It's time to make your PC a little more personal. Explore your desktop wallpaper options.

You can save almost any image as desktop wallpaper. Windows lets you assign the images in a couple of different ways. The most common method is to select a graphic from the list of pre-installed wallpaper images or a bitmap image of your choice. Another method is to enable Active Desktop.

Display Properties
Here's how to change your pre-installed wallpaper image to another pre-installed image or bitmap file.
  1. Point your cursor to an empty space on the desktop.
  2. Right-click and choose Properties.
  3. Go to the Background tab.
  4. Choose a bitmap image wallpaper. Your choices are denoted with an icon that resembles a folded piece of paper with art supplies in a jar.
  5. You can also browse for the image on your hard drive. Make sure to choose a bitmap image to avoid enabling Active Desktop.
  6. Decide how you want to display the image.
  7. Press Apply and OK.


Saving images off the Web
When you're surfing the Net you may come across an image you want to use as your desktop wallpaper. Right-click the image and choose Set as Background. Windows will convert the image to a bitmap and add it to your list of pre-installed wallpaper images.

Active Desktop
What if you want to use an HTML or Shockwave Flash document as wallpaper? Microsoft developed Active Desktop to let you use those non-bitmap documents. Active Desktop sits on top of your regular desktop and functions like an Internet browser. Consequently, you can have separate background images in Active Desktop and your Display Properties at the same time.

Here's how to enable Active Desktop.
  1. Point your cursor to an empty space on the desktop.
  2. Right-click and select Active Desktop.
  3. Select View as Webpage.


When you want to disable Active Desktop, just unselect the View as Webpage option. When you turn off Active Desktop, your previously selected desktop wallpaper appears.

To use a non-bitmap image such as a JPEG or GIF as desktop wallpaper, go back into your Display Properties and browse to the file you want to use on your hard drive. A couple of options may also appear in the list of available wallpaper images. Active Desktop wallpaper usually has a browser icon next to it. Select the image you want to use, and press Apply and OK.