Add account picture from command line 1809

I want to have my script automatically set up an account picture for a user.

In Windows 10 1809 17763 the account pictures are located at %APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\AccountPictures.

Images are stored with a string name such as '81b56e057727e2f4', not an actual file name.

The reference to this image in the registry is HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AccountPicture

However, putting the images in the correct folder and adding the registry key still does not display the account picture.

Using RegFromApp and manually adding it via the settings app I see that it creates an entry at;

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache\xxx\52C64B7E with a name of
@windows.UI.Immersive.dll,-38306

And its value is 'Account Picture'

The problem is the xxx in the registry path above is different for each installation.

The value at the end of the name seems to be constant.

-38306 for a user account picture
-23570 for the default account picture.

So my question is how can I get the account picture to display from the script without having each user manually configure it?

Wobitancrawfodi said:

The problem is the xxx in the registry path above is different for each installation.

Find the xxx via either of the following commands:

(1) PowerShell

Code:

Get-ChildItem -Path "HKCU:\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache" -recurse|Format-table -hidetableheaders name|Out-File "$env:homeDrive$env:homePath\Desktop\Value.txt"

(2) CMD

Code:

PowerShell Get-ChildItem -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache' -recurse ^|Format-table -hidetableheaders name > "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Value.txt"

In both cases, the xxx can be found in "Value.txt" on the desktop.

That's awesome, and almost perfect. The output creates 6 lines in the text file.

Code:

.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache\1cf         
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache\1cf\52C64B7E
.
.
.

The dots are there just to show that there are blank lines.

I can grab line 3 by using 'skip=2' in the for command in batch to grab the line I need to use for the registry key.

Thanks for your help.

Wobitancrawfodi said:

That's awesome, and almost perfect. The output creates 6 lines in the text file.

Code:

.
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache\1cf         
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache\1cf\52C64B7E
.
.
.

The dots are there just to show that there are blank lines.

I can grab line 3 by using 'skip=2' in the for command in batch to grab the line I need to use for the registry key.

Thanks for your help.

If you succeeded please share your scripts or details.

The OP used Skip in a For...Do loop to exclude the first, unneeded lines.

Apologies. I have forgotten all about this post. This is what I ended up with;

The APSrcID is different for each user and is set at the start of the script;

Code:

Set APSrcID=f8759757aaa1a98a

Later...

Code:

IF EXIST "%SrcPath%\Account Pictures\" (
        Echo %time% Copying Account Pictures >>C:\%USERDOMAIN%.PostInstall.Log 2>&1
        copy "%SrcPath%\Account Pictures\*.*" "%APPDATA%\Microsoft\Windows\AccountPictures" /y >>C:\%USERDOMAIN%.PostInstall.Log 2>&1
        IF NOT "%APSrcID%"=="" (
            REG ADD "HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\AccountPicture" /v SourceId /d %APSrcID% /t REG_SZ /f >>C:\%USERDOMAIN%.PostInstall.Log 2>&1
            PowerShell Get-ChildItem -Path 'HKCU:\Software\Classes\Local Settings\MuiCache' -recurse ^|Format-table -hidetableheaders name > "%USERPROFILE%\Desktop\Value.txt"
            for /F "usebackq skip=2 delims=" %%G in ("%userprofile%\desktop\value.txt") do set MyKey=%%G 
            IF NOT "%MyKey%"=="" (
                Echo %time% Adding pointer to Registry for MUICACHE at %MyKey% >>C:\%USERDOMAIN%.PostInstall.Log 2>&1
                REG ADD "%MyKey%" /v "@Windows.UI.Immersive.dll,-38306" /d "Account Picture" /t REG_SZ /f >>C:\%USERDOMAIN%.PostInstall.Log 2>&1
                del "%userprofile%\desktop\value.txt"
            )
        )
    )

I have a backup script I run before reinstalling windows. It copies the account pictures to %SrcPath%\AccountPictures. In this case, %SrcPath% is set to %cd:~0,2%\PostInstall\%Username%. %APSrcID% is the file name of the picture to be used.

I was going to script the determination of %APSrcID% but there were multiple files in some cases and no easy way to determine which one was being used. So I just added the name to the script.

You can back up the image in the following folder:

C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\AccountPictures

Just double-click on the backup image or run the following command to import it.

Start "" "D:\Photo.accountpicture-ms"

Matthew Wai said:

You can back up the image in the following folder:
Start "" "D:\Photo.accountpicture-ms"

I know this is an old thread, but I just came across it in a search.

This looked interesting so I thought I'd give it a try. It pops up an error box saying "error setting account picture. Please try again"

The file I selected is an accountpicture-ms

@jshs2020
Do you have the same .accountpicture-ms file in the following folder?

C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\AccountPictures

Matthew Wai said:

@jshs2020
Do you have the same .accountpicture-ms file in the following folder?

C:\Users\%UserName%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\AccountPictures

Yes. The file is only in that folder.