Desktop doesn't allow JPG or GIF in WinXP

[Grahammer]

Hey all!

I'm running Windows XP Pro SP1 and I'm trying to use a JPG for my desktop
background. I go into the display properties and choose my JPG file and
OPEN, but the display properties still is set to None and my choice does not
appear in the list.

Is there a reason that I cannot use JPG or GIF for my background?

Screen resolution is 32bit color at 1280x1024 and font size is at 120dpi. I
do have Microsofts virtual desktop manager installed and setting background
images there does the same thing.

Suggestions???

 

[Mike]

Convert it to .bmp format..

 

[frodo]

It's a bug. you can't do it from Display Properties, but you can do it
another way:

use explorer to nav to the folder containing the desired background image.
you MUST choose thumbnail view. then right click the image and choose
"set as desktop background". if you have common tasks turned on it'll be
in the left pane too.

[BTW, what this does is make a temp .bmp version of the file and points
the theme at it. you still won't find that image name in the display
properties list! search you disk for wallpaper*.bmp].

 

[Guest]

I DID have a jpg as wallpaper until the latest update. Then, when I went to change it, it no longer showed any. I used a utility called bginfo from sysinternals.com which creates a background with system info and merges it with your pic. It showed jpg's in it's list and worked fine.

I'm not sure I believe the post about the system converting it to a bmp, other than internally. No new bmp's ever showed up when I started using jpg's - I looked for that....