Custom backgrounds on the console login screen

It is possible to get a custom background on the console login screen, although it's more of a proof-of-concept, and not something that will work reliably. It's not recommended to use this trick on your main system.

To achieve this, you need to extract the WallpaperHost.exe file from the WinPE (boot.wim) of the installation disk from your build of Windows (it's stored in Windows\System32)

You will also need the sethc exploit, or another way to bring up a command prompt on the login screen.

After you do that, you need to open the WallpaperHost file. You should now get a background on the login screen, just like this:

If you don't get a background, then you can use something like IrfanView to manually set a wallpaper (Ctrl+O, manually type in the path to the background, then Options>Set as Wallpaper)

This can screw up the wallpaper for the user that will be logging on, so you will need to reset it.