How do I change the wallpaper of Windows 7 Starter Edition?

How do I change the wallpaper of Windows 7 Starter Edition? Is there a way to change the desktop wallpaper in Windows 7 Starter Edition? I wanted to do that on my new netbook, just to find out that there is no "Customize" option in the control panel. Microsoft obviously wants to keep the netbook users rather rigidly from customizing their machines.
Asked by: Guest \| Views: 290

Total answers/comments: 4

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bert [Entry]

"the simplest answer, without adding more downloaded-app cruft, without sending more money to Redmond, is

regedit, go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER/Control Panel/Desktop

1a. the usual warnings, back up the registry / registry key before changing stuff
temporarily change the permissions of the key to allow you to edit it; right-click the 'Desktop' key => permissions, give 'full control' to 'Everyone'
Edit the subkey Desktop/Wallpaper to contain the full pathname of the new wallpaper image file jpg, such as C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows\mypicture.jpg
Edit as necessary, Desktop/TileWallpaper=1 to tile; my Desktop/WallpaperStyle=2 although that may be non-essential
change the permissions of the Desktop/Wallpaper key to 'read only' for 'Everyone'
it sounds as though some people had unresponsive computers when omitting that reversion, although I must say I simply got 'no background image'
restart the desktop, simplest is to return to the password screen rather than restarting windows
Laugh at the EULA when it's quite clear that no jury in the world would think of depriving someone of for instance a picture of their family as desktop background :)
it could even be said that Microsoft trying to prevent that is in itself offensive

As far as I know, there's no hash key comparison happening, although you need to set the registry key permissions right to make it work

more details at answers.microsoft.com

you may need to change the permissions of C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows, I seem to have 'special permissions' as well as read/write permissions, for admin"

bert [Entry]

"One of the simplest things that you can do would be to just purchase a Windows Anytime Upgrade package from Microsoft. For $79 USD you can take your starter edition and bring it up to Home Premium with out having to do a complete install of anything. You should then have a much nicer experience with Wnidows 7 and not have to muck around in the registry or get frustrated because you can't do something.

Students have an even sweeter deal, they can upgrade to Windows 7 Premium for only $29.99 until January 3rd of '09. Goto the website win741.com and click on buy to see the full details.

Hope this helps you."

bert [Entry]

Download Oceanis_Change_Background_W7.exe, there is also an explanation on how to use it.

bert [Entry]

"BioniX Background Wallpaper Changer will do this for you (yes, even on Windows 7 Starter). Even more, you can have extra functionality that is not available on Windows Pro such as:

animated desktop wallpapers (GIF/AVI),
day/night wallpapers,
automatic background color detection (when the wallpaper is 4:3 and your screen is 16:9 for example),
stripping of wallpapers directly from online web pages,
dynamic web cams as wallpaper,
etc."