I'm trying to correct a problem on my wife's laptop. My daughter borrowed it and when it was returned, the desktop background was black instead of the picture that was previously there. My daughter doesn't know what happened to cause the change in the background.

I cannot set the background to anything other than a solid color. No images show up in the window when you try to personalize the background with the sample pictures. When you "Browse", the sample picture filenames show up but the icons associated with the files all show the default windows icon. When you select any of the files, the background doesn't change.

I saw various posts on the internet that associate desktop background problems with wallpaper policy settings in the registry, but this doesn't seem to be the case here. I think that the software that decodes the image files is not working, because also when I attempt to view the picture files with Windows Photo Gallery I get the message "Photo Gallery can't open this picture or video. This file format is not supported, or you don't have the latest updates to Photo Gallery". The picture file files do open and display properly with Microsoft Office Picture Manager, with Paint, and with Firefox.



Any suggestions, clues, etc...?

Hi edknc,

Welcome to Vista Forums!

Do you know when this problem began (presumably when it was borrowed)? Try a System Restore to a point in time BEFORE the problem began (before she borrowed it). Here's the procedure: http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/76905-system-restore-how.html. Be sure to check the box to show more than 5 days of restore points. If the first attempt fails, then try an earlier point or two. NOTE: You will have to re-install any software and updates you installed between now and the restore point, but you can use Windows Update for the updates.

I hope this helps.

Good luck!

Apparently something really got hosed up because the restore also wouldn't complete successfully. I had to use one of my wife's previous backups to restore.