CHANGE WINDOWS XP FOLDER OR DRIVE BACKGROUND TO AN IMAGE

 - CHANGE WINDOWS XP FOLDER OR DRIVE BACKGROUND TO AN IMAGE -

A friend saw a screen shot of one of my thumb drives and suggested that I make a tutorial how I set an image as the background. I thought a bit silly, but when I tried to get it to work on Windows 7 it just wouldn't :( As far as I have read and tested you can't do this for Windows 7 (possibly an IE 8 issue). If anyone finds out how, please post at Haxer, thanks! So until then, this is how on Windows XP.

1. Create a directory to work in, for example name it background Copy an image into that directory, large enough to cover the area you use your Windows Explorer

2. Open a text editor, such as Notepad, paste in the code below, changing 2k.jpg to the name of your image:

[ExtShellFolderViews]
[{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}]
Attributes=1
IconArea_Image=2k.jpg
IconArea_Text=0x000000
[.ShellClassInfo]
ConfirmFileOp=0

for Get Code

Save this file as desktop.ini in the same directory as your image.

3. Refresh the view. Done :)                                            

NOTES: 

1. To have an image for a hard drive, thumb drive, or even your MP3 playerjust copy your image and desktop.ini to the root of the drive. 

2. To hide from view the image file and Desktop.ini, right click on each file, select Properties (or keys Alt+Enter), check Hidden. If you can still see those files: in Windows Explorer menu selectTools/Folder Options/ select the View tab/ check 'Do not show hidden files and folders. Press Apply, press OK, refresh your view again. 

3. Note in my sample the text is white (since my image has a wht background), this is achieved with 0x + hex color code: 0xFFFFFF To change the color of the text change that line: IconArea_Text=0xFFFFFF There are on-line color converters, HERE is one, and HERE is one with a list of a variety of colors, just remember to add before the hex code: 0xHere are a few examples:

0x000000 = black 

0xFF0000 = blue 

0xFFFF00 = blue light 

0xA8A8A8 = gray 

0x33CC00 = green 

0xFF00FF = magenta  

0xEAADEA = pink  

0xE10000 = red 

0xFFFFFF = white 

0x00FFFF = yellow                                                        
 4. To use an image that is in another directory on the drive; include the full path before the image name. For example: IconArea_Image=F:\Images\Wallpaper\reduced\2k.jpg 
To use an image that is in a sub-directory of the directory containing desktop.ini; include the sub-directory before the image name. For example: IconArea_Image=background/2k.jpg