Can't see/change my wallpaper

For a while now my desktop background has just been a solid color of blue. Despite having reight-clicked many pictures to "set as desktop background", the image never changes. All I ever see is a solid color.

I've tried to change the wallpaper from the display settings... but the "background" section is disabled - I can't click on it to choose a different picture for the background. Here is an image to explain what I mean: http://img58.imageshack.us/img58/2855/desktopip9.png

The only thing I can change is the solid color... for some reason I can change it to red.. green.. whatever without any problems. But I just can't get an image up there. HOWEVER... when I am shutting down the computer, the last image that I tried to set as my wallpaper will appear for a brief second before Windows finally shuts down. But otherwise, I don't ever see the wallpaper..


I used to have windowblinds installed... but thinking that it could be part of the problem, I uninstalled it. I also uninstalled my "vista transofrmation pack." Still.. the background is solid blue. And I have no other software running that alters Windows appearance.

Any ideas about how I can get the wallpaper back?

 

Could be a leftover from the "vista transformation pack."
That program did not get very good press here.
Check out MG thread 101732

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=101732

Bazza

===

 

There is no "Web" tab in my Display Properties window.

I had also thought Active Desktop was causing the problem... so I tried to disable it. And when I couldn't find the Web Tab, I looked for information about what registry keys I had to delete. According to the instructions I followed, deleting the keys would dactivate the Active Desktop, and it was supposed to restore the Web Tab in Display Properties... but the tab is still missing.

 

if your running xp, in the desktop tab try clicking custumize desktop and there is where u find out if u have any web pages on your desktop.

 

If it is leftover files form the vista transformation pack then I'd suggest using the CCleaner program. It will get rid of leftover files and other gunk in your computer that might be causing the problem.

http://majorgeeks.com/download.php?det=4191

Make sure you check off the right boxes for what CCleaner will search for before you run the program. Then click the analyze button and look through the files CCleaner will erase before you "Run the Cleaner". I've erased important files by accident because I was in a hurry and didn't pay attention to what I was erasing.

 

I've tried the "Set as Desktop Background" option, but still nothing chages. I'm currently running the online scan as well.. it's taking a while... over 1 million files scanned so far.

*UPDATE: The scan finished.. it detected a few viruses... and over 3000 dialers!! I've never even heard of 'dialers' before. I was dissapointed to see that the "recommendation" was to purchase their software. I thought I was doing a free scan... I think I will run ad-aware and S&D now.

Aha! That's where the Active Desktop was hiding... So I disabled (removed) all webpages that were on the active desktop, and aplied the changes. But STILL the background does not update

I tried CCleaner, and removed a few things (about 1 GB of stuff) but still the problem persists.


THANKS for all your suggestions guys. Since I can't seem to fix the problem, what I've done is I've created an Active Desktop webpage that has a direct link to a wallpaper that I like. Then I stretched out "active desktop browser" to fill my entire desktop, so now it looks like I have a wallpaper. A crude workaround... but it's acceptable for now