How To Use Your Own Picture for User Accounts on Windows XP

Windows XP has cute little pictures that you can use for your user account. This account picture shows up on the Welcome screen and on the Start menu. But if you want a picture that really identifies yourself, you might want to use your own picture. Changing the picture of your user account takes only a few minutes. If you don’t know how to do this, here’s a guide.

* Save a photo of yourself. If you want to get a picture from your camera, connect the camera to your computer, either through the provided USB cable or memory card reader, and download the image. Save it in a folder in My Pictures. Alternately, scan a photo and directly save it on your computer.
* Access your user account. Begin by pressing the Start button. Then go to Control Panel. Double-click User Accounts. Under the “or pick an account to change heading,” click your username.
* Change the picture. On the User Accounts window, you will be asked what you want to change about user account. There are several options there; click Change my picture. You will then be directed to another window.
* Select a picture. In the new window, you will be asked to select a new picture for your user account. Click “Browse for more pictures.” Look for the folder where you saved your photo. Select the photo and click the Open button. This will automatically change your account picture. When you click the Start button, you should see the new picture at the top of the Start menu, sitting beside your account name.
* Take a new photo. If you prefer, you can also take a new photo of yourself. This works if a webcam is connected to your computer. Do this by clicking “Get a picture form a camera or scanner” instead of “Browse for more pictures.” A window will appear where you can take photos using the webcam. Simply click the Capture button. The captured photos will be displayed on the right side of the window. Select the photo you want to use and click the Get Picture button. Finish by clicking Change Picture. Your newly captured photo should now appear as your new user account picture. Remember that captured photos will appear on your webcam folder. You can delete the photos if you don’t want to keep them.
* Change the picture as often as you want. You can always change the photo, especially if you have lots of photos to display as your account picture. If you are sharing the computer with others, you might even want to encourage them to change their own pictures. Or if you own the administrator account, change all the other accounts’ pictures yourself.


Remember that you can also use photos downloaded from the Internet. To do this, you must first save the photo in your computer. See to it that the picture is saved in the right format (JPEG, Bitmap, etc.) Then follow the same procedure as described above. The account picture will appear very small on the screen; take note of this if you want to use a highly detailed photo.