Remove and delete desktop wallpapers

Posted on August 28, 2008 at 5:29 am

Want to know how to delete wallpapers from your Windows machine? If you have ever changed your wallpaper in Windows, you’ve probably noticed the ridiculous number of useless wallpapers that are already stored in the system. I have NEVER used any of the built in wallpapers and therefore wanted to figure out how to delete them permanently!

If you right-click on the Desktop and go to Properties to open the Display Properties and then click on Desktop, you’ll get a list of all the backgrounds you can use for your desktop:

I hate the fact that it’s preloaded with 20 IBM ThinkPad wallpapers of various resolutions! They all look terrible and I only need one anyway, not 20! Too bad there is no delete button to quickly remove desktop wallpapers from the list.

So how do you delete wallpapers and clear up your background list? Well, you can go to the folder where the files are stored and manually delete them! Here’s how.

How to remove desktop wallpapers

In Windows XP, there are a few locations where these annoying wallpapers are stored. The first place is

C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper

Once you are there, you’ll see the typical wallpapers that come with XP, i.e. Ascent, Autumn, Bliss, etc. Change the view to Thubmnails to see the pictures.

Now you can happily press the DELETE button and wipe out all of these images. If you think you may actually want to use them again, you can also just cut them and paste them into some other location. Just copy them back later on to have them show up on the list again.

But that’s not all! I realized that after doing this there were still a bunch more wallpapers that dated back to Windows 2000, i.e. Feature Texture, Greenstone, Sante Fe Stucco, and other horrible looking wallpapers.

These are store in the following location and have to be deleted manually also:

C:\Windows

Yes there are a bunch that are simply in the Windows directory. Make sure to be careful here are there are also many important files stored in the Windows directory and you don’t want to delete them. Note that you are only wanting to delete .BMP files, so everything else should be left alone.

I would suggest viewing the directory in Thumbnails mode and then slowly browsing through and deleting the wallpapers as you see them.

As you can see above, there are four wallpapers with a .BMP file extension and I am sure because I am in thumbnail view and can see the designs. If you have an IBM laptop, all of those ”Think Americas” wallpapers are stored in this same directory.

And just for the sake of knowledge, you can also manipulate or delete the Internet Explorer Wallpaper, which is located in

C:\Documents and Settings\akishore\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

There’s really no reason to mess with that wallpaper, but I figured you just might want to know where it is stored. So that’s how you can delete the wallpapers from your Windows machine so that they don’t appear in your Backgrounds list anymore. Enjoy!

» Filed Under Computer Tips

Comments

9 Responses to “Remove and delete desktop wallpapers”

william said on : September 28th, 2008 at 7:44 pm

Greeting sir/madma
how to delete screensaver on win xp thank you
regard:william

alexandra said on : October 31st, 2008 at 8:35 pm

I have been trying to do this forever. thanks so much. God bless. alexandra.

Pat said on : December 22nd, 2008 at 2:00 pm

How do I get keep the computer from using scanned work documents as a desktop option?

janet said on : December 26th, 2008 at 11:29 pm

i have tried this and i still have a ie wallpaper that someone downloaded and i can`t find the file to get rid of it. i don`t have bmp and no wallpaper

kolorowanki said on : June 27th, 2009 at 4:46 pm

Thanks for tips! I was wondering how to delete those pesky wallpapers!

cookies lol said on : July 8th, 2009 at 1:35 am

awesome, finally those ugly desktop wallpapers are gone! Thanks

Wendy said on : July 22nd, 2009 at 2:09 pm

Gracias!!! 10/10!!

John said on : October 29th, 2009 at 3:39 pm

Great info… thanks. Whoa…. something went wrong when I tried to “add” a pix to the Wallpaper. I went to “My Photos”, picked out a photo, added it…and the whole photo folder is now in the Wallpaper list. How do I get rid of about 100 photos in that list without deleting them from my computer? I want to keep them… just not in the Wallpaper list.

Reply speer168@yahoo.com

John

PC User said on : November 4th, 2009 at 4:53 pm

How do you remove the wallpapers from the Web/Wallpaper in Win 7. They wont delete, and I cant locate the (img13) in regedit. I cant delete them in “safe mode” either. It says I need permission from “TrustedInstaller”. I am the “administrator”, and I cant uninstall “TrustedInstaller” so it will stop protecting my windows wallpapers.