Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop

Subject: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: leeneia
Date: 28 May 21 - 05:17 PM

The DH and I have an HP laptop, which was working fine until somebody, we suppose Microsoft, decided to "update" and put scenic photos on our screen when we are about to start work. Like this:

turn computer on
blue screen appears. press enter

unwanted picture of Scandinavian scenery appears

On a good day, today's date appears, and when we click in the part of the screen where the date is, it goes to the sign-in screen. Good.

At a bad time, there's nothing on screen but the damn scenery. I've left-clicked, left double-clicked, right-clicked, Alt +F4, Ctrl Z'd, and pressed the Windows key. Nothing works. The picture just sits there. I can't get to the password box, so I can't use my computer.

I looked at Display and tried Help. No luck. I don't just want to change my picture, I want the silly thing to go away, get out of the way, let me use my computer.

Does anybody have any ideas? Don't suggest the fingerprint reader. It never works.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,#
Date: 28 May 21 - 05:58 PM

Windows 10 ??

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 May 21 - 06:01 PM

You need to move the pointer close to where the logon line will appear and click, it will show over the image. If you accidentally click that you like the image, a Bing window will open with more information about the site.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: ripov
Date: 28 May 21 - 07:01 PM

It's only to distract us from noticing how long win 10 takes to boot,certainly the desktop appearing sooner would be an improvement on an(admittedly) pleasant image-but microsoft in its wisdom doesn't ask what we want to see

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Joe Offer
Date: 28 May 21 - 07:12 PM

Well, I love the scenic photos on the login screen - but they're so beautiful that they make me jealous as a photographer. There's usually an icon on the lower-right corner of my screen that shows the status of my network connection. If I click it, the login box appears in the middle of my screen.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 28 May 21 - 07:30 PM

I have a SSD so it boots very quickly. And Joe is correct, if you look at the corners of the screen there are ways to find out what it is (mouse over the upper right but don't click). Every so often they tempt me into asking what the image is of.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Bonzo3legs
Date: 29 May 21 - 08:54 AM

With my solid state drive, windows 10 takes no more than 15 seconds to load the log on screen, then once correct password is entered desktop appears almost instantly!!

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 29 May 21 - 12:35 PM

Go to settings>personalisation>background and set your own background image or solid colour or whatever you prefer.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 29 May 21 - 12:38 PM

I just realised that in your case it's probably the lock screen you need to adjust : settings>personalisation>lock screen to set your own preference.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 May 21 - 12:39 PM

Yes, the lock screen is different than the background photos. I haven't bothered to change that because I know how to get around it quickly enough - and sometimes there is something interesting there.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 29 May 21 - 12:50 PM

I like them too, some nice surprises among them. But the OP is obviously upset by them so they will need to adjust the settings.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Jos
Date: 29 May 21 - 01:47 PM

I have more than one laptop and I like to have different lock screen and desktop pictures on them from my own photographs. Every now and then I find that microsoft has taken upon itself to synchronise them so that the same picture appears on every desktop and lock screen.
It is SO annoying.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Techno
Date: 29 May 21 - 03:24 PM

Ya gotta love the shit MicroSpawnOfSatanSoft puts you through- of course you have to be a masochist to put up with it.

One word: Linux

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 29 May 21 - 08:53 PM

I have never had a logon screen on any of the multiple computers I have had over the last 40 years and so seem to escape most of the problems others seem to have - touch wood.
The two current machines I have on W10 (grrr) do come up with pretty photos but because I do not have logon pressing any key takes me to were I wish to be.
Hope I won't regret this and those bastards from microsoft are not watching.
I still have huge problems with the concept of buying something that apparently I do not then own??!!

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Joe Offer
Date: 29 May 21 - 09:49 PM

I'm a compulsive traveler and photographer, so I dearly love the photos on the logon screen for Windows 10. I often stop logging in so I can call my wife in to see the photos. And the same thing for the photos that Google gives me on my phone and Chromebook. And now, even my Amazon Firestick has screensaver photos that are to die for. But as a photographer, I'm jealous. Every one of those photos is so perfect with colors so vivid. I've been to so many of those same places. How come I can't get pictures with such vivid colors?

Google gets me mad because they don't identify where their fantastic photos come from. At least, Microsoft usually now tells me where their photos were taken.

But how do Microsoft and Google make their photos so vivid? I've taken the same shots of the same places from the same perspective, and their photos always come out with colors that are so much more vivid. Is there a software program that will make my photos look as sexy as theirs?

-Joe, frustrated-

-Joe-

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Lou
Date: 29 May 21 - 10:21 PM

Most software is only a granted license, we hardly really "own" it, especially newer programs.

This thread makes me appreciate my old Macs even more. I can't use Winders... literally can't!

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 May 21 - 10:28 PM

Malcolm, a logon password is a good idea. Microsoft will try to make you logon with an email and account through them when you first set up the computer, but you can bypass that (and should bypass that) and keep your logon local. A password helps protect the contents a little bit if your device is ever stolen. Having had that happen once (2005 was a very bad year), I would never set it up without a logon password.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 29 May 21 - 10:57 PM

Joe, an expensive camera and setting up Photoshop or Lightroom to bring out the brilliant colors will help. When processing photos I use Adobe Bridge and load things into Lightroom. There is a lot of processing you can do there to help - and what you as the photographer remember of a place is an important part of photo processing. By all means adjust it till it looks right.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Peter laban
Date: 30 May 21 - 01:45 AM

Most of those photos are HDR photography, thatcan intensify a lot of features.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Peter Laban
Date: 30 May 21 - 05:07 AM

Here is a (randoimly picked) short introduction to HDR photography. It's a useful tool when used with a degree of restraint, it can go well over the top very quickly but as long as you manage to stay close to a realistic look (although it's usually an intensified version of reality) it will probably get you the results you're looking for (vivid colours, increased texture and local contrast etc). It's widely (over)used in landscape photography these days and most of the images microsoft will send to your lockscreen have been through the process to some degree.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Nick
Date: 30 May 21 - 05:12 AM

Joe
Have a look at Lumenzia

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 30 May 21 - 06:12 AM

I also get the pictures, which I like, BUT I also get, from time to time, the problem that Leeneia describes, where the whole thing gets firmly stuck on the picture, and try whatever I might - any key, escape, left click, right click, it just will not budge. So, that means, as she says, you cannot get to the log in box, and the only way to resolve it is to do a crash shutdown and re-boot. The computer plainly doesn’t like this as it takes ages to re-boot after such an incident.
For me, it doesn’t happen during initial boot-up, but mainly if the computer has been in “sleep” mode and I then go to waken it up again - usually just when I most urgently need to use it!
Will try what Peter L suggests, as it’s a frigging pain!

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: OldPossum
Date: 30 May 21 - 11:25 AM

To get to the login screen, try pressing CTRL+ALT+Delete.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 30 May 21 - 02:34 PM

ALT-f4 usually helps as well

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Tattie Bogle
Date: 30 May 21 - 05:52 PM

Thanks for the suggestions: will try next time it happens - as it will!

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 30 May 21 - 09:10 PM

Stilly

Thanks for the advice but!

I have never had any real problems over the years with the loss of stuff and have never subscribed to anything microsoft.

I am very careful about backing things up and always have at least two copies of anything I consider important.

In September of 2019 I decided it would be advantageous to have at least one machine with the latest windows system on as it was obvious that web access and surfing was becoming increasingly slower on my then current laptop operating on XP (still the best for anything even half clever with access).

I bought a small laptop and ensured I had at least got it basically trained before setting off on our annual missionary work to the southern antipodes.

I took my XP laptop as well as I knew that relying on an Oracle version would not be guaranteed.

All very fine and dandy until I was in Cairns in January 2020 and had spent a full day covering the special rail scene and had a great photographic record. I decided to back up the day's files to my new laptop - I had foolishly decided to trust it on the trip as it was easier to keep within the internal flight weight restrictions.
I placed the memory card from the camera into the adapter and plugged into the laptop, identified the files I wished to copy and pressed go.
Disaster - the bloody machine succeeded only in corrupting my memory card. I had no way of repeating the events of the day as the next timetable was three days hence and looking on the web it appeared there where programmes to deal with the problem those bastards at microsoft had given me.

I left things until I got back to the UK in March of 2020 and then investigated further.

The feed back I got indicated that the first thing I needed to do using the programme I was thinking of buying was to format the memory card!!!!!!!!

It is still in its case awaiting a chance to deal with it with someone I trust.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: BobL
Date: 31 May 21 - 01:35 AM

I take it your card was not one of those with a write protect switch. A very useful feature, as long as you remember to unprotect when returning the card to the camera / sound recorder / whatever.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: DaveRo
Date: 31 May 21 - 02:25 AM

I've had an SD card failed during a holiday. I used free software to recover nearly all the photos when I got home. You can't guarantee it will work, it depends on how it's corrupted and what's been done to it since. There are professional services that can do it. Same with hard disks - and probably with SSDs these days.

SD cards are inherently unreliable and a lot are of poor quality, or not the brand they claim to be.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: JHW
Date: 31 May 21 - 05:53 AM

Friend put Linux on this but no way into it so alas I had it removed. Years ago Microsoft (claimed) kept Removing screen pic and icons etc with claim of fake Windows. Yet another friend reckons this was a scam.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 31 May 21 - 08:22 PM

I think people will find that SD cards are far more reliable than SSDs and certainly have more chance of being recoverable at the moment.

I would be interested to know what the free software was that DaveRo used.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: DaveRo
Date: 01 Jun 21 - 03:17 AM

Here are the notes I made at the time in case it happened again:
30-6-2014
Tried 'recoverjpeg' first...
http://www.rfc1149.net/devel/recoverjpeg.html

But PhotoRec recovered more jpegs and 2 movs
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec

It appeared to recover many more jpegs but many seem to be part of deleted movs. These have no exif data so will fail the SortPhotos python script
So delete them (the small ones) before running the script

I see both those programs are still available. The first is Linux only . The second has been updated since then.

From those notes it looks like they scan for jpeg files. The last note is because that there were some videos (.mov) on the card and it seems to have extracted bits of those. 'Sortphotos' was a script to get the recovered pix into date order based on their exif data.

If it doesn't work in Windows (it might try to use a driver that interprets the card, when you just want to read the bits) I would try Linux; Knoppix is a small distro that will run from a CD.

There may be better tools out there now. Set the card read-only first, if it has a tab.

Good luck.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: Jack Campin
Date: 01 Jun 21 - 07:20 AM

I follow way too many forums with cat pictures. There have been a lot of faked-up colours in the last couple of years and I'm starting to drop forums I used to follow as a result. Ordinary ginger moggies go tangerine. It's like the soft-focus orange-filtered pictures you got in 1970s soft porn.

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: GUEST,Malcolm Storey
Date: 01 Jun 21 - 12:44 PM

Thanks Dave

Subject: RE: Tech: unwanted photo thrust onto our laptop
From: leeneia
Date: 01 Jun 21 - 09:05 PM

I'm the OP. I'm back.

Stilly, thanks for the tip about hovering over where the password ought to go. I probably tried that, but maybe not.

I never thought of Ctrl Alt Delete. Next time. Thanks.