Wallpaper broken

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I’ve just noticed that I cannot change the wallpaper on my desktop. When I right-click the desktop and select properties, the buttons to the right on the background tab (browse, picture display, pattern) are all grayed out. Everything else works in the display properties on all the other tabs. I am running Win2k Pro SP3 with a Matrox G400 max video board. I have the latest Matrox driver.

I haven’t tried to make a change to wallpaper since putting in SP3 10 days ago or so. Wondering itf there might be a tie-in? Any thoughts, ideas?

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Check your registry at: HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionPoliciesSystem

Wallpaper	REG_SZ	C:MyCompanyMyLogo.bmp
WallpaperStyle	REG_SZ	2

Where WallpaperStyle = 0 (Centered) , 1 (Tiled) or 2 ((Stretched)

If that registry entry exists, you can NOT change your wallpaper. It’s intended to stop employees removing the highly company logo on their work computers

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No, this key does not exist on my system.

I did a registry search for wallpaper and found the current wallpaper pointer. I deleted that. This was coming from a folder I had created named “Wallpaper”. I deleted the actual files that were there. I then rebooted two times. The wallpaper that was displaying cleared. Now on the background tab, the selector highlight is positioned at the top of the avialable choices in the selection window. But I can’t move the selector. All controls on this tab do not work. This is very strange.

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I’m using SP 3 and don’t have that problem.

Have you tried going directly to the Control Panel to change the Display settings?

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It’s no different at the control panel.

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Any help from reading JSI Tip # 3259?

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No, nothing there that helps. Does anyone know the file name(s) of the Windows Display Properties app? Maybe I can try to manually reload a fresh file copy from the CD…

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It’s one of the .cpl files in the System32 directory.

I’m not in front of a WIn2K box at the moment, but in XPPro it’s desk.cpl in the windows/system32 directory

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Run a repair, or whatever it is called, for restoring missing stuff in Win 2000.
It is very dangerous for we mere mortals to replace files.

One of the good things about ,NET is that it reduces, if not eliminates, DLL Hell.

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Edited by WyllyWylly to add URL code. See the Quick Guide.[/size]

Just found the solution to this problem. I had downloaded and was evaluating a program called Tweak Security from http://www.blumentals.net/tweaksec/%5B/url%5D. One of the settings it allowed me to change was “Disable the ability to change wallpapers”. This was checked on. I unchecked it, applied the change and voila!, problem solved. Apparently, there is a registry setting somewhere for disabling wallpaper that somehow got turned on. I have never seen this setting mentioned anywhere else, so don’t know how it got set on, if I did it or some other auxiliary process did it.

btw: This TweakSec program looks like a great program to have. There are 50 free uses and then registrations are about $15. It groups a whole lot of diverse settings in one place, making life much easier. I will be registering this one.

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