Adding custom logon pictures to Windows XP

Inspired by this post on Raymond Chen’s blog, I thought I might explain how to change the logon pictures.

The pictures are stored in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures\Default Pictures. To add your own, just create a 48x48 .BMP file and drop it into this directory. It’ll then become available in the “Pick a new picture for your account” dialog.

Logon pictures in use are in C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Microsoft\User Account Pictures, stored as username.bmp.

If you use the “Browse for more pictures” to select another picture, it’s converted to the correct size and format and then dropped into this directory.