# Question about wallpaper (MS Windows) **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [March 27, 2003, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479 "2003-03-27T06:44:28Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 6:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/1 "2003-03-27T06:44:28Z")
Whenever I want to save a photo or other image off a web page I right click on it, intending to save it as a file. Today, however, I accidentally clicked “Set as Background”, which caused me to lose what I had set as my wallpaper before. I personally find this to be quite irritating since the picture I wanted to save isn’t one I necessarily want to have as a backdrop for my desktop. While I easily went back and restored my wallpaper to what it was before, whenever I lock the system or power it down to standby the background still reverts to what was (accidentally) set by right-clicking the image from the web page. How can I fix this so the background in “locked” mode matches what is set to my wallpaper, or just simply have it appear blank (black)? ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 8:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/2 "2003-03-27T08:27:22Z")
Well, since nobody else is guessing, I will. I have something similar happen to me, and I assume that it is because of Windows Active Desktop. Inactive Desktop only lets you put a BMP file or a pattern up. Active Desktop lets you put up GIFs, JPGs, HTMLs, and maybe others. So, what you have is your bad picture, a BMP, set as your Inactive wallpaper, and your good one, a JPG or something, set as your Active wallpaper. Normally, Active Desktop is running, and the wallpaper you want appears. However, when you go into standby, Active Desktop shuts down. If this is the case, and I’m going out on a limb to guess that it is, I suggest you open the wallpaper you like in an image-editing program. Save it as a BMP. Disable Active Desktop. (In Windows 2000, this can be done by right-clicking on the desktop, selecting Active Desktop, and un-checking Show Web Content.) Then set your new BMP image as the wallpaper. Someone will be along shortly with a better idea… ---
**Author:** ![dwc1970](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/a183cd/32.png) [@dwc1970](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dwc1970)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/3 "2003-03-27T14:45:51Z")
Thanks for the help, **Achernar**. I followed your instructions and this did the trick. I do have Windows 2000 (both at work and at home) and I had Active Desktop on. The original background was a JPEG, but I re-saved it as a BMP and set the BMP as my background. Now when I lock the system or go into Standby the background remains the same as what is used when the system is up and running. ---
**Author:** ![Hauky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/0ea827/32.png) [@Hauky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hauky)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/4 "2003-03-27T15:04:03Z")
Just remember in the future to convert whatever picture you want as a wallpaper to BMP first, or else Active Desktop turns itself back on. I’d just like to add that Windows XP finally got rid of Active Desktop, and instead automatically converts images to BMPs before setting them as wallpapers. I’m not sure what happens with HTML pages, since I’ve never used that feature. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/5 "2003-03-27T17:43:58Z")
> [@](#): > > Inactive Desktop only lets you put a BMP file or a pattern up. Nitpick: The patterns are BMPs also, just really small ones which are set to “tile”. And way back _before_ Active Desktop, “set as wallpaper” options in programs worked by first creating a BMP. In Netscape, for instance, if your right-clicked an image and said “Set as wallpaper”, it would make the file “Netscape Wallpaper.bmp”, and set that as the wallpaper. It doesn’t matter now, by the way, but another solution to your problem would have been to open the image you like in your web browser and using the same option that caused the problem in the first place to reset it as your wallpaper. After all, you know that that’ll give you a wallpaper image that shows up on standby. ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 7:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/6 "2003-03-27T19:44:56Z")
without having to go to the effort of converting your images to bmp to avoid this problem of the accidentally set pic showign at shutdown and startup, go into screen properties, select NONE for the background, then click apply, then reset your chosen pic and you’ll have fixed the problem ---
**Author:** ![Achernar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e274bd/32.png) [@Achernar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Achernar)\ **Post date:** [March 27, 2003, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/7 "2003-03-27T21:25:16Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Chronos \* > Nitpick: The patterns are BMPs also, just really small ones which are set to “tile”. Okay, well, that may be so, but it treats patterns different from BMP files. What I’m thinking of specifically is that you can have a tiled pattern, and a centered image on top of that. You can’t have a tiled BMP with another BMP on top, I don’t think. ---
**Author:** ![Tal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/54ee81/32.png) [@Tal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tal)\ **Post date:** [March 31, 2003, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/question-about-wallpaper-ms-windows/164479/8 "2003-03-31T21:20:08Z")
> [@](#): > > What I’m thinking of specifically is that you can have a tiled pattern, and a centered image on top of that you can? can’t say i’ve ever noticed that…but then i’m still using Win98