Replace the Default User Account Picture in Windows 10

1 min

This is a personal note for older Windows 10 installations. Regular support for Windows 10 version 22H2 ended on October 14, 2025, with exceptions such as LTSC and Extended Security Updates. Windows updates may also restore the default pictures. Back up the original files first, and consider whether the device is still maintained. See Microsoft’s Windows 10 release information.

The default Windows user account pictures are stored here:

C:\ProgramData\Microsoft\User Account Pictures

Back up the files whose names start with user to another directory. You may need administrator permission to replace files in this system folder.

Prepare a square PNG image to use as the account picture. The files used by this setup are:

  • user.png
  • user-32.png (32 × 32 pixels)
  • user-40.png (40 × 40 pixels)
  • user-48.png (48 × 48 pixels)
  • user-192.png (192 × 192 pixels)

This Python script uses Pillow to make the smaller images from user.png:

from PIL import Image

original_image = Image.open("user.png")

for size in (32, 40, 48, 192):
    resized_image = original_image.resize((size, size), Image.Resampling.LANCZOS)
    resized_image.save(f"user-{size}.png")

Place the PNG files in the account-picture folder, replacing the corresponding files. Restart Windows to check whether the picture changed. Restore your backup if the result is not what you wanted.