Display Settings Background

[Ed.]

When I go to Display Settings to the Desktop Tab and look in the list of
Backgrounds, I have approximately 18 out of 31 showing blank. When you click
some of them to view them, they are just a plain blank white preview.

Has anyone had this occur for them and if so, how did you get it fixed to be
back to normal and able to view all the backgrounds?

Even if the background shows white in Preview, it will appear as it should
for the Desktop Background once you apply it.

Thanks for any info,
Ed.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Ed,

This is due to missing Active Desktop registration. Click Start, Run and
type these commands:

regsvr32 /i shell32.dll
regsvr32 shimgvw.dll

If that does not help, run this:

regsvr32 /i mshtml.dll

 

[Ed.]

Hi,

Thanks for the fast response. I did the

regsvr32 /i shell32.dll
regsvr32 shimgvw.dll

as you said to try and that worked. All is now fine and I greatly appreciate
it. I couldn't figure out what had happened to bring this on. I just got a
new monitor and thought maybe that was it. But, I have a friend who just got
the same monitor as when I did and he didn't have the problem.

Can you tell me what did bring this on?

Thanks again for the response and help. It got it taken care of and I
appreciate it.

Thanks,
Ed.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

Ed,

Replacing the monitor does not cause this. To be precise, the "white screen"
in the Preview pane is usually caused due to a missing registry key related
to Active Desktop, and registering those two modules fixes it. The 3rd
command fixes a symptom where the Preview dialog remains blue (rather than
white), even after you select an image file in the list box below.

Unable to preview JPG GIF and HTM files in Display Properties dialog:
http://www.winxptutor.com/noimgpreview.htm

 

[Ed.]

OK, thanks again for the reply. The info and the link you provided explains
it now. Not to bother you anymore but, do you have any idea what causes the
missing registry key?

Do you think it was spyware that did it or one of the spyware programs I use
to clean spyware? I use Ad-aware and Spybot.

Thanks again

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

I'm eager to know that as well. I've not had any feedback about the cause,
but think it might be the registry cleaners.

 

[Ed.]

OK, thanks again. I will be watching to see if I ever spot anything about
it. I kinda go along with you about something that cleans the registry.

 

[Ramesh, MS-MVP]

You're welcome Ed.