Handy Hint #554978 Wallpapers

Hi all,

I assume that most of you like to put up a picture you've taken as the background (wallpaper) on your desktop. It's easy enough.. right click the picture and then "Set as background" or "Set as Desktop background" depending where you get it from.

The only problem is that it doesn't stay in the list of backgrounds in Control Panel | Display | Desktop, when you change it. This is how to add your pictures to that list, so that you can change them whenever you want.. and it's easy.

Grab your image and resize it to 72 dpi, and your screen resolution; ie. 1024 x 768. This isn't crucial as Windows will resize it for you, but you may as well do a proper job..

Next save it with a memorable name, and as a *.bmp file.

Then just save it in the C:WINDOWS folder.. and that's it. You'll see the standard set of wallpapers that you can choose from, strewn around the folder, while you're there. Now go to Control Panel | Display | Desktop, and you'll see your image in the list along with the others. Add as many as you want.. and change them around without having to root through your 1000s of images to put up the one you liked a fortnight ago, but changed anyway.

This all applies to XP, but I'm sure there won't be much difference for other MS OSs.

Hope that helps..

Cheers

Liam

That's a bit of a mystery because my alternatives are sat quite happily in my Display Properties dialog box, along with all the standard Windows xp ones.

Having said that, I routinely use at least five different xp computers and all the versions of Windows do have very slight differences in behaviour or detail, so maybe this is one of the minor variations?

For some time, Windows has supported using jpegs directly for wallpaper. If you save your images as BMPs you will make them 5 times larger and much slower to load without any benefits.

Also, modern TFT screens are usually around 96dpi or better, although, this figure isn't usually regarded when displaying wallpaper.

another handy hint for those who can't decide between their favourite photos:

I found a handy little piece of software called Wallpaper Alterer

http://www.freedownloadscenter.com/Shell_and_Desktop/Wallpaper_Tools/Wallpaper_A...

it takes a directory full of photos and picks one at random to be your background every time you start Windows. You'll never be bored of your background again

Now if I could only find an equivalent for Linux.

On my XP SP2 PC, all the wallpapers are in the c:windowswebwallpaper folder.

KDE has such a feature built in.

as does mac tiger.

mmmm interesting, investigation is in order. I am using Gnome with Beryl.

Does she mind?

Dan