Desktop Entry Values for Users

The Desktop key contains entries that control the appearance of the screen background and the position of windows and icons on the screen. The following shows the Registry path:


HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

To change most of these entries, use the Desktop icon in Control Panel. The Desktop subkey can contain the following entries:

BorderWidth REG_SZ number

Sets the width of the borders around all the windows that have sizable borders. The possible range is 1 (narrowest) to 49 (widest).

Default: 3

CoolSwitch REG_SZ Boolean

Turns fast task switching on or off. To change this entry, choose the Desktop icon from Control Panel, and check or clear the Fast ALT+TAB Switching option in the Task List dialog box.

Default: 1

CursorBlinkRate REG_SZ milliseconds

Indicates how much time elapses between each blink of the selection cursor.

Default: 530

GridGranularity REG_SZ number

Specifies the size of the grid used to position windows on the screen. The possible range is 0 through 49, in units of 8 pixels.

Default: 0

IconSpacing REG_SZ pixels

Specifies the number of pixels that appear horizontally between icons. A larger number increases the space between icons.

Default: 75

IconTitleFaceName REG_SZ fontname

Specifies the font used to display icon titles. Change this value if the icon title is difficult to read.

Default: Helv

IconTitleSize REG_SZ number

Specifies the size of the font used to display icon titles. Change this value if the icon title is difficult to read.

Default: 9

IconTitleStyle REG_SZ Boolean

Default: 0

IconTitleWrap REG_SZ Boolean

Specifies whether to wrap icon titles. A value of 1 allows icon title wrapping and increases icon vertical spacing by three lines; 0 turns off icon title wrapping.

Default: 1

Pattern REG_SZ b1 b2 b3 b4 b5 b6 b7 b8

Specifies a pattern for the screen background. The 8 numeric values define a bitmap 8 pixels wide and 8 pixels high. Each decimal value represents a byte, and each byte represents a row of 8 pixels, where 0 sets the corresponding pixel to the background color, and 1 sets the corresponding pixel to the foreground color (specified by the Background and WindowText values in the Colors subkey, respectively).

For example, if you set the b1 value to the decimal value 175, the top row of pixels in the bitmap appears as the binary equivalent (10101111).

Default: (None) (This string appears when no pattern is specified.)

ScreenSaveActive REG_SZ Boolean

Specifies whether a screen saver should be displayed if the system is not actively being used. Set this value to 1 to use a screen saver; 0 turns off the screen saver.

Default: 0

ScreenSaverIsSecure REG_SZ Boolean

Specifies whether a password is assigned to the screen saver.

Default: 0

ScreenSaveTimeOut REG_SZ seconds

Specifies the amount of time that the system must be idle before the screen saver appears.

Default: 900

SCRNSAVE.EXE REG_SZ Filename

Specifies the screen saver executable filename.

Default: (None)

TileWallpaper REG_SZ Boolean

Specifies that the desktop wallpaper is tiled across the screen if this value is 1, or centered if this value is 0.

Default: 0

Wallpaper REG_SZ bitmap-filename

Supplies the filename for the bitmap on the screen background. Include the path if the file is not in the SystemRoot or SystemRoot\SYSTEM32 directory.

Default: "(None)" (This string appears when no pattern is specified.)