Changing the Windows 7 login screen background?
Reading through the search results, they actually do let you without any hacking, but it's still a bit hackerish. From this site:
Use the following Group Policy setting in Windows 7
- Start the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc)
- Go to the following branch:
Computer Configuration | Administrative Templates | System | Logon- Set the following option to Enabled
Always use custom logon background
The next step, it says, is to copy your background into C:\Windows\System32\oobe\info\backgrounds\ as backgroundDefault.jpg.
The built-in way is not exposed to users via any nice interface, but it's simple enough to do it yourself -- I wouldn't describe it as a "hacker-way".
If you want the user/pass/domain style, you can get that by enabling the group policy setting for "do not show last username". If you have Windows 7 Pro, Ultimate or Enterprise, you can change it by opening gpedit.msc from the Run box, and navigating to Computer Configuration > Windows Settings > Security Settings > Local Policies > Security Options, and finding "Interactive logon: do not display last user name". If you have Windows 7 Home, you will have to change it in the registry by going to HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System and changing the value from 0 to 1.