desktop slide show no longer customisable

greetings!

i searched here and cannot find this precise issue. if it's here somewhere, simply point me to it. thanks much.

here's my prob:

my general modus operandi for setting a custom slideshow (i.e., setting a show containing pics of my preference) is to right-click the desktop, select personalise, select any of the available themes, change the slideshow to point to my folder of pics. this creates an "unsaved" theme which i then save, and DONE.

now, when i follow those steps, the "unsaved" theme gets either a black slideshow or simply retains the slideshow of the previous theme, the one with which i started. i don't begin with a previous custom theme... i mean, i HAVE done that, but generally i will simply pick one or even download a new one, then attempt to change the slideshow.

this became a problem in the past couple days and i have tried several fixes to no avail. i've deleted the "wallpaper" registry key, the custom.theme file, copied slideshow.ini from another user identity (on same machine). i've moved my custom pictures folder around and about and named it various things trying to trick windows into using it.

i am comfortable accessing hidden files and the registry -- been using PCs since the days they had a cassette-player attached. :) but in this case, perhaps i am too familiar with hidden files and registry keys, and have actually mucked something up?

thanks in advance.

sincerely,

Run2Eat (a.k.a. Tired-of-Cowboys-on-the-Desktop)

ah, that did the trick!

thanks so much.