is there a command line way to change your desktop?

[zskillz]

I was thinking of writing a little application that I would put in my start directory so that when I ran, it would automatically select a differnt background for that session. does anyone know of a way to do this in the commandline?

i suppose that another way to do it would be if you could just tell me what the background is saved as in windows or whatever so that I could just change that...

thx
-Z

[solo-pc-tech]

Well, you could always log on as a different user in Windows 2000, or setup Users in Windows 9x/Me.

[Illegal Alien]

There's software that can do that for you, i think i saw such a program at www.hotfiles.com (http://www.hotfiles.com)

[zskillz]

yes... I know thta there's already software out there that can do it, but I'm really bored and I figure I'd refresh my programming skills a bit.

so... the question still stands -

-Z

[samwichse]

A dirty and inefficiant way to do it might be to have a directory of possible images, to set the desktop background image as a certain special name, then have the program randomly select one of the pre-chosen ones from the directory and copy it to the windows directory, delete the old one, and rename it to the same name as the old one. Come to think of it, that wouldn't be too hard at all.

Only idea I have not knowing exactly how windows stores the name/location of the image.

[zskillz]

ya.... i know i can do it like tha tsam, but I'd like to do it better.

does anyone know how to change whatever the windows indicator of what the wallpaper is?

I would like a way to just change what file that indicator points to.

thx
-Z

[OuTpaTienT]

What version of Windoze Z? I'm not sure about 2000, but with 98 and previous it's simply a single line in your WIN.INI.

Specifically, look in the Win.ini under the section [Desktop]. Mine looks like so:
<FONT COLOR="blue">
[Desktop]
Wallpaper=C:\WINDOWS\Viper.bmp
TileWallpaper=0
WallpaperStyle=0
</FONT c>

It should be a breeze to whip up a little dity that will change that value every time you start.

[zskillz]

awesome outpatient... that's exactly what I was looking for. I actually searched through the registry for it, but I figure that the win.ini file wasn't used really anymore so it wouldn't be in there!

thx a ton. I'm already thinking of algorithms!

-Z