to go around this? I really appreciate your help! Thank you!

[starcrawler]

Step 3: Hash Fun -

There is an alternative for when going online for the hash is not convenient.

http://download.cnet.com/HashCalc/3000-2250_4-10130770.html

That's Hash Calculator. It's free and it does do other things besides hashes, but for our purposes here, it works quite nicely.

[Weegee097]

XVI32 cannot find the text string 'img0.jpg' anywhere in shell32. What's happening? (yes, Unicode is ticked)

[starcrawler]

Leave .jpg out of the search. Use only "img0", it only shows up once.

[Glauser]

you have to drag de bar on right to the most top. then you can do ctrl+f

[speck2]

When I try to find img0.jpg It says"String not found" What do I do?

[jcézar]

Did you:

- select "Text string"?
- check "as Unicode Latin"?
- select "Scope from Begin"?

[bhill1]

I changed the wallpaper myself by -
copying the Windows wallpaper folder in Windows - Web - Wallpaper

I called the Original Folder Windows 2
then renamed Copy of Windows to Windows

I added a new 'Wallpaper Photo' called Img011.jpg (1900 x 1200 same as original)
then deleted the Img01.jpg that was in the folder
and finally renamed Img011.jpg to Img01.jpg

Easier to do than to explain in words...

Sammyone.

[yahya_vasko]

smart but dificult ! this is an easy way : go to "http://sourceforge.net/projects/starterchangebg/ . dowload the program ,it's small , and install it on ur pc , then go to ur office clik on the right botom of the mouse , you will see an extra tool down of it called "personilise", clik on it and change your wallpaper ; ) whenever you want and whatever the wallpaper is ! easy and safe , it doese work on my compaq and my friend acer !

[gswitheart]

im totally blurrr....=_=

[beala]

This instructable permanently changed my background completely black (luckily a restore point fixed it). I think MS recently pushed some update through that disabled these hacks, as I've tried three others, and they didn't work either.

Here's a few weird things that happened while trying to follow this instructable:
1) Windows wouldn't let me paste the modified shell32.dll into the System32 directory. It would act like it was successfully copied, but, after I copied it, I couldn't find it in the directory. It seemed like after it was copied, windows would immediately delete it.
2) I also couldn't rename the original shell32.dll1 back  to shell32.dll. 
3) I couldn't change the permissions on shell32.dll through the GUI. The permissions screen would open, then immediately close.
4) I was finally able to move shell32.dll around using cmd.exe. I had to run it as Admin and use the "copy" and "move" commands.
5) Even after restoring the original shell32.dll, the background remained black after restart. 

So, I think MS has definitely spent some time locking this down further. I'm just glad the restore point saved my arse.

Thanks for trying, though. I'm sure this worked sometime in the past.

Note: running Win7 Starter on an Asus Eee 1001p.

[dameili]

yes! beware, i have had the same issue and now i can't even start my computer's os. It just says that shell32.dll is not installed so my program (mainly the os) won't run. So it's just a black screen with a mouse and nothing. No way to go back and rename the file.

I don't know how to get to restore point... help~
Any pointers? What to do?
I'm on a toshiba netbook so there is no cd drive to reboot. :(

[jfairbairn]

I was having probs replacing the shell32.dll, although I had taken ownership of the file (and turned off UAC as an extra precaution), windows would not let me alter the original shell32.dll to shell32.dll1 as instructed, it was only when i went into the properties of the file and allowed administrators full control, that i was finally able to edit the file name and subsequently replace with the edited shell32.dll.
Once this was done I rebooted and found that it had been successful.

I've attached a screenshot, I hope this proves useful to anyone still having aggro.

Big thanks to Poopix123

[beala]

So it looks like someone got this to work 5 days ago. Maybe I'm just doing something wrong, but I triple checked all my steps. Hmmmm.

[Make me a SANDWICH]

Awesome Instructable!!! It worked perfectly. I didn't have administrator privileges, so I used my netbook ubuntu os from a flash drive. I just navigated to my temporary folder and copied and pasted the files directly in. I didn't have to use command prompt either. And again, sick instructable!

[holy monky23]

hi im trying to do it but im having a bit of trouble with step 4 if you can send me a email about what i might be doing wrong that would be most helpfull my email address is [e-mail] it seems every time i try to relpace the two hashes that it tell's me no string's are found i really would like to have my background changed im a little tried of the old one well thank you for listing i hope to be able to fix my mistake in the long run.
 

[workinprogress37]

Be sure that you placed the correct hash in the correct box. The img0 hash should go in the find box, and the new image hash should be in the replace box. Also check that you have spaces between every two characters. Also, you must be running windows 7 starter.

[shidimamak]

what you mean by "you have spaces between every two characters"

[devaa_3]

hi,
i home successfully done until step 5..
in step 6, i owned the file already, but i couldnt rename the file...
the file displayed "shell32" not "shell32.dll"..
so, would i rename the file..
please tell me in detail..
thank you...

[sherlock39]

Absolutely fabulous - i followed your instructions and IT WORKED !!! YERR. I can now change the theme and desktop picture. I am so happy i could do cartwheels (if i could do gymnastics !)

Thank you very much