How To Change A Desktop Background On A Windows Computer

Personalizing the settings according to one’s preferences is an obvious thing to do. When you are doing so, the biggest thing is to choose what should be set as a desktop background. Some use a single image wherein others choose a slideshow background that changes constantly.

In this article, we will discuss how to change Desktop background on a Windows computer.

You can set personalize the Windows desktop background in following ways:

1. Right-click On An Open Image:

The easiest way to set a Desktop background in Windows is by opening an image and making a right click on it. You will get an option “ Set As Desktop Background”. Click on it to set the digital image as your background wallpaper.

However, there are slight changes when it comes to Windows 10 because you can set an image as more than just your desktop background. As you double click an image, it will open in an inbuilt Photo app. Now make a right click on the image opened, Choose Set as-> Set As Background.

2. Right-click On An Image File:

If you don’t want to open an image but still want to set it as your background image, you can do that. All you need to do is, locate the image file and right click on it. You will get the context menu, select Set As Desktop Background.

3. Customize Your Background:

There are slight differences in all versions of Windows when it comes to personalizing your desktop background.

Windows XP

• Right-click on empty space on Desktop.
• You will get a context menu.
• Click Properties and click on Desktop Tab.
• Select an image from the available images.

For Windows Vista or Windows 7:

• Right-click on empty space on Desktop.
• You will get a context menu.
• Click Personalize.
• Click Desktop Background and you can select an image from the available images.
• You can also use any image from your personal collection by clicking on Browse to set as background image.
• Click OK to save the changes.

For Windows 10:

• Right-click on empty space on Desktop.
• You will get a context menu.
• Click Personalize.

Note: You can also go to Start > Settings > Personalization > Background.

• Now, select the image you want from the ones offered under “Choose your picture“
• You can also click Browse to find an image saved to your PC.

For Windows 10, you also get an option to set a slideshow. In case you don’t want to look at a single image every time, you go to Desktop.

• To set slideshow, go to Start-> Settings->Personalization-> Background
• Select Slideshow from the drop down menu under Background.
• You will get an option to below the drop down menu called “Choose albums for your slideshow.”
• By default, it will redirect you to Pictures folder but if you want to browse on any other location, click Browse.
• Choose the images you like.
• You can also set the time, after which you want the image to get change.Say you want to change the image once a day or every minute. To do so, scroll the page to bottom and look for Change picture every option and choose the time from the drop down.

Note: The default time set is every 30 minutes.

If you have more than one monitor setup, you can choose different images for each display.

• Go to Start-> Settings->Personalization-> Background
• Now select from the images shown or browse for other images on your PC.
• Once you have selected your background images, right-click the image you want on your first monitor and select Set for monitor 1. Then do the same for the second display and so on.

So this is how you can change a desktop background on Windows computer.

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