Can't set a wallpaper...any help?

Question

Last night I turned off my computer and when i turned it on today my desktop background was black....when I go to Properties>Desktop the background, Browse, and position options are grayed out. I can only change the color. Even when I set a local image as my desktop background it does not work...Please any idea what is happening? Also, whenever my computer is shutting down it shows my original wallpaper (it's a picture of the moon) for about a second and then shuts down.

Where is the active desktop option? I cant find it.

Answer 1

Try going to Start then Programs then Accessories and open your paint program.

Open the picture you want as your background. Use the FILE option in paint and set it as background. That should be another way for it to work. It should give you the option to set it as tiled or centered. Another way is to RIGHT click on the background itself and then click on open with and open it using Internet Explorer. It should open the background in IE, so you just need to right click on the background and set as background.

Its a windows bug. Did you upgrade to Windows SP2? There was a bug where it would show the old wallpaper when you restarted Windows then it would disappear and the new one would show up.

The only couple of ways I think would fix that is to upgrade to SP2 and do a windows update or you need to set up the new background, reboot, pretend you are changing to a different wallpaper again and click on "apply", then change it back to the one you want again and click "apply".

Answer 2

I also have this problem, but you tried to put another wallpaper in your desktop. And then change it into the one you want.

Answer 3

turn off active desktop

Answer 4

you are not the only one with that problem. go to these sites
http://www.google.com/search?q=can%27t+change+desktop+image