{"id":1629,"date":"2018-01-25T18:44:44","date_gmt":"2018-01-25T18:44:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/?page_id=1629"},"modified":"2025-07-26T15:24:03","modified_gmt":"2025-07-26T14:24:03","slug":"osd-background","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.autoitconsulting.com\/site\/software\/osd-background\/","title":{"rendered":"OSD Background – Branding and Debug Tools for ConfigMgr OSD"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Overview<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

OSD Background is a freeware utility for branding Microsoft Configuration Manager (ConfigMgr) and MDT Operating System Deployment. It also provides\u00a0user configurable debug tools and task sequence variable editing. The tools can be password protected and split into categories based on a user or admin password prompt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Downloads<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n
\"OSD
User Configurable Tools<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"OSD
Review and Edit Task Sequence Variables<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

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Background<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

When doing a ConfigMgr or MDT Operating System Deployment a common task is to customise the background that is shown during the various stages of the build. The most popular way to do this is to use the Microsoft Sysinternals tool BGInfo.exe<\/strong> to set the system wallpaper. BGInfo.exe is very widely used and can be configured to show lots of information about a machine.\u00a0BGInfo.exe can be run at various stages of a deployment to show computer information or build phases<\/em> with little effort. This can be seen in this blog post called Snazzy OSD Status with BGInfo<\/a>. In fact, MDT comes with a built in script called ZTISetBackground.wsf\u00a0<\/strong>that has a preconfigured BGInfo config file and the script can set the wallpaper from a set of background files.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Issues<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

During Windows 7 setup there is a window that shows the message “Setup is preparing your computer for first use”. On Windows 8 and Windows 10 that message is “Getting Ready” or the circling dots animation. These setup windows obscure the background making the BGInfo solution fail. MDT had a solution for this for Windows 7 in the ZTISetBackground.wsf<\/strong> script that used a custom WindowHide.exe<\/strong> executable to hide<\/em> the offending window by its title – which was FirstUXWnd<\/em> – thus revealing the previously hidden background image. On windows 10 the window name changed to Progress<\/em>, but on both Windows 7 and 10 the class name is the same which is FirstUXWndClass<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unfortunately, on Windows 10 hiding this window still does not reveal the background. The only solution is to create a new custom window and place it above this progress window and fill it with our wallpaper bitmap thus creating a “fake” background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are a number of applications I’ve seen that can already do something like this but I wanted to do my own version that works for me in the way I want and to provide the source code to help others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Features<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Here are some solution highlights:<\/p>\n\n\n\n