With so many wallpapers appearing on many different subjects, users will find that they would like to place the wallpapers on the desktop, but they would also like to change the wallpaper periodically. A theme format can do that and here is a step by step approach to accomplishing that.
Step 1
Right click anywhere on the desktop.
Step 2
Select Desktop Background
Step 3
In the Choose you desktop background windows, select the theme that you want.
Click browse and locate the folder where the wallpapers are at.
Click the checkbox to select which wallpaper will be added to theme display.
Step 4
Next select how much time will elapse between wallpaper displays.
Step 5
Select the Picture Position drop down to place the location of the themes on the desktop.
Now Save your Changes.
This is how you create themes for your Windows7 desktop.
The settings are still
there, however they can’t be changed from the normal Windows interface.
Hence, we have to use the
Windows Registry
to do so.
Here’s how:
Open the “Screen Saver Settings” window
- Right-click anywhere the desktop
- Select “Personalize”
- Click on “Screen Saver” at the bottom right
Now leave this window open as we are going to need it to see the changes we make to the screen saver.
Open the Windows Registry
- Click on the “Start”
- Type in “regedit” in the search bar
- Choose “Yes” if a “User Account Control” message appears
We are going to use the Windows Registry to alter the settings for the screen savers: Bubbles, Mystify and Ribbons.
Modifying the Settings
- Go to the location: “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Screensavers” by clicking on the arrow sign to expand each ‘key’.
You should see 4 other keys: Bubbles, Mystify, Ribbons and ssText3D. These are the names of the screen savers that we are going to modify their settings. You will then find same names in the “Screen Saver Settings” window, except for ssText3D. ssText3D refers to “3D Text” screen saver. We don’t need to change it since its settings can be easily changed through the “Screen Saver Settings” window.
The following tables show the information we are going to use for each screen saver. You may want to skip this until we need it.
-
- DWORD values for ‘Bubbles’
-
- DWORD values for ‘Mystify’
-
- DWORD values for ‘Ribbons’
-
- Modified ‘Bubbles’ Screen Saver – Thumbnail
We are going to create a DWORD value for the option we want to alter using the Name of DWORD Value column for its name and the Values to enter column for its value.
- In the Windows Registry, click on the name of the screen saver you want to modify.
You should see “(Default)” on the right side.
To create a DWORD value
- Right-click anywhere on the right side of the Windows Registry Editor
- Choose “New” and then “DWORD (32-bit) Value”
- Enter the name of the DWORD value using the tables above (e.g. “NumRibbons”)
- If you would like to change the name of a DWORD value: Right-click it and choose “Rename”
Refer to the table of the screen saver you’d like to edit…
To edit the value of the DWORD value
- Double click the DWORD value (or right-click on it and choose “Modify”)
- Select “Decimal”
- Enter the value you
want using the tables above in the
textbox under
“Value data” (e.g. “30″ for “RibbonWidth”)
Refer to the table of the screen saver you’d like to edit…
To test the screen save
- Go to the “Screen Saver Settings” window
- Select the screen saver’s name
- Click “Preview” every time you want to see how it looks
- After you’re done and satisfied, press “OK” to apply and exit
Additional Tips
If you’d like to save your screen saver settings to apply them another computer:
- Go to the Windows Registry editor
- Go to the location: “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Screensavers” by clicking on the arrow sign to expand each ‘key’.
- Right-click on the ‘key’ with the screen saver’s name
- Choose “Export”
- Browse for the location you want and press “Save” after giving it a filename
To install the screen saver settings on another computer:
- Go to the location of the file you exported before
- Open the file
- Choose “Yes” if a “User Account Control” message appears
- Choose “Yes” again to the warning message