How to add a wallpaper to Windows 7 Starter without 3rd party apps

[DemonDelight]

I realize this may be in the wrong section, but I only just made my account on these forums to share this bit of information.

After recently installing 7 Starter N on my 6 year old laptop I soon found out how limited the OS is, one thing that specifically bugs me is the (almost) inability to change the wallpaper. I found a few articles online showing some registry editing to place wallpapers, but many users ran into difficulties changing the wallpaper a second time. I also realize there are such programs to do this task such as Oceanis and ThemeIt, but where's the fun in that?

Using basically the same use of the registry editor as many guides showed plus the use of some further permission and ownership changing to the wallpaper folder within the Windows directory to override TrustedInstaller to be able to swap out files as I please, I came across a very simple way to change the wallpaper by replacing the "img0.jpg" with a picture of the users choice, then log out/in to view the change, as detailed below:


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PART 1: Changing user permissions.

1. Navigate to C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper, Right click the "Windows" folder and select "properties".

2. Click the "Security" tab and highlight "Administrators (User-PC\Administrators)" and click on the
"Owner" tab. Click the "Edit..." button, then highlight "Administrators (User-PC\Administrators)" and check off the box for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects. Click the "OK" button, then again in the dialouge box that pops up next.

3. Click on the "Permissions" tab in the "Advanced Security settings" window and make sure both "Administrators (User-PC\Administrators)" and "Users (User-PC\Users)" have a permission setting of full control. If they do not, click the "Change permissions" button and edit both to have full control. Click the "OK" button on each of the windows to back out and save your changes.

PART 2: Editing the registry.

1. Open the start menu and type "regedit" into the search bar and hit enter. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop. Find the entry titled "Wallpaper" and double click it to open. Change the value to C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\img0.jpg and hit "OK".

2. Right click the "Desktop" key and click on "Permissions...". Click the "Add" button and type "Everyone" and click "OK". Click the "Advanced" button and make sure the "Everyone" group is highlighted. Click "Edit..." and check off "Read Control" and hit "OK" on that window, then again on the "Advanced security settings" window. In the next window highlight "Everyone" and check off the "Allow" option for "Read". Hit "OK".

3. Now you should be able to place any image with a .jpg extension named "img0" into the "C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows" directory, and once you log off and back in your wallpaper should be changed!

Let me know If this works for you, I messed around a bit to get this to work right, and I very well could have missed something in the instructions. Happy customizing!

-DemonDelight.

Screenshot -

 

[Barman58]

Full tutorial for various methods is here .....

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/47294-desktop-background-change-windows-7-starter.html

 

[DemonDelight]

Yes, That was one tutorial I checked... Then went onto the next. Again, this is for people that don't want to use 3rd party apps and don't mind messing with some settings. As for the Personalization panel, It doesn't work on Starter N for some reason, it just tells me my version is unsupported when I click the personalization pane..