Changing Desktop in Win7 Starter

Technically, you can't change the desktop color or background in Win7 Starter, but you can work around by changing from Win7 Starter to Windows XP design in the control panel. Then you can change the color scheme to silver (which I did) and the desktop color to black (to save power) (which I did).

 

white is more power efficient than black.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=fact-or-fiction-black-is

 

Freaky! From the Scientific American no less! But I think out netbooks mostly have LED (not fluorescent) illumination and the article suggests that THESE types of monitors may save energy since they can actually dim the LED's (harder to dim fluorescents):

 

I downloaded and installed Oceanis Change Background W7 (no affiliation) which allowed me to change the default background in Win 7 starter. Highly recommend -- no affiliation, your mileage may vary, yadda yadda...

 

You are correct, I had forgot our screens are the LED lit ones. Which by themselves are great on power savings. If you really want to get some extra power out of it, turn the brightness all the way down, that will give you noticeable extra power.

 

Just out of curiosity, has anyone with Windows 7 Starter Edition checked out the Group Policy Settings to see if it's just a policy restriction? I'd like to get my hands on a Win 7 SE and see what's in there now.

If anyone else wants to check it out, you can usually get to the Group Policy Editor by the following:
Start + R key to get the "Run" box
Clear the contents of the box and type GPEDIT.MSC
Click OK

There's usually hundreds of useful policy settings in there, and from memory in prior Windows OS's there's an option to restrict changing wallpapers

 

Tried on my Win7 starter edition. Got a "Windows cannot find "GPEDIT.MSC" error.

 

Bugger, I thought there might be, same thing with XP Pro vs XP Home, Group Policy Editor wasn't available, what I will do tho, is try and hunt down the registry value for the policy, even though the policy editor isn't there / available, the policies usually still exist in the registry ready for tweaking.

 

Here is a thread I posted about this last Christmas, might help out.

viewtopic.php?f=70&t=19003

 

From what I understand (like you, haven't gotten ahold of Starter) is that its much more than a registry key. The way that these programs actually change the wallpaper is not by changing the wallpaper, but adding an overlay (the new wallpaper) over it. I know the OEM's have ways of adding their own wallpapers to their builds of 7 Starter, so its possible. However, you might need to create some sort of slipstreamed version with pre-set wallpapers in place.


**Note: All Win 7 disks have all versions on them, you unlock versions by what serial you enter.
**Hint: Take a photo of the key on a display unit. It will at least start up to let you play around.

 

I'm leaning moreso to seeing if it's a group policy setting that's prohibiting changing the wallpaper or displaying the appropriate control panel. I might have a look at setting my bench test rig up wit Win7 SE to see what I can find.

 

yeah no group policy either, not even if you're running a client/domain on active directory.

(tested on Win7 SE and 2008R2)

 

There's no reason to go through all this trouble to just replace the desktop picture. Just install Windows 7 Ultimate and change your desktop whenever you want, hassle-free!