Unable to change background Windows 7 Home Premium

Anonymous
2009-11-27T19:00:12+00:00

**Original Title**

Windows 7 Desktop Background Picture won't change. Was working fine, changing everyday, then one day, stopped changing and now stuck on the same picture for 2 weeks.

The desktop backgrounds were working fine (previous 2 weeks ago), picture would change everyday. I downloaded all the other themes (ex. Brazil, China, Spain, etc.). At first these other themes worked fine and then all of a sudden, the desktop background picture won't change.

Another problem: under "Control Panel > Appearance and Personalization > Personalization" window, when I click on "Desktop Background" link or icon on bottom left and the picture locations are displayed, I can't check or uncheck pictures. When I try to clear all check marks or select all check marks, they seem to disappear (the check marks) randomly and then reappear randomly. Sometimes some check marks will stay and then others will disappear despite selecting "Clear all" or "Select all" (doesn't matter which) and seemingly random pictures are selected or deselected in no particular pattern. And then I tried manually selecting and deselecting each picture check mark and same thing, check marks would randomly stay or else disappear.

Bottom line is I am unable to change anything in "Desktop Background". And I have had the same background picture for 2 weeks unable to change it. Have clicked on every button or drop down menu like "Change picture every:" to 10 seconds, 30 seconds, etc. and still nothing.

I tried finding a work around solution like right clicking on different pictures in Windows Explorer and selecting "Set as desktop background" but literally nothing happens. I tried viewing several pictures in "Windows Photo Viewer" then right click on "Set as desktop background" and then an error pops up "This image can't be set as wallpaper. An internal error occurred."

I have all the latest windows updates. I haven't tried anything in safe mode because I really don't know windows 7 and safe mode turns the desktop background off, anyways, doesn't it? Don't really want to do a system restore for something so small or re-install. Please advise other things I can try!

Should also mention I tried deleting all the additional themes I downloaded to see if these caused problems... and yes I used antivirus and spyware several times (using "Shaw Secure" made by F-Secure). Still same problem. Also scanned with Ad-Aware (although had to turn off F-Secure to do this). Still nothing wrong.

It's a small problem I can live with but also annoying.

Should also mention this is a brand new pc with Windows 7 installed on it (no other OS was installed on it).

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Accessibility

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Anonymous
2009-12-01T10:31:14+00:00

should be noted that when you delete the content in the .ini file you need to reboot

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Anonymous
2009-11-30T19:30:10+00:00

Open this with Windows Explorer: %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\ and tell me what you see?

When choosing only one image for the desktop background there should be only TranscodedWallpaper.jpg and the slideshow.ini should be empty. Is there something inside the .ini file? Maybe it would be possible to force some changes removing the content of the .ini file

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  1. Anonymous
    2011-04-14T15:58:37+00:00

    So this problem just started for me yesterday and I did this suggestion.  There appeared to be nothing wrong with the .ini file but i just deleted the transcodedwallpaper.jpg and emptied my recycle bin. 

    Then I just found a picture in my files and set it as my desktop background and it finally allowed me to change it.

    I went back into personalize and switched to my old slideshow background and it seems to be working perfectly now. (I just checked it by right clicking on the desktop and selecting next desktop background and it advanced fine!)

    So thanks for this advice!

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  2. Anonymous
    2011-04-12T22:55:50+00:00

    I had exact same problem.

    Days before however, I had a virus and did system restore....on this restore, it somehow "hid" all my documents, photos, videos, etc.

    I had to go back, adjust folder settings to view hidden folders, and right click, on the items and in "properties" uncheck the "hide" and sometimes the "read only" boxes.

    Anyway, i found this to be the case here as well.

    So, I went to this folder

    *%USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes*

    changed the folder settings to view hidden folders, right clicked on the desktop wallpaper that was the current display (the one I was unable to change)....and right clicked on the themes in the folder, clicked on "properties" and unchecked the "hide" and "read only" boxes.

    Viola!

    It worked.

    Then I reset the folder options to "re-hide" the hidden folders.

    Hope this works

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  3. Anonymous
    2011-03-26T16:54:23+00:00

    i did what you said,but when i opened it there was nothing in slideshow.ini which as empty ,but there was a picture in the other file the transcodedwallpaper.jpg.,i deleted the picture in it but still did not change nothing,so now what do i do.

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