Code to place a user selected picture as the Background Picture

[NateBrei]

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

[Lord_Rat]

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.

[NateBrei]

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

[JoshT]

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

[Michael_Kamen]

You can use the SystemParametersInfo:

'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)

[NateBrei]

query the keys via VB

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

[Michael_Kamen]

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.

[NateBrei]

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:

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

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

Thanks.
Nate

[JoshT]

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

[Michael_Kamen]

Or just convert your .JPG into .BMP with Irfanview