[Aristizzle]

After installing 10.6 and 10.6.2, the default background on my user login with password screen has been a boring bright blue screen. I decided to try and change it, but can't find a solution. Two things: 1) I've changed the apple that sits above the spinning kernel gear to the netbookinstaller icon and 2) changed the apple logo at the login screen to another icon too. No issues with login or hanging or anything and the default background screen was already blue before I made these changes.
Now, the default login background on my system is as follows:
/System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg (basically, the snow leopard cosmos background). The file is indeed a jpeg and is set to the mini 10v's 1024x600 dpi. So I went into /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist to check and make sure the file path to the defaultdesktop jpeg was correct and the plist looks like this:

"bplist00Ÿ

XlastUser\lastUserName]autoLoginUser]
showInputMenu_OptimizerLastRunForSystem_OptimizerL astRunForBuild
\SHOWFULLNAME[lastUserUID_RetriesUntilHintXloggedIn\myname
\myname
BCÄı$1?MiÑëù∞π∆”‘Ÿfifl‚‰"

Quotes are mine and where it reads myname, it has my actual name. I'm assuming this is corrupted? Can it be fixed so that my default background at login is the defaultdesktop.jpg in coreservices? Kind of scared to mess with it since I obviously don't want to be denied access to the login screen by screwing something up over a blue background.

[meklort]

That's a binary plist. You can't read it in textedit / nano / etc. You can either use defaults to modify it, or convert it to a regular xml plist

plutil -convert xml1 some_file.plist

[Aristizzle]

Originally Posted by meklort

That's a binary plist. You can't read it in textedit / nano / etc. You can either use defaults to modify it, or convert it to a regular xml plist

plutil -convert xml1 some_file.plist

So open terminal and write:
"defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow.plist" and terminal will display the plist to me? No need to use sudo before?

---------- Post added at 01:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:30 PM ----------

Ok, was able to open it. So I guess I have a much more simple question now: how do I change the blue background at the login screen with another image? Must this be done through terminal and if so with what commands? In the loginwindo plist I don't see any file path to the defaultdesktop jpeg in coreservices. If not through terminal, then by what means? All I want to do is to make that cosmos, supernova looking image, i.e., DefaultDesktop.jpg, in CoreServices be my background at the login with your password screen.

[Akki]

Originally Posted by Aristizzle

[/COLOR]Ok, was able to open it. So I guess I have a much more simple question now: how do I change the blue background at the login screen with another image?

One way is to install Secrets Pref Panel and that exposes the login background as a preference you can just set.

[Aristizzle]

Nope, no dice, not even with Secrets.Prefpane. It shows the same file path I outline in my initial post. So, the question remains, how do you edit the loginwindow plist to change the blue login screen? Or is there some other way? Merely replacing the default desktop image in coreservices and renaming it defaultdesktop.jpg doesn't do the trick. I'm stumped. Surely there is an easy fix. The normal OS all have the cosmos background at login so I don't see why it should be so difficult to get it done on the hacked mini, but I'm stumped. Does it have something to do with the fact that the default desktop image is in my folder instead of shared users folder?

[Aristizzle]

Tried a couple of login screen apps and no luck. Tried terminal command "sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg" and no luck. Is this perhaps something to do with chameleon or netbookinstaller then? I'm out of ideas, hope someone can help me get rid of that blue screen...

[Aristizzle]

Originally Posted by Aristizzle

Tried a couple of login screen apps and no luck. Tried terminal command "sudo defaults write /Library/Preferences/com.apple.loginwindow DesktopPicture /System/Library/CoreServices/DefaultDesktop.jpg" and no luck. Is this perhaps something to do with chameleon or netbookinstaller then? I'm out of ideas, hope someone can help me get rid of that blue screen...

Anyone?

[J400uk]

Same issue here, was a fix ever discovered? Its a bit strange as when I logout from my user account the login background is there, but when I reboot the login background is gone...