How to clear Desktop Background pictures list? 1

[ronvdv]

I recently made the terrible mistake of choosing a picture from one of the "my pictures" subdirectories as my background desktop image. I then went back to the original picture.

Now, when I click the Desktop tab in the display properties window it takes about 45 seconds to load and the background list has TONS of pictures. I've searched the internet and can't seem to find the location (probably in the registry somewhere) where XP stores the directories it uses to populate this list. I did find a solution for Vista, but unfortunately XP did not have the same registry entry. Other than workarounds like moving you "my pictures" contents to somewhere else, does anybody know where XP keeps this list or how to get rid of it? This is really annoying. Thanks in advance for any help.

 

[linney]

Does that list vanish if you select "None" as the Wallpaper and reboot?

Have you tried a System Restore if this is only a recent occurrence?

You could look at these but they will probably only show your current Wallpaper.

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop @Wallpaper
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\General
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\LastTheme @Wallpaper


location of "set as background" file?
thread779-962011

desktop photo
thread779-1460154

 

[ronvdv]

Hi Linney, thanks for your reply, and, no, selecting NONE as the wallpaper and rebooting did nothing. Also, those registry locs didn't have anything useful.

Clearly, this is a well hidden location somewhere in the bowels of the registry. Does anybody have a microsoft contact who could get them the information???

 

[linney]

Not everything ends up in the Registry, if it has, then I would imagine that it would be in the HKEY_CURRENT_USER Hive which is a reflection of your Profile, probably from NTuser.dat in your user folder.

If that is correct, then maybe treating the problem as a corrupt profile might lead to a solution?

Before you do, can you check another user and see if he has a loading and Desktop Background problem. Also just out of interest, does your user have the same problem from Safe Mode?

811151 - How to Copy User Data to a New User Profile

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=811151

What was the Registry Key that Vista has that you mentioned?

 

[ronvdv]

Ok, after hours of searching I found a solution that worked for me. Here's what to do:
(1) select a picture in the "my pictures" directory that you are willing to delete and make it the background image.
(2) go into "my pictures" and delete that image while holding down the shift key so it's deleted and doesn't go into recycle bin (not sure if this is required, but its what I did)
(3) reboot the system

After the system comes up you can go into display properties and note that the "my pictures" stuff is no longer there. Click on another picture for your background image and you should be good to go. From now on if you want to use a picture from "my pictures" as a background, copy it to C:\windows\web\wallpaper first, and use that one, not the one in "my pictures".

It's just amazing how difficult it was to find a solution to this (based on google search) VERY COMMON problem. Even most of the MS MVP's didn't have a solution.

 

[linney]

Thank you for sharing your solution.

 

[ronvdv]

Hey Linney, for all the help I've received over the years from various forums, it's my pleasure when I can give back!