Desktop Background troubles

  • Thread starter Thread starter 5teveP
  • Start date Start date
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5teveP

I have an odd situation taking place with my background. Two things have
happened:
1) I see every photo I have ever taken in the Desktop Background display
options and many of the photos have the same description/name in this area.
I have seen post about this but did not see an easy solution to removing the
link to these photos residing in My Photos - can anyone halp with this.

2) secondly and as aggravating is that any time I save a new picture to My
Photos it becomes my new background automatically without me doing anything.
Any ideas on what is causing this and how to fix.

Are these two related? Started happening about a week ago. One thing I did
that could be tied to this is I re-arranged some pictures and put them in new
subfolders and did some organizing - but did not intentionally link them to
my background.

Please help - very frustrating
 
Open control-panel,display,desktop,background,R.click on any image you
do not wish to see on youre desktop & remove it....
 
I have an odd situation taking place with my background.  Two things have
happened:
1) I see every photo I have ever taken in the Desktop Background display
options and many of the photos have the same description/name in this area.  
I have seen post about this but did not see an easy solution to removing the
link to these photos residing in My Photos - can anyone halp with this.

2) secondly and as aggravating is that any time I save a new picture to My
Photos it becomes my new background automatically without me doing anything.  
Any ideas on what is causing this and how to fix.

Are these two related?  Started happening about a week ago.  One thing I did
that could be tied to this is I re-arranged some pictures and put them innew
subfolders and did some organizing - but did not intentionally link them to
my background.

Please help - very frustrating
Click to expand...

Do you have Photoshop installed? Just curious.

The default background selections are in c:\windows\web\wallpaper

If you have stuff in your ..\my documents\my pictures, they will show
up as an option for your background image choice. You can move the
images out of there to someplace else if you want. I don't have any
in mine but if I put a.JPG in there, it shows up.

Now if you go here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/34492-45-wallpaper-pictures-stop-this

There is quite a discussion on this topic. I have not tried them all,
but I did try the one from TiMeBoMb which involve a simple registry
edit and switched mine back and forth to make My Pictures show up or
not show up. He gives you a .REG file, but you can just edit the
registry by hand if you are comfortable with that. I edited mine by
hand.

I don't know if it would mess anything else up or not. The readme
goes something like this:


--- THIS REGISTRY ENTRY APPLIES ONLY TO THE CURRENT USER! ---

This registry tweak "fixes" the problem where all the "My Pictures"
files are showing in the Wallpaper list.

It edits the registry entry below...


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
\User Shell Folders]
My Pictures = %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures


...and changes it to...


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
\User Shell Folders]
My Pictures = %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures-DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-
WALLPAPER-LIST


This entry may also effect other applications that refer to the "My
Pictures" directory by a User Shell call, or default save directory.


So, now you have some things to try. I don't know about your #2
problem, yet...
 
Thanks - this did not solve problem 1 as all the image links to My Photos
were still present after restoring to default. But it may have taken care of
#2 since the background went to the default blue screen.

Going ot try the other recommendations and eventually get it figured out -
thanks
 
Thanks for the help but this does not work. When I right click I do not get
any options - only the "what's this" message. It seems odd that there is not
a simple way to remove these links (they are links because the actual
file/images are not there) from the options. I would not mind them there but
there are tons o fthem and the same name/descriptor is used multiple times
for different pics so cannot find the one I really want - a real pain.
 
DING-DING-DING- we have a winner. Thanks Jose, your solution fixed the
problem. I was not comfortable at first editing the .reg file but I went to
the link you provided and he gave step by step directions. His solution,
however, did not work so I used a combination of the two to fix it.

For anyone else trying - here is the fix as combined and edited by me:
1. Click start then run and type regedit (warning be careful making changes).
2. Expand to;
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
User Shell Folders
3. You will see an entry called "My Pictures "
4. Right click on the entry and select modify.
5. Change the entry to "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My
Pictures-DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-WALLPAPER-LIST" (DO NOT INCLUDE THE QUOTATIONS
MARKS), basically you are adding "-DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-WALLPAPER-LIST" to the
end of the current entry. I actually copied and pasted it right to the end
of the current one so I did not risk typos.
6. then select ok and close out of .reg

This works and I then went back and used the browse feature and selected a
picture from My Pictures to use as my background - just like I did before the
problem.

Again, thanks to Jose for the help and the link that assisted me in editing
the .reg file. I hope my compilation makes it easier for the next person.



Jose said:
Do you have Photoshop installed? Just curious.

The default background selections are in c:\windows\web\wallpaper

If you have stuff in your ..\my documents\my pictures, they will show
up as an option for your background image choice. You can move the
images out of there to someplace else if you want. I don't have any
in mine but if I put a.JPG in there, it shows up.

Now if you go here: http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/34492-45-wallpaper-pictures-stop-this

There is quite a discussion on this topic. I have not tried them all,
but I did try the one from TiMeBoMb which involve a simple registry
edit and switched mine back and forth to make My Pictures show up or
not show up. He gives you a .REG file, but you can just edit the
registry by hand if you are comfortable with that. I edited mine by
hand.

I don't know if it would mess anything else up or not. The readme
goes something like this:


--- THIS REGISTRY ENTRY APPLIES ONLY TO THE CURRENT USER! ---

This registry tweak "fixes" the problem where all the "My Pictures"
files are showing in the Wallpaper list.

It edits the registry entry below...


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
\User Shell Folders]
My Pictures = %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures


...and changes it to...


[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
\User Shell Folders]
My Pictures = %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures-DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-
WALLPAPER-LIST


This entry may also effect other applications that refer to the "My
Pictures" directory by a User Shell call, or default save directory.


So, now you have some things to try. I don't know about your #2
problem, yet...
Click to expand...
 
DING-DING-DING- we have a winner.  Thanks Jose, your solution fixed the
problem.  I was not comfortable at first editing the .reg file but I went to
the link you provided and he gave step by step directions.  His solution,
however, did not work so I used a combination of the two to fix it.

For anyone else trying - here is the fix as combined and edited by me:
1. Click start then run and type regedit (warning be careful making changes).
2. Expand to;  
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
User Shell Folders
3. You will see an entry called "My Pictures "
4. Right click on the entry and select modify.
5. Change the entry to "%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My
Pictures-DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-WALLPAPER-LIST" (DO NOT INCLUDE THE QUOTATIONS
MARKS), basically you are adding "-DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-WALLPAPER-LIST" to the
end of the current entry.  I actually copied and pasted it right to theend
of the current one so I did not risk typos.
6. then select ok and close out of .reg

This works and I then went back and used the browse feature and selected a
picture from My Pictures to use as my background - just like I did beforethe
problem.

Again, thanks to Jose for the help and the link that assisted me in editing
the .reg file.  I hope my compilation makes it easier for the next person.

Jose said:
Do you have Photoshop installed?  Just curious.
Click to expand...
The default background selections are in c:\windows\web\wallpaper
Click to expand...
If you have stuff in your ..\my documents\my pictures, they will show
up as an option for your background image choice.  You can move the
images out of there to someplace else if you want.  I don't have any
in mine but if I put a.JPG in there, it shows up.
Click to expand...
Now if you go here:  http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/34492-45-wallpaper-pictures-stop-this
Click to expand...
There is quite a discussion on this topic.  I have not tried them all,
but I did try the one from TiMeBoMb which involve a simple registry
edit and switched mine back and forth to make My Pictures show up or
not show up.  He gives you a .REG file, but you can just edit the
registry by hand if you are comfortable with that.  I edited mine by
hand.
Click to expand...
I don't know if it would mess anything else up or not.  The readme
goes something like this:
Click to expand...
--- THIS REGISTRY ENTRY APPLIES ONLY TO THE CURRENT USER! ---
Click to expand...
This registry tweak "fixes" the problem where all the "My Pictures"
files are showing in the Wallpaper list.
Click to expand...
It edits the registry entry below...
Click to expand...
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
\User Shell Folders]
My Pictures = %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures
Click to expand...
    ...and changes it to...
Click to expand...
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer
\User Shell Folders]
My Pictures = %USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures-DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-
WALLPAPER-LIST
Click to expand...
This entry may also effect other applications that refer to the "My
Pictures" directory by a User Shell call, or default save directory.
Click to expand...
So, now you have some things to try.  I don't know about your #2
problem, yet...
Click to expand...
Click to expand...

Well, that is good.

You can really change that registry entry by just adding something on
the end of it. I just added -blah to mine instead of the much cuter -
DO-NOT-DISPLAY-IN-WALLPAPER-LIST.
 
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