My Vista Basic SP1 logon screen has only VGA resolution (640x480), while all users and the administrator account have full screen resolution (1280x800).
Any idea how to correct this?
Found it!
Run msconfig.exe, select the "Boot" tab ("Computer opstarten" in Dutch), there is a setting Base video which is quite misleadingly translated Standaardvideo in Dutch.
So I had enabled it, hoping to get a nice video movie during startup, but it didn't and I forgot about it.
Boots to the Windows graphical user interface in minimal VGA mode. This loads standard VGA drivers instead of display drivers specific to the video hardware on the computer.
Well, I considered it obvious this is a Windows problem and unrelated to the graphics adapter (Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family).
And there isn't any software installed that influences standard Windows behaviour, nor any secondary display.
The point is, Windows just doesn't have any configuration option to tell it how the logon screen should behave (including resolution, screen saver, mouse pointer etc.)
I found out there is a registry key "HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel" which specifies control panel settings for for the system account, including screensaver settings, and which also is used for the logon screen. See http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/03/02/1786493.aspx.
However, this doesn't include the screen resolution, which is stored by the graphics adapter, in my case, in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Intel\Display\igfxcui\Configurations\ActiveDevices\4096-LPL0000" (found out by registry monitoring), which isn't present in the .DEFAULT profile.
So it might be a graphics adapter issue after all.
I copied the Software\Intel settings from my profile to .DEFAULT, but that didn't help.
I think you were on the right way by copying those settings to the .Default profile in the registry, but if that doesn't work, then apparently the screen resolution isn't kept there.
Just for fun you could try to create a new user profile, set its resolution as desired, then copy the entire registry hive over the .Default hive. I've done this a number of times.
Make sure you can always undo it, if one of these operations renders your computer unbootable. You can do that, for example, by connecting the hard disk to another computer or by booting into another operating system installation and copying or renaming the hive file back. This is not for the faint-hearted. (:-) Good luck!
Vista logon screen resolution restored!
Sat, 2008-09-13 12:28 by pj.de.bruin
Found it!
Run msconfig.exe, select the "Boot" tab ("Computer opstarten" in Dutch), there is a setting Base video which is quite misleadingly translated Standaardvideo in Dutch.
So I had enabled it, hoping to get a nice video movie during startup, but it didn't and I forgot about it.
Windowshelp.microsoft.com tells what it does:
So I disabled it and all is well.
Greetings,
Peter de Bruin
The /BASEVIDEO switch in boot.ini
Sat, 2008-09-13 12:37 by admin
Ah, so that was it! I didn't think of that, although I had seen it before.
Thanks for the report! It may help other users with the same problem later.
Actually I'm surprised that that setting is overridden when somebody logs on. That may depend on the graphics driver though.
Give information
Mon, 2008-09-08 19:00 by admin
Does the computer have an ATI graphics adapter? Do you use the Catalyst Control Center? Which display output is set as the main display?
Changing logon screen properties
Thu, 2008-09-11 19:35 by pj.de.bruin
Well, I considered it obvious this is a Windows problem and unrelated to the graphics adapter (Mobile Intel 965 Express Chipset Family).
And there isn't any software installed that influences standard Windows behaviour, nor any secondary display.
The point is, Windows just doesn't have any configuration option to tell it how the logon screen should behave (including resolution, screen saver, mouse pointer etc.)
I found out there is a registry key "HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel" which specifies control panel settings for for the system account, including screensaver settings, and which also is used for the logon screen. See http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2007/03/02/1786493.aspx.
However, this doesn't include the screen resolution, which is stored by the graphics adapter, in my case, in "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Intel\Display\igfxcui\Configurations\ActiveDevices\4096-LPL0000" (found out by registry monitoring), which isn't present in the .DEFAULT profile.
So it might be a graphics adapter issue after all.
I copied the Software\Intel settings from my profile to .DEFAULT, but that didn't help.
Regards, Peter
Right way
Thu, 2008-09-11 20:26 by admin
I think you were on the right way by copying those settings to the .Default profile in the registry, but if that doesn't work, then apparently the screen resolution isn't kept there.
Just for fun you could try to create a new user profile, set its resolution as desired, then copy the entire registry hive over the .Default hive. I've done this a number of times.
Make sure you can always undo it, if one of these operations renders your computer unbootable. You can do that, for example, by connecting the hard disk to another computer or by booting into another operating system installation and copying or renaming the hive file back. This is not for the faint-hearted. (:-) Good luck!