Need to fine how to remove a file/picture

[crosbow]

I have a picture on my PC that appears during boot and shutdown that has replaced a microsoft file. It doesn't seem to do harm but is aggravating.
I visited a site called "ebaumsworld.com", there was a list of "images" and as I browsed those. I found one named "tongueisstuck". That image looks like a small animal has licked the screen from the back side and it's tongue stuck to the screen. There was a suggestion to "save as background", which I did NOT do but now the image IS on my computer. It appears briefly as the machine is booting and shuting down. It also appears constantly when I do a C-A D to bring up the task manager. Apparently the file that is supposed to supply that background has been replaced with "tongueisstuck", however I doubt it still has that name.
I have been looking for help in various other forums but have not been able to fix the trouble. It doen not have a presence under "Properties" for the DISPLAY.
Spybot and Lavasoft Adaware do not identify it as a trouble.
Ebaumsworld does not respond to my attempts to get help.
"Format" was one suggestion but I hope to avoid that.
"Search" finds no references to "tongueisstuck" or "ebaumsworld" on this computer. The registry HAD several but they were deleted long ago.
Advice will be appreciated. Thank you.

Crosbow

 

[bcastner]

As an example of how you can use the Registry to customize the "look and feel" of your system, you can make your pre-logon wallpaper the same as your post-logon wallpaper. However, the Windows 2000 user interface doesn’t give you a simple way to modify the pre-logon desktop.

Enter the Registry. Run your favorite Registry Editor and point to the wallpaper file that you want in the value Wallpaper under the key

HKEY_Users\.DEFAULT\Control Panel

The HKEY_Users\.DEFAULT key contains all the information about the pre-logon desktop: wallpaper, screen saver, and so on, including the full filepath of the pre-logon wallpaper used.

You may also need to modify the Registry values WallpaperStyle (0 = centered or tiled, 2 = stretched) and TileWallpaper (0 = not tiled, 1 = tiled) in HKEY_Users\.DEFAULT\Control Panel to get an exact match with your post-logon settings.

 

[Kspade]

actually the quickest way is to login as Administrator and change the image there. If i recall properly that is the image that is used for Admin.


I don't suffer from insanity, I enjoy every moment of it.

 

[bcastner]

You have a pre-logon state wallpaper/background defined in the HKEY_Users\.DEFAULT\Control Panel
section of the registry.

For each user, including the Administrator, a desktop background can be defined in HKEY_CURRENT_USER.

For each user, including the Administrator, you can have an Active Desktop object defined.

When you logoff you get "briefly" a chance to see all three.

The notion that every user logoff involves loading the Administrator profile and USER.DAT registry hive is not correct.

 

[crosbow]

This is not an answer but it is the only way I know to respond to a posted answer.
I have searched the registry, (as I said in the original post), for hours and currently there is NO reference to the offending file/picture. Apparently a file has been renamed but I have no way to find it. Certainly, I can see all the "wallpaper" that is available. General/generic answers aren't going to help me.
Thank you.

 

[russellmunday]

in the registry key hkey_current_user\control\desktop
look for the wallpaper key and double click it
you should see the path to the offending file you can change the registry path to none which will stop it appearing then just search for the file by name and delete it.