Wallpaper and My Pictures connected

[Viktoria Fragstein]

Hallo NG,

all of a sudden all pictures located in My Pictures show in the list of
wallpaper (rightclick Desktop - Properties - Desktop). I have only found 1
question about this in this NG:


but the answer is not satisfying for me. This was not so before, it happened
all of a sudden. I have downloaded a few wallpapers and copied between C -
Windows - Web - Wallpaper and My Pictures. I already tried to delete the
desktop.inis assuming that the information is stored in them but finally
replaced them because there was no change. The only solution seems to keep
My Pictures empty. I got all kind of pictures in My Pictures, a lot not even
named yet. And since they all display in Desktop Properties this takes
eternities to open. Somehow I have been missing the cause of this and want
to stop it. Is it because I was using a pic from My Pictures as wallpaper
over the button browse?How can I stop the list from showing pictures located
in My Pictures?

Thanks for your help!

--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Viktoria

My Pictures is a System folder much like My Documents. My Music,
My Videos and My Webs are others. When you use Save As with
some programmes they automatically default to the appropriate
System folder.

The solution is to create a User created equivalent somewhere else in
your folder structure. You can then cut and paste files from the System
folder to your new folder. I have a dedicated partition for my photos with
the Pictures folder sub-divided as to "As Imported" and " As Amended".

With Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel you can change the default
Save As setting to place the files in your user created folder. I have not
looked at this possibility with programmes that handle jpeg files on my
machine. Perhaps it is something to add to my list of things to do.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Sharon F]

Hallo NG,

all of a sudden all pictures located in My Pictures show in the list of
wallpaper (rightclick Desktop - Properties - Desktop). I have only found 1
question about this in this NG:


but the answer is not satisfying for me. This was not so before, it happened
all of a sudden. I have downloaded a few wallpapers and copied between C -
Windows - Web - Wallpaper and My Pictures. I already tried to delete the
desktop.inis assuming that the information is stored in them but finally
replaced them because there was no change. The only solution seems to keep
My Pictures empty. I got all kind of pictures in My Pictures, a lot not even
named yet. And since they all display in Desktop Properties this takes
eternities to open. Somehow I have been missing the cause of this and want
to stop it. Is it because I was using a pic from My Pictures as wallpaper
over the button browse?How can I stop the list from showing pictures located
in My Pictures?

Thanks for your help!

I use the My Pictures folder too and saw the same thing occur until... I
had over 100 pictures in the folder. Once that "magic" number is reached,
the My Picture images are no longer listed in the wallpaper section of
Display properties. Those Images can still be selected as wallpaper but
only by using the Browse button.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Sharon

You say fill up My Pictures. I say clear it out ! How can we lose <g>.

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Viktoria Fragstein]

Hi Gerry,

thanks that you assisted me. But I found a good solution now that I figured
out myself since I wanted My Pictures to remain the System Folder with all
its possibilities:

Rename the folder My Pictures. Copy the Folder "C:\Documents and
Settings\Default User\My Documents\Owner's Pictures" into My Documents. This
folder is now automatically renamed to My Pictures. Moving all sub folders
from the old (now renamed) folder My Pictures into the new one. Now the old,
renamed folder My Pictures is empty (and can be deleted when my plan
verifies) and the list in Desktop Properties only displays Pictures from
C\Windows\Web\Wallpaper und C\Windows (bmp). But the new folder My Pictures
has now the same functions as the old one had and is being recognized by
programs such as Office ... .


Dear greetings,


--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Guest]

For me it's pretty easy. I created a folder in my documents called My Photos.
That's where my pictures go. Anything that I want to show up in the wallpaper
list goes in My Pictures.
Jim

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Viktoria

I am not sure your solution will work out in the longer term. Sharon F may
be able to comment further. In general terms I would never delete a System
folder because it can have unexpected consequences.

--

Hope this helps.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Sharon F]

Sharon

You say fill up My Pictures. I say clear it out ! How can we lose <g>.

I'm fine with whatever suggestion works well with an individual's work
style.

Originally, I would create subfolders in My Pictures. If I'm remembering
correctly: In Win9x, the contents of subfolders were ignored and not listed
in Display Properties. The same things worked for me in XP *for a while*
but then noticed subfolder pics showing up as wallpaper. I started moving
images to a different folder to avoid that but then someone else posted
about the limit in My Pictures in relation to the Wallpaper list. Tried it
out and it worked.

 

[Gerry Cornell]

Sharon

Do you have any comments to make on deleting system folders like
My Pictures. I try to work around them and I am not sure if it is wise
to delete them?

Viktoria seems to have devised a solution, which ends up deleting My
Pictures.

--

Regards.

Gerry
~~~~
FCA
Stourport, England

Enquire, plan and execute
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[Viktoria Fragstein]

Well Gerry, I guess this is not as easy as it looked first. I tried and
realised that as soon as I open or use one of the pics in the new folder
which I had taken from Default Users the very same thing happens again. I
just wish to know what caused it to start doing this, but I could hardly
tell because I recently installed all kind of programs since this is a new
computer. And unfortunately I lost all my sysem restore points as well, I
guess because I partitioned the HD with Partition Magic. After that they
were all gone. And then I realized this picture problem.

This new folder completely took the place of the old one and is acting same
now. Well, I can do as you proposed and store my pics somewhere else. And I
can even leave a link in My pictures to this other path. That seems to be
working, but it is not the same as before. I was really using My Pictures
for all picture files.

So just in case you find out something else, please let me know!

Dear greetings,

--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Viktoria Fragstein]

I did not delete it yet, just renamed it.

I am not sure your solution will work out in the longer term. Sharon
F may be able to comment further. In general terms I would never
delete a System folder because it can have unexpected consequences.

--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Viktoria Fragstein]

Hi Sharon,

thanks for your advise. Still I got a question: where do these more than 100
pics have to be exactly? In My Pictures directly or in subfolders in it? I
got thousands of pics in subfolders and up until now that worked normal. All
of a sudden all pics of subfolders are being displayed in the wallpaper list
of desktop. As soon as I activate a pic out of a subfolder all others in the
same folder seem to be displayed as well. Coming like this sets the path
free, but these must be already more than 100. I would not like the idea
neither to have more than 100 pics directly in My Pictures, that is against
all odds of order ;-)

Dear greetings,

--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Viktoria Fragstein]

That seems to be the ultimative solution, unfortunately :-( I mean, what for
do we then have C - Windows - Web - Wallpaper? I cannot imagine that this is
really the purpose of My Pictures. I got little clips in there that are
definately not meant to be a wallpaper.

Thanks for your comment.

--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Sharon F]

Sharon

Do you have any comments to make on deleting system folders like
My Pictures. I try to work around them and I am not sure if it is wise
to delete them?

Viktoria seems to have devised a solution, which ends up deleting My
Pictures.

I work around them too, Gerry. Too many programs expect the default system
folders to be present. I feel that a missing system folder can cause
installation or performance problems. Most programs can be redirected to
store their files in other folders but only after their install has
completed. A few empty folders is a very small inconvenience if you choose
to use folders other than the My* collection provided by Windows.

 

[Sharon F]

Hi Sharon,

thanks for your advise. Still I got a question: where do these more than 100
pics have to be exactly? In My Pictures directly or in subfolders in it?

In the root folder, My Pictures.

And yes, XP has the annoying habit of looking into subfolders if there are
less than 100 images in the root folder.

 

[Sharon F]

That seems to be the ultimative solution, unfortunately :-( I mean, what for
do we then have C - Windows - Web - Wallpaper? I cannot imagine that this is
really the purpose of My Pictures. I got little clips in there that are
definately not meant to be a wallpaper.

\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\ is just one of several folders that Windows uses to
store wallpapers. It was introduced when "active desktop" made its debut
and is still used as a source for wallpaper images. Personally, I prefer
not to allow file bloat in folders within the \Windows\hierarchy and never
use it.

 

[Viktoria Fragstein]

Thanks Sharon, as you said, the annoying habit ... :-( I restore with Ghost.

In the root folder, My Pictures.

And yes, XP has the annoying habit of looking into subfolders if
there are less than 100 images in the root folder.

--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Sharon F]

I work around them too, Gerry.

Some of the "my" folders, not Pictures. I actually use that one.

 

[Viktoria Fragstein]

Sharon, I just got a tip from another news group. Try this for me: Go to the
wallpaper list on desktop, click on browse and set the folder displayed to
another than My Pictures, one with less or only 1 picture and see what
happens then. I cannot try it. If that is not enough, select a picture
somewhere from such a "small" folder to make sure this folder is permanently
displayed in "browse". Afterwards you can select another one from the
regular list but not with browse to My Pictures. She sais that this causes
the list to display all these files because the browse window is still set
on My Pictures.

I just had enough and used my Ghost clone to restore C to the time before
this disaster. Praised be Ghost. First I extracted my original folder My
Pictures out of a clone and then I restored C. And it worked. My Pictures is
there and full again and the wallpaper list acts normal and is not showing
all these files. Even after I have used files out of My Pictures it still
stayed that way.

I will make sure from now on to store all my desktop
motives in C - Windows - Web - Wallpaper so they show on the desktop list
and I do not browse any more to My Pictures.

I really hope for you that it works or that you have such a clone too.

Dear greetings,

--
Viktoria Fragstein

(e-mail address removed)


XP Home SP2, Office 2003, IE + OE 6.0

 

[Sharon F]

I really hope for you that it works or that you have such a clone too.

Thanks for the tip, Viktoria, but I do use My Pictures and the many
subfolders within (that I've created) to select my wallpapers. All I see
when I open to the Wallpaper page is the default Windows wallpapers. If I
want to select something other than these limited images, then I use the
Browse button. I can browse to any other folder. All images are listed in
the screen that Browse button brings up. I select my wallpaper. When I
close that window and return to Display> Wallpapers, I see the default
Windows wallpapers plus the *one* that is currently selected from a
different folder. No extras appear except that one.

Anyhow, I'm glad to hear that you have things working the way you want them
to once again.