Win XP style background wanted

[havant]

On my Win XP screen I have a blue background and centered is a photo which takes up about 1/4 of the screen area, centered up and down, left and right. How can I get the same effect in Win7? If I try to use the same photo it goes full screen. Harry

 

[clifford_cooley]

Hi havant - Welcome to w7forums

Control Panel >> Appearance and Personalization >> Personalization >> Desktop Background

select "Center" for "Picture position:"

 

[havant]

No not what I meant. I can find all of the colors etc but again what I want is a picture about 5x7 inches centered on my 21 inch screen. So far I can get the pic but it is always full screen not small. If I try to use a small pic Windows just makes it full screen.

 

[clifford_cooley]

If you select "Center" the image will not be stretched.

If the image still fills the screen after you select "Center" then the image resolution is larger than your desktop area.

 

[havant]

Well I'm not sure what I'm doing wrong but I'll keep at it. The photo I'm trying to use is a bmp type file, 793 kb in size. When I open it in IrfanView it shows it to be 640x423x24BPP which is a long ways under my 21 inch SyncMaster monitor. Win7 insists on making it full screen. I really miss the display settings on XP, at least I was familar with them. Thanks for your response.

 

[TrainableMan]

The size of your screen (21", 45") does not matter, what matters is the resolution. What screen resolution is set? On an 800x600 display that image will fill about 3/4ths of the screen, on my 2048x1152 display it would be smaller than 1/3 of the screen (only if you have it set for center, any other options will stretch the picture in some fashion).

 

[havant]

My screen resolution is 1600 x 1200. I'll just keep working on this as time permits. I'm convinced that it can be done. Let's face it this is not a can't use the computer without it type of thing. Harry

 

[havant]

As an update - I got it working!!! I opened the picture (jpeg) format with IrfanView and set image size to 1600 x 1200. Of course the photo filled the screen. Next I set a margin of 1600 minus 640 and the blue color almost identical to what I had on the XP system. I saved that jpeg and used it for a new theme. Thanks for convincing me that it could be done! Harry

 

[TrainableMan]

If your image was 640x423 then it would not fill a 1600x1200 box, so one or the other width x height pairs was inaccurate but I'm glad you're happy now.

 

[Elmer BeFuddled]

Strangely I was going to suggest "Photoshopping" it.