Choose pictures for folders

[Dan]

I upgraded from Me and some folder customization went
away. You used to be able to pick an image to go right
on the back of a window and change the font. After I
upgraded, all the pictures I had set for my windows
stayed the same, but I can't change them any more. It
used to be under "Customize this folder." Now you can
put an image on the folder icon, but not on the window
when you open the folder. If anyone knows what I'm
talking about, please send some info.

[Anando [MS-MVP]]

Hi Dan,
Here is a way you can put pictures as folder background and also change the
color of the icon fonts in the folder. This trick was taken form PCworld's
site.

To add wallpaper to a folder in XP, open the folder, choose Tools, Folder
Options, and click the View tab. Under 'Advanced settings', select Show
hidden files and folders (you may need to double-click Hidden files and
folders first). Uncheck Hide protected operating system files (Recommended)
and click Yes when you see the warning. Click OK, and double-click the file
named desktop.ini to open it in your text editor (you may not see the .ini
extension). If you can't find a desktop.ini file, launch Notepad or your
preferred text editor.

In your text editor, type [{BE098140-A513-11D0-A3A4-00C04FD706EC}] (this
line contains no capital letter Os, only zeroes) on the first line, and
press Enter. Type IconArea_Image= and the path to your .bmp, .gif, or .jpg
image file--for example, 'IconArea_Image=C:\My Documents\My Pictures\Blue
Hills.bmp.' Then press Enter.

Changing the color of the folder's icon labels is a little tricky. To leave
the icon text black, do nothing. For white, type IconArea_Text=0x00FFFFFF
(make sure that the x is lowercase) and press Enter. For red text, replace
the code that follows the equal sign with 0x000000FF; to make the text
yellow, type 0x0000FFFF; for blue text, use 0x00FF0000; and to show gray
text, enter 0x00808080. These codes identify values in a 24-bit color scheme
that specifies how much blue, green, and red to mix together: 0x00bbggrr
(with values ranging from 0 in decimal or 00 in hexadecimal to 255 in
decimal or FF in hexadecimal). If you're editing the folder's existing
desktop.ini file, save the file and close your text editor. If you created
the file from scratch, save it with the name "desktop.ini" in the folder
that will house the background picture; use quotation marks to keep Notepad
from adding its default .txt extension.

Now give the folder the System attribute. Put the folder window destined for
the background picture in front. Press Backspace to move up a level, click
Start, Run, type attrib +s followed by a space, and drag the icon for your
desired folder to the text box of the Run dialog box. It should now read
something like 'attrib +s C:\Documents and Settings\...\My Documents\My
Folder' (your path and folder name may differ, of course). Click OK. The
next time you open the folder, you'll see your new wallpaper inside (see
FIGURE 3). If you don't want to see the desktop.ini file, right-click it and
choose Properties. Under the General tab, check Hidden and click OK. Then
click Tools, Folder Options, View, and deselect the option to show hidden
files and folders. While the Folder Options box is open, recheck Hide
protected operating system files if you unchecked it earlier.


--
Anando, Microsoft-MVP


"Dan" > wrote in message
...
> I upgraded from Me and some folder customization went
> away. You used to be able to pick an image to go right
> on the back of a window and change the font. After I
> upgraded, all the pictures I had set for my windows
> stayed the same, but I can't change them any more. It
> used to be under "Customize this folder." Now you can
> put an image on the folder icon, but not on the window
> when you open the folder. If anyone knows what I'm
> talking about, please send some info.