Unable to change desktop background

I am using the home edition of W7 and for some odd reason today, changing the desktop background is disabled. It says that the administrator disabled it when i am the administrator and it is the only account I'm using. How do i enable changing the background again?

smackheadz said:

Click start, type regedit and hit <enter>. Click continue at the UAC prompt. Expand the branches to reach this one:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\Explorer

Check the values here for one about the wallpaper (either change value from 0 to 1 or delete it altogether).:)

Which one is the wallpaper?

These are the items I have under explorer:

(Default) - (value not set)
ForceActiveDesktopOn - (0)
NoActiveDesktop - (1)
NoActiveDesktopChanges - (1)
NoSetActiveDesktop - (1)

I think you meant HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop

Under that, there is NoChangingWallpaper. It was set as 1, which I changed to 0. I still was not able to change my wallpaper, but after a restart, I am now able to. Thanks.


Any idea why my computer would do this by itself?

ThumperSD said:

I think you meant HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop

Under that, there is NoChangingWallpaper. It was set as 1, which I changed to 0. I still was not able to change my wallpaper, but after a restart, I am now able to. Thanks.


Any idea why my computer would do this by itself?

aha,yes,you got sorted well done.as for why this would happen,who knows,thats computers for you.could have been some sort of install,update,program and the list goes on :) glad you got it sorted anyway