Code to place a user selected picture as the Background Picture

This is an odd request. My company (in its infinite wisdom) has decided to automatically place the company logo as the background picture at network logon.

I'd like to write a little VB program that I could put in the Startup folder that would replace that with my selected picture automatically.

Any ideas on how to access the Windows Background property? Thanks.

Nate

Change the background, then find the value at the following registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop:WallPaper

Write a program that will change that to another value on load, then (not sure how this is possible) send an F5 to the desktop so it refreshes.

The administrators have disable RegEdit. So, I can't look at it to find that reference. Any documentation sources?

Disabling RegEdit, etc, won't stop access to the registry - use a third party tool or query the keys via VB.

You can use the SystemParametersInfo:

Code:

---

'Put this in a module
Public Declare Function SystemParametersInfo Lib "user32.dll" Alias "SystemParametersInfoA" (ByVal uAction As Long, ByVal uiParam As Long, pvParam As Any, ByVal fWinIni As Long) As Long
Public Const SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20
Public Const SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE = &H2
Public Const SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = &H1

'use this in your program:

dim retval as long
dim picturepath as string

picturepath = "c:\windows\clouds.bmp"
retval = SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER, 0, ByVal picturepath, SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE Or SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE)

---

Code:

---

query the keys via VB

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This is what I don't have a clue how to do. I don't know how to access the registry at all. Nor do I know the syntax of the registry statements. Is the registry basically a text file so I can do something like an instr function or do I need to use an API function or a series of API functions. I just started working through the API tutorial http://www.vbapi.com yesterday.

Thanks.
Nate

With the code I posted above you don't have to worry about querying keys or messing with the register. Just leave that to windows.

I tried this. I browsed for some of the files in my background list & found them in a path. So, I changed the picturepath line to:

Code:

---

picturepath = "C:\WINNT\WEB\WALLPAPER\CHATEAU.JPG"

---

Nothing happens. The background is still the same picture it has been.

Thanks.
Nate

SystemParametersInfo onlu accepts *.bmp files - to set *.jpg files, you need to use the IActiveDesktop interface, and Active Desktop has to be turned on.

http://www.domaindlx.com/e_morcillo/....asp?esp=false
http://www.msjogren.net/dotnet/eng/s...dwallpaper.asp

Or just convert your .JPG into .BMP with Irfanview :)