Solved Background suddenly gone black and cannot change

[handyguy]

My windows7 pro desktop computer has suddenly (morning of January 6, 2020) displayed a black background. It cannot be changed via Personalization/Desktop Background. That setting shows the correct background, but only black is displayed. That setting although you can select a different background reverts only to the last background that was selected - and in any case, only black is displayed.
I followed the instructions in https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/2504610/unable-to-change-background-picture-in-windows-7
but none of the points were valid on this installation, and all checks were ok.
Perhaps this is related to the recent drop of support for Windows 7?
I also checked recent updates and nothing was updated in the days before, except for windows defender. There were a few others today, but that was after the problem occurred, and they also do not seem suspicious.

 

[iko22]

Hello handyguy,
welcome to Seven Forums.

You could try a Clean Startup or System's Restore. Maybe one of those will revive the Settings.

 

[handyguy]

No change with clean startup.

 

[iko22]

Is the problem limited to one User Account, or does it persist with other user accounts too?

 

[handyguy]

Interesting, I enabled the Guest account - it had the standard windows background and I was able to change it!

 

[handyguy]

I was able to fix it by selecting a theme (aero), and then reverting back to the old picture.