Christmas Laptop Problems!

[Financial Companion]

I know Santa was quite busy this Christmas giving out new laptops to some girls and boys (and grown ups!). Many came with the operating system "windows 7 starter edition" (the small Acer one being an example). One of the problems with it being a "cut-down" version of windows 7 is that it does not allow the user to change their desktop background Now, one of the first things people often want to do is personalise their desktop, with maybe a favorite photo or pop star pic for example. A bit of detective work online will uncover many downloads to allow the desktop pic to be changed, however, they are quite large executable files (.exe files) which can also contain viruses if you do not know the source. The following is a list of steps that will allow you to change the desktop without having to download anything. (It works, I’ve done about6 over the Christmas break!) Hope it helps

1. Click start and type regedit in the search box or run
2. Go to “HKEY_CURRENT_USER\\Control Panel\\Desktop\\” folder and click on it
3. On the right hand side you will find a bunch of entries. Find the key named “Wallpaper” and double click on it and put the path of the picture you want as your new wallpaper (example path is “C:\\Users\\Big Dan\\Pictures\\new wallpaper.jpg”)
4. Right-click on the “Desktop” folder in left pane click Permissions.
5. Click “Advanced”
6. Go to “Owner” tab, highlight your name in the box that says ‘Change owner to’ ( There are only two choices the other is Administrator )… once your user name is highlighted click “OK”
7. Click on “Advanced” again
8. Uncheck the button that reads “Include inheritable permissions from the object’s parent”… click “Remove” when prompted
9. Click “Add”
10. Type “Everyone” and click “OK”
11. Check Allow “Read Control” and click “OK”
12. Click “OK” again
13. Highlight “Everyone” and check to Allow “Read” and click “OK”
14. Restart Computer

One tip, whatever pic you want to use as the background needs to be already saved somewhere so you can access it as above.

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