# Losing Wallpaper



## fishercrc (Sep 16, 2003)

I have a compaq desktop about 3 or 4 years old. When I turn it on in the morning I have to put my wallpaper back on. It disappears every night. Any suggestions on how I start troubleshooting?

Thanks,
Suzanne


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## XbrvhrtX (Jul 16, 2002)

is this a recent wallpaper you have started to use??

If so, make sure there is a copy of the file in your windows folder


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

Welcome to TSG 

Sounds like you have a wallpaper program set to change the wallpaper every day. Do you have any type of program like that?


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

The wallpaper file has to be in the C:\WINDOWS folder, and it has to have a .BMP file extension.

Frank's Windows 95/98 Tips


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## steamwiz (Oct 4, 2002)

Hi Frank

Sorry to have to have a slight dissagreement with you here 

On my windows98 computer I keep my wallpaper in C:\WINDOWS\WEB\Wallpaper and apart from a couple of bitmaps, I have around 50 .jpg's which all work ok as wallpaper.

steam


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

steamwiz,

Your right and wrong. 
If you use other programs that let you set a desktop background, IE, Netscape, Image program etc. then they can use other image formats. But they are changed into a .bmp as flavallee said because windows only uses .bmp. Not sure if the program or weindows makes the changes. If I look in my windows folder I have Plus (from windows), Internet Explorer Wallpaper, Netscape 7.0 Wallpaper, ACD Wallpaper, webshots and just now got Netscape Wallpaper after using Netscape 4.70 to set a background. Just used PhotoBrush to set a wallpaper and it added PhotoBrushWall to the windows folder. They were all .jpg images I used but they couple of them that are in the windows folder are all .bmp.


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## steamwiz (Oct 4, 2002)

hewee

Either I'm missing the point here or I don't agree with you - sorry

No third party software involved - just Windows desktop wallpaper.










As you can see - all .jpg's


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## steamwiz (Oct 4, 2002)

And this is the folder










Again as you can see - all .jpg's


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

If the images are in .BMP format a-n-d are in the C:\WINDOWS folder, they will automatically appear in the list of wallpaper for you to select when you click the Background tab.

Frank's Windows 95/98 Tips


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

All of mine are .bmp as I said and they show up as flavallee said in the above post also. 
Never seen them show as .jpeg


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## steamwiz (Oct 4, 2002)

Hi Frank

Glad we got that sorted 

I thought you were saying ALL wallpaper had to be .bmp and had to be in the C:\WINDOWS folder

But what you were saying is if you want it to automatically appear in display properties and it's a .bmp it has to be in the C:\WINDOWS folder

All I was saying was wallpaper can be a .jpg ( but to automatically appear in display properties it has to be in C:\WINDOWS\WEB\Wallpaper )you can also put .bmp's in here, but then I guess it is only a sub-folder of the C:\WINDOWS folder

steam


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## steamwiz (Oct 4, 2002)

hewee 

The images will only be added to Display properties from C:\WINDOWS if they are a .bmp - like frank says

But put them in C:\WINDOWS\WEB\Wallpaper and they will be added if they are .jpg's


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## Rockn (Jul 29, 2001)

Steam is correct on the placement of the files. If you just select them by browsing to a folder location they will not always stay on the list in your wallpaper list. One thing however about using jpg's or gif's as wallpaper is that you have to use Active Desktop in order to use them and it is a major resource hog. If you don't have that great of a system with resources to spare just use bitmaps for wallpaper.


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

No problem, Steamwiz. 

I don't use Active Desktop on either of my computers anyway, and I prefer to keep a nice blue background with NO wallpaper. 

Frank's Windows 95/98 Tips


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

I don't use Active Desktop either.
What I am saying is that I can use any image format that Netscape. IE, ACDsee and the other image program will open that let you set a desktop wallpaper and it makes a file in the windows folder. Look at the first 4 in the list in the image and they are .bmp. But they were all from .jpg and the webshot was from wbc file. They are turned into a .bmp to be used as a desktop wallpaper. It never uses the file it can from but the new bmp that it made and put onto the windows folder.


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## steamwiz (Oct 4, 2002)

Hi everyone

I *Always * have Active desktop ON - I guess that's where the confusion came from.

I have 3 daughters who are continually changing the wallpaper, if I turned off the active desktop I'd probably be murdered.

steam


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## hewee (Oct 26, 2001)

OK steamwiz maybe that is it. 
Please do what you need to do to stay alive.


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## knowslittle (Jul 28, 2003)

Reading all these posts helped me because I never knew where to find the files other than to right-click properties in the Desktop. When I went to my Windows folder, I also found 10 screen savers I had created using a program called xatshow. They range from 314 to 1,139 KB in size. My questions:
1. Is the space they take up a major issue for my little 5GB hard drive?
2.Do they have any effect on speed of operation just sitting there?
3.Would it be a good idea to burn them onto a CD and delete them from the Windows folder? (I'm not sure how to do this.)
4. To delete, do I just select, right-click and use Delete?


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## steamwiz (Oct 4, 2002)

1. No
2. No - I have several screen savers in my windows folder - a lot bigger than the ones you refer to.
3. It's up to you if you want to put them on a cd when you are not using them - if you have a re-write just drag and drop them onto your cd to make a copy.
4. Yes - just right click - delete and there gone.
Just paste them back into the folder from your cd when you want to use them.
steam


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## knowslittle (Jul 28, 2003)

OUTSTANDING! Thanks, Steam.


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

Knowslittle:

Save and keep screensavers, only if you're going to use them.

Your 5 GB hard drive will do you fine, as long as you're not trying to save a lot of photo, music, and video files, nor installing programs that take up a lot of hard drive space.

If you read my article, "Throwing Out The Trash", you'll find plenty of ways to get rid of useless junk and regain lots of hard drive space.

You can start out by moving the slider in the Recycle Bin from its default setting of 10% back to about 3 - 5%. Just right-click it, then click Properties.

Frank's Windows 95/98 Tips


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## knowslittle (Jul 28, 2003)

Thanks, flavallee. Looks like your site has lots of good info. I've already changed the Recycle Bin setting as you suggested.


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