Can't change my desktop background

reizuken · 12 Apr 2010

i dont know if this is the right place for this thread but.. XP

i can change my desktop background color, but i cant change my desktop background...

whenever i try to "right click" and "set as desktop background", nothing happens.. so i tried clicking on the wallpaper to preview it.. once the preview window was up... i "right clicked" and "set as desktop background", but thjis time.. it showed an error message that says

"this image cannot be set as wallpaper. an internal error occurred"

another odd thing is that whenever i click the themes in the personalize window... it also does not work...

please help me...

P.s.

the location of the wallpaper and the pictures were A-okay...

not so gray matter · 12 Apr 2010

In other words, no matter whether you use personalize or a shortcut, you cannot change your desktop background. That sounds like a corrupted file to me. There's a few things I can think of.

System & File Check - SFC /SCANNOW Command - System File Checker
System Restore - System Restore
Repair Install - Repair Install

Brink · 12 Apr 2010

Hello Reizuken,

You might check to see if this may be the issue with desktop background set to not be allowed to be changed and/or a specific background is set for it.

Desktop Background - Allow or Prevent Changing

Desktop Background - Specify and Prevent Change

Hope this helps,
Shawn

reizuken · 12 Apr 2010

thank you for replying... and sorry for bein late..

about the sfc /scannow command

~whenever i type it it tells me this...

"you must be an administrator running a console session in order to use the sfc command"
but i am the administrator O.O

~~~~~~~~~~~

and sir brink...

i tried it but it did not work...

Brink · 12 Apr 2010

Reizuken,

Did you right click on the command prompt shortcut and click on "run as administrator" to open a elevated command prompt (click on link) to type in sfc /scannow in instead?

reizuken · 13 Apr 2010

windows resource protection did not find any integrity violations...

~when i finished the scan..

Brink · 13 Apr 2010

Umm, ok then. You might consider a repair install without losing anything.

Alternate · 03 Feb 2011

I know that this is an old thread, but I decided this needs to be posted. I had the same issue, and after looking for ages I found this. Go to Control Panel and then Appearance and Personalization. Click where where it says "Show hidden files and folders". It's right next to folder options, then check the box for "show hidden files, folder, and drives". Click Ok. Now, navigate to Your drive (mine is C: ) Then go to Users\ (your user)\ AppData\ Roaming\ Microsoft\ Windows\ Themes. If there's a wallpaper(s), delete it. If there's an .ini file, open it with Notepad and erase the contents. Now reboot, worked for me. :)

Helpful · 22 Feb 2011

Ok i figured out how to fix it. what you need to do is first follow the steps of Remove Background Images (where available). but when you get to Hide color most likely the box will not be checked, check the box. then go into personalization and change the color of your background and save it. then go to theme and change theme to an older windows theme. then go back and uncheck the box for hide color and put whatever background you were trying to do. What happened is when you did system restore it froze your last picture on your background. and what this does is removes and trace of anything and solves it for you.