I dont think it is possible to have walls from different folders/sub at the same time .
The closest you can get is to browse to the subfolder you want from within windows background page in personalise.
you can do this with as many folders as you like and then its just a case of selecting them from the dropdown list.
Well - I wrote a lil Program so u dont have to put each Registry Entry by Hands if u wanna test pm me - works fine.
Only one Problem from Windows itself: merging 247 Folders looks like too much xD
just found an easy solution: as mentioned above all subfolders in "C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper" are available if you set your desktop slideshow directory to "Windows-Backgrounds" (hopefully that's the right translation, in German it is "Windows-Desktophintergründe", could be "Windows-Wallpapers" as well).
Now how do we get all our pictures into that folder without copying them? just use the Windows function "mklink" through the command line. mklink creates shortcuts - but not just the casual shortcuts. it is able to create so called hardllinks.
- click on start
- type "CMD" and Enter
- command window opens
- type mklink /j C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Pictures C:\Users\<Username>\Pictures
- close the command window
you need to change <username> to your windows username. if you want to, you can point to any directory, even on other drives.
that's it.
if you delete the hard-link the source directory still remains.
have a nice day!
After quite some time I also found something that works:
It consists of changing the path of the Public Pictures to the folder you have your pictures. If you try to do this by clicking the right button on [Libraries > Pictures > Public Pictures] and picking the Location tab, you will see that it is not editable. To overcome this follow these instructions:
Move the Public folders on Windows 7 - Super User
After you're done, just select "Pictures Library" in the drop-down menu of the background settings.
well but that way I can't choose a more specific location including its subfolders.
Imagine I want year 2009 with all subfolder events - that doesn't work...
Go to screensaver and choose either Windows Live Photos or Google slideshow (I think the Google one got installed when I installed Picassa as a picture viewer and the WLP got installed when I installed Windows Live Essentials). Click advanced. There you can add any and all folders you like. There's only one problem. It shuffles according to folder, not photo so if you have 40 photos in one folder and 1 in another, you'll see that 1 photo way more often than the ones in the folder that contains 40. I'm still looking how to merge my many folders into one, virtually, and put the virtual photos in one folder but I'll start a new post for that question.
UPDATE: Although I know you want a true random picture slideshow screensaver and not just a random slideshow, I thought I'd add this: a way to have a true random slideshow though not as a screensaver:
First you have to make all the images the same somehow by grabbing all the images in Picture in Windows Media Player. Or you can do this in Lightroom if you have it. You have to give it some attribution Windows Media Center understands: tags or rating.
Once you have them all the same in some way, open WMC, go to Picture library, click and choose, say, "tags." That's what I've done because I have a tag that is a copyright for every picture on my disc. There are about 2700 pics so it takes a second. Then I click "play slideshow" and voila! A true picture-by-picture randomness.
You can do this also by giving them the same rating. Go to All Pictures in the Windows Media Player and select them all, right click and give them the same rating. Then go to the Pictures library in Windows Media Center and click on "rating" and then click "slideshow." Right click at any time to go to settings and change the delay period. :)
Last edited by pxfragonard; 30 Dec 2014 at 00:24. Reason: Realized I was sort of off topic. Sorry. Couldn't find delete button.
Hi guys, this problem pursuited me since the days when i just have been starting to work with win 7
So maybe someone still doesn't want to move to win 10 and needs the solution :)
To cut the long story short - i have tried all solutions and stopped on hardlinks solution proposed above. I have created attached batch file based on hardlinks solution
What attached batch file does:
- iterates through all files in your root wallpapers folder including all subfolders
- creates hardlinks for every file of format .jpg .png or .jpeg in specified hardlinks folder that you will create
- ignores any other file formats
- it will resolve situation when you have files with same names - it will create links for each file! (a slight change to hardlink name will be applied, source files will be left untouched ofc)
- batch will exit without prompt so you can put it in autorun on windows startup (in case you work with wallpapers heavily :) )
- before creating any hardlinks batch file will delete any existing hardlinks in your hardlinks folder, so basically when you have made any chagnes to folder structure or files content of your root "Wallpapers" folder (or whatever name you have) then you just need to run batch file and its done!
- it doesnt matter where you will store batch file, it should run ok unless you have set wrong paths (i hae left my paths as an example)
How to use:
1. Download batch file and put it in the place you want to run it from
2. Create folder for hardlinks in location you prefer
3. Change windows setting so it looks for wallpapers in that hardlinks folder you have created in step 2
4. Edit the file putting folder paths that you use - put it only in the top of file - you dont need to change anything anywhere else (you will see where to put your paths in the header of file - easy cake)
- ROOT_PICTURE_FOLDER_PATH
- HARDLINKS_FOLDER_NAME
- HARDLINKS_FOLDER_PATH
5. Save the file and run it whenever you like
Cheers.
there's a very easy solution for this -- create a custom library for wallpapers (can do by right clicking "Libraries" in the explorer left pane > New > Library) and manually add the wallpapers folder itself + all subfolders as "Library Locations" with the "Include a folder..." button. Then when you browse to add a folder to use for desktop backgrounds select the new library (Libraries will appear at the very top of the list) and each individual library location will be nicely displayed
voila
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