Wallpapers (Desktop Backgrounds)

How to Customize the Wallpaper

The desktop background is referred to as the Wallpaper, and can be customized. To do this, right-click on the desktop background, select "Properties", and then select "Desktop Background".

Use the "Picture Location" menu (click on the down arrow on the right-hand side) and select "Windows Wallpapers" to display a selection of standard Windows images, or else select one of the photo folders on the computer to select from your own photographs. When you've found an image you like, click on it, and you'll see that the background changes immediately (you can iconize the Desktop Background window to see how the whole screen looks, and then open it again when you've decided whether you like the change or no). You can then either confirm the change by hitting the "OK" button, or else reject it by selecting "Cancel".

Shows how to customize your wallpaper.

How to Use a Slideshow as your Wallpaper

Instead of using a single image as your wallpaper, you might want to display a slideshow (an image which changes periodically). There are a couple of ways you can do this, including:

  • Download and install the free John's Background Switcher. The website does a pretty good job of explaining how to download, install and use the program.
  • Download and install the free Webshots Desktop from http://www.webshots.com/page/apps. The program includes a sample set of images, but other images stored on your computer can be used in the slideshow, or you can purchase additional images by signing up on the main webshots website (http://www.webshots.com/).

Where to Find Free Wallpapers

Using any of your own collection of digital photographs is obviously free. Beyond that, there are lots of free wallpapers and screensavers (which are covered in the next section) available from http://www.screensavers.com/, some free sample images usually come with Windows (usually stored somewhere like C:\Users\Public\Public Pictures\Sample Pictures), and a sample of free images come with the the Webshots Desktop mentioned above.

If none of these are what you're looking for, there are loads of others available. Typing “free wallpapers” into Google (or any other search engine) will bring up plenty of results.

A good source that we often use is the National Geographic website (http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography). If you find a picture you like, select "Wallpaper" at the bottom of the photograph, then select the resolution required (depending on the size of monitor you're using), then right-click on the picture and select "Set as Background".

Sometimes, if the picture size is smaller than the screen size, the picture may be partially duplicated ("tiled"), or there may be a black border around the edges. To remove this, right-click on the desktop, select "Personalize" and select "Desktop Background". At the bottom of the window are three options specifying how the picture should be handled if it's smaller than the screen size.

Shows how to set the desktop background.

Select the first button to stretch the picture to fit the screen size.

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