Wallpapers slideshow - any chance for subfolders?

[questionesse]

Hi there, I'm enjoying win7 for a while now and just set up a picture folder of mine as the source for thewallpaper slideshow. Is there any chance to get subfolders working, too? I don't think that it is possible, cause I couldn't find anything like that so far but it would be so much better to have an option for that! I mean - who has his picture collection in one folder? And for as much variety as possible it would be just nice to select a bigger collection than just one subfolder... Oh and another question - I also couldn'd find an option to adjust the slideshow speed - is there any? I think there has to be one... thx guys!

 

[torrentg]

You could try holding down ctrl or shift when you click on the folder you choose.

 

[questionesse]

nope...not able to select several at once

 

[Dwarf]

Copy the necessary folders here. I have downloaded some themes (countries) and copied the pictures to subfolders within this folder. If I find any more, I shall include them in this folder so that they can be displayed with the rest of them.

C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper



The following images show these as being selected. I have them set to fill, have an interval of 10 seconds between changes, and also have them to be selected as random.

 

[questionesse]

I don't really get what you're trying to tell me.
I'm not gonna copy my huge picture collection anywhere or change the folder structure.
So no chance for a Slideshow with subfolders?

 

[Southlodge]

Hi Questionesse

Afraid Dwarfs screenshots are a bit small to read but I think he's just using separate sub-folders one at a time rather than setting the program to take shots from a group of sub-folders which is what you were after.

To change speed you need to go to Control Panel > Personalization. Click on Desktop Background Slideshow and you will then have the option to change the picture between 10 secs up to once a day.

Can't answer the sub-directory question myself as I've just got a new widesceen monitor and have had to resize the pictures I want for desktop into a new separate folder so they fit nicely. Not every picture makes a good desktop. I will add more pictures to the directory as time goes by. I put these, as suggested by Dwarf, in Windows > Web > Wallpaper > MyDocs

If you want a 'normal' slideshow program that can be set to use sub-directories then I recommend Thumbs Plus - very flexible.

 

[Dwarf]

Hi Southlodge and welcome to Windows 7 Forums

All my desktop images that I use are stored in the C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper folder. They are actually stored in sub-folders within that directory. My first image shows that. As stated previously, I have them set to fill, have an interval of 10 seconds between changes, and also have them to be selected as random. All of the images in all of the sub-folders are included, and they all display. I like the random feature, as it means that I'm not sure which one is going to be displayed next.

 

[Gestalt]

]I was hoping this would give me an answer to the problem I was trying to seek, but it didn't. Like OP, I don't wish to move my wallpaper directory. I Have about 4 GB of wallpapers on a separate harddrive that I use exclusively for images, videos, and music. The Windows hard drive I use strictly for Windows.

On top of the solution offered by Dwarf, one could easily just use the Pictures Library to allow sub-directories to work. Of course, the problem then is that if you have other pictures in your pictures library, or if you'd like to use the Pictures library for its intended purpose. I thought that I could simply create a separate library for wallpapers, and use the Pictures location list and pick that library, but this proved to not work as plan, even when I optimized the folder for pictures.

It would seem that only the directory Dwarf linked to and the Pictures Library can support subdirectories. Before I came across this thread, I saw this: Neowin.net - How to: Create custom wallpaper collections in Windows 7 Essentially what that link does is allows you to add an option for your wallpapers folder, and to include the subdirectories. The problem with that is if you are like me, and you have over 100 subdirectories (I categorize my wallpapers by subject) or that you constantly add directories to your wallpaper folder, you are constantly editing your registry to add these new directories. My point is this, there has to be a quick registry change that will allow for you to edit what directories or libraries Windows will allow you to include subdirectories in, or even a registry fix so that all directories will include subs.

 

[questionesse]

any news on that problem?
I wonder that not more photo lovers are complaining about this annoying issue.
everybody is organizing his pictures in folders for years, type of picture, cameras or whatever and it is really sad that you simply can't select a folder with subfolders!

 

[Radon]

it isnt this easy like a checkbox "include subfolders" xD

u can only merge folders like the pre-installed Windows Wallpapers.

Open ur regedit and navigate to
"HKEY_LOCAL_Machine/Software/Microsoft/Windows/CurrentVersion/Explorer/Wallpapers/knownfolders/0/Windows Wallpapers/MergeFolders"

or simply try to search "%systemroot%/Web/Wallpapers" as Data u should arrive at the same Position xD


when u open the Key u find strings at the right side with the Path to the Folder where the Images are saved as name of the string ... simply edit the Windows-thingys and/or add new for each Folder u wanna add to the "collection"

exit regedit when done and voila - when u Choose "Windows-Wallpapers" u will find all Images in the Folders u added.

gr33tz

 

[boohbah]

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.

 

[Radon]

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

 

[Petuschock]

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!

 

[ralphrogers]

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.

 

[questionesse]

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...

 

[pxfragonard]

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.

 

[pxfragonard]

Hi there, I'm enjoying win7 for a while now and just set up a picture folder of mine as the source for thewallpaper slideshow. Is there any chance to get subfolders working, too? I don't think that it is possible, cause I couldn't find anything like that so far but it would be so much better to have an option for that! I mean - who has his picture collection in one folder? And for as much variety as possible it would be just nice to select a bigger collection than just one subfolder... Oh and another question - I also couldn'd find an option to adjust the slideshow speed - is there any? I think there has to be one... thx guys!

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.

 

[qwebek]

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.

 

[roger smith]

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