trouble applying picture as desktop background

ctmom05

Member
I am having a very tough time trying to set a picture as my desktop background; I have Windows Vista. I know the basics of how to do this and none of those customary and ordinary tactics are working.

For those of you who have some computer tech skills, maybe you can tell me - what would prevent me from being apply to apply a desktop background? Is there a setting that could be preventing me from selecting a picture I have on file?
 

AnnieO

Shooting from the Hip
...Occasionally Vista doesn't like certain file types... Such as .tif files. And it also gets really upset about virtual locations.

Not sure this helps any, but...
 

ctmom05

Member
Step .. .. ..
Unfortuntely, that's not the answer .. .. .. I had a perfectly good picture applied as a desktop background. I would still like to use the same one(the picture is saved in "my pictures"). Several days ago the picture disappeared from being te background, altho it is still saved as a file.

If it worked at one point, my question is - how come the same(or any other picture) can't be applied as a background now? The only background I can successfully select is to have the entire desktop a plain color.
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
ctmom--

One of the things that annoys me the most about Vista, is that occassionally it will block programs that I need....for no apparant reason. Every once in a while, it blocks the graphics card - which causes my desktop to get very dark and hard to see. Stupid - why would graphics be a security risk? Who knows - but Vista must think so sometimes. When this happens, I have to manually go and restart the program.

Maybe Vista is blocking your pictures?

See what happens if you move the picture to a different location...
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
Daisyf .. .. ..

I don't know how to tell if windows is blocking my pictures; do tell - how do I figure that out?

OK--I assume that you are setting the desktop image from your Control Panel under Appearance and Personalization? And then it is not letting you select an image from the My Pictures folder ?

Instead of using the Control Panel - Try going directly to the image. Go to your pictures folder. Select the picture and then right-click. You should get a menu that will allow you to select "Set As Desktop Background".

Hope this helps!
 

DaisyFace

Love me...Love me not
I'm thinking it could also be a "folder within a folder" issue...

Did you recently organize your albums or anything? Using the Control Panel - I see that Vista will not let you select any images that are saved in a folder. In other words, if you save a file to "My Pictures"...you can choose it. If you have organized "My Pictures" into sub-folders such as "Family pics" and "Pet pics" etc...Vista will not let you open those folders to select those images.

So, any image that you want as a desktop background needs to be saved all by itself in "My Pictures".
 
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