Snow Leopard Desktop Background Images

Ok I don't know how but I deleted the Macintosh HD/Library/Desktop images folder and now am missing the Apple images therein. How can I reinstall those images/backgrounds without doing a total reinstall of OS X?

The Music was still in the folder but the Icon under PLACES in Finder was deleted. I went into the Library folder and copied the Music folder icon and pasted back under PLACES. It changed to the original "music note" icon and everything is fine.
I have been backing up my Mac HD but even under Time Machine previous backup screens no longer showed the "music note" icon. Very odd.
I did download Pacifist but I would have to know exactly where the "music note" setup package was located in order to open it. It does look like a good utility to have. Thanks for the recommendation.
MR

Similar Messages

How to block changes of desktop background image

I manage a 30-computer Mac lab in a public high school and I would like to prevent users from changing the desktop background image.
As far as I know, there are two ways to change the desktop background image: through System Preferences and by right-clicking an image and selecting Set Desktop Picture.
Blocking System Preferences is easily done through Parental Controls.
But how do I prevent the right-click, Set Desktop Picture method of changing the desktop image?
You can imagine the kinds of images that end up as desktop backgrounds in a high school computer lab.

You might try going to System Preferences > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts. In the left pane select Services, then uncheck the item "Set Desktop Picture" under Pictures in the right pane. Once that's done, block that prefs pane.

Is there an ARD command or Unix command that I can send to reset the desktop background image to default?

I was forced to create a local user with an automatic login on all of the machines in the building. I listed off many various issues that could come arise by doing this but was tuned out. Now people are changing all of the desktop backgrounds to some pretty inappropriate images. I forewarned the person ordering this that this may be one of the many issues that would arise when doing away with our server based logins, and now I am charged with fixing every desktop every time someone changes it to something inappropriate.
Is that an Apple Remote Desktop command or a Unix command that I can send through ARD v3.5.3 to the machines to reset the desktop background image to the default Aqua Blue jpeg image located in the /MacintoshHD/Library/Desktop\ Pictures/Aqua\ Blue.jpg.
The machines that I am dealing with have OS X 10.4.11, OS X 10.5.8, OS X 10.6.8, and OS X 10.7.4 installed on them, but the OS X 10.4.11 machines are the ones that are creating the biggest issue so I would like to deal with those first.

Ya, I'd love to have the computers connected to the Xserver, unfortunately against my heeding, I was ordered to take them off of the Xserver, so they only have a local account that automatically logs in on startup, and even though I have Parental Controls set, I can not stop them from going to Safari, selecting an inappropriate image and setting it as the background, so now I’ve been ordered to fix all of the backgrounds that people are messing with.
My Xserver is running OS X 10.4.11 Server Edition. Yes, I would love a new server, but that’s not happening due to budget cuts.
So what I am hoping for is a command that I can put into Apple Remote Desktop v3.5.3 and push out to all of the computers via its Unix commands and reset all the desktops to their default image.

When viewing some websites my desktop background image shows as the page background...why...and how do I fix this?

It seems that the current version of Firefox does not understand how to process style sheets. Instead of the stylesheet background color or image, I am now seeing my PC's desktop background image. This does not happen with IE or Chrome. When checking the error console, I get "Warning: Unknown property 'zoom'. Declaration dropped. Source File: http://trustserve.net/themes/ModernBlue/templates_cached/EN/global.css Line: 4"
I am not trying to zoom.
Any ideas on how to fix this. I can't use Firefox with these problems and I really liked it prior to these problems.

I thought I had it disabled. I enabled aero and then disabled to be sure, and still have the problem, but that was a very good idea. Thanks.
The problem started shortly after I installed two new programs, a graphics program, and an anti-virus. I just removed both programs and restarted the computer and that seems to have solved the problem. Your idea about Aero gave me the idea that one, or both of these programs changed some of my system settings. I am now going to install them, one at a time, and see if the transparency problem returns. I'll post my findings.

Custom icon for Boot Camp partition on Snow Leopard desktop?

I have a Boot Camp partition (NTFS) with Windows XP. In Snow Leopard, the partition shows on the desktop with a generic hard drive icon. I'd like to change this to a custom icon, but when trying to paste over the generic icon in the Get Info window, Edit->Paste is grayed out.
In Leopard, it was possible to have a custom icon for a Boot Camp partition by formatting a thumb drive as FAT32, pasting the custom icon onto it in the Get Info window, booting into Windows XP, and copying two invisible icon files from the thumb drive to the NTFS drive. This would display the custom icon for the Boot Camp partition icon on the Leopard desktop. This doesn't work in Snow Leopard.
Is it possible to use a custom icon for a Boot Camp partition on the Snow Leopard desktop?

I don't see this option in Properties for the Boot Camp volume. In any case, I believe the custom icon is set correctly for the C: drive in Windows. I followed he procedure in the second paragraph of my initial post, which I learned from a post over a year ago. I copied the two hidden files .VolumeIcons.icns and ._ File _ to the C: drive. When I boot into Leopard, the correct custom icon for the Boot Camp partition appears on the Leopard desktop. But when I boot into Snow Leopard, only a generic hard drive icon appears on the desktop for that partition.

Desktop Background Images Dithering

All of my desktop background images have been dithering, despite the fact that my display is set to 32-bit color. This can be demonstrated by opening up the image used for the desktop in an image-editing application and viewing them both side-by-side. Here's a screenshot of such a comparison:
This is a major bummer - anyone have an idea what is wrong?

I should have mentioned that the dimensions of the background image exactly match the resolution of the monitor (1280x1024).
Also, yes, it is an LCD monitor, but it is hooked up via DVI.
I am wondering if it might have to do with the display card hardware (GeForce FX 5200), as I did not have this problem under the same circumstances, in tiger, but under different hardware...
So, no, still not solved - but thanks for your input.

Setting the desktop background image via Powershell

UPDATE:
I found the solution that addressed my problem, which I posted in a post below. Keeping the original post for Internet historical reasons as I the hope this helps someone else later on in their search for a solution.
===============
I have Bing'ed and I have Google'd and I haven't found a solid answer to setting the desktop wallpaper programmically. I am trying to do this via PowerShell, but I would be happy for any other language flavor or application to work.
Below is the code I have tried to set the desktop background image. This has been scrounged from a few sources across the web. This solution works 25% of the time and I haven't figured out what the cause for success or failure of the execution. Or maybe
it's neither, but waiting for Explorer to refresh. The only way to see the change 100% is to log out and log back in.
I am running Windows 8.1 btw.
Thank you for looking.
Function Get-WallPaper()
$wp=Get-ItemProperty -path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\' -name wallpaper
if(!$wp.WallPaper)
{ "Wall paper is not set" }
Else
{"Wall paper is set to $($wp.WallPaper)" }
Function Refresh-Explorer {
$code = @'
private static readonly IntPtr HWND_BROADCAST = new IntPtr(0xffff);
private const int WM_SETTINGCHANGE = 0x1a;
private const int SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG = 0x0002;
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError=true, CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
static extern bool SendNotifyMessage(IntPtr hWnd, uint Msg, UIntPtr wParam,
IntPtr lParam);
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true)]
private static extern IntPtr SendMessageTimeout ( IntPtr hWnd, int Msg, IntPtr wParam, string lParam, uint fuFlags, uint uTimeout, IntPtr lpdwResult );
[System.Runtime.InteropServices.DllImport("Shell32.dll")]
private static extern int SHChangeNotify(int eventId, int flags, IntPtr item1, IntPtr item2);
public static void Refresh() {
SHChangeNotify(0x8000000, 0x1000, IntPtr.Zero, IntPtr.Zero);
SendMessageTimeout(HWND_BROADCAST, WM_SETTINGCHANGE, IntPtr.Zero, null, SMTO_ABORTIFHUNG, 100, IntPtr.Zero);
Add-Type -MemberDefinition $code -Namespace MyWinAPI -Name Explorer
[MyWinAPI.Explorer]::Refresh()
Function Set-WallPaper($Value)
echo "Setting background to: $value"
Refresh-Explorer
Set-ItemProperty -path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\' -name wallpaper -value $value
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
#sleep 1
Refresh-Explorer
#Stop-Process -ProcessName explorer
NOTE: I left in a few commented out statements. I found that they do not offer any help in formulating a solution.
Thank you.

Great news! I found the solution and all props and credit goes to
jsd1982 of the XKCD comic
forum from a post he made in 2007 and some deep search kung-fu Googling on my part. Here is the
direct link to the post.
This solution has worked for me 100% of the time on Windows 8. The only gotcha I found (minor detail) was when setting this process to run as a scheduled task, I had to run it as elevated privileges for the code to compile in memory. Running this function
from PowerShell at the command prompt was fine.
NOTE: The code below is a slight trimmed down version posted by jsd1982 to just set the desktop wallpaper. I removed the image fetching from the Internet and the color inversion.
# Credit to jsd1982
function Compile-Csharp ([string] $code, $FrameworkVersion="v2.0.50727",
[Array]$References)
# Get an instance of the CSharp code provider
$cp = new-object Microsoft.CSharp.CSharpCodeProvider
# Build up a compiler params object...
$framework = [System.IO.Path]::Combine($env:windir, "Microsoft.NET\Framework\$FrameWorkVersion")
$refs = new-object Collections.ArrayList
$refs.AddRange( @("${framework}\System.dll",
# "${mshhome}\System.Management.Automation.dll",
# "${mshhome}\System.Management.Automation.ConsoleHost.dll",
"${framework}\system.windows.forms.dll",
"${framework}\System.data.dll",
"${framework}\System.Drawing.dll",
"${framework}\System.Xml.dll"))
if ($references.Count -ge 1)
$refs.AddRange($References)
$cpar = New-Object System.CodeDom.Compiler.CompilerParameters
$cpar.GenerateInMemory = $true
$cpar.GenerateExecutable = $false
$cpar.CompilerOptions = "/unsafe";
$cpar.OutputAssembly = "custom"
$cpar.ReferencedAssemblies.AddRange($refs)
$cr = $cp.CompileAssemblyFromSource($cpar, $code)
if ( $cr.Errors.Count)
$codeLines = $code.Split("`n");
foreach ($ce in $cr.Errors)
write-host "Error: $($codeLines[$($ce.Line - 1)])"
$ce |out-default
Throw "INVALID DATA: Errors encountered while compiling code"
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Drawing") > $null
[System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Runtime") > $null
# C# code to post to wallpaper
$code = @'
using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Drawing.Imaging;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using Microsoft.Win32;
namespace test
public class Wallpaper
const int SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER = 20 ;
const int SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE = 0x01;
const int SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE = 0x02;
[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
static extern int SystemParametersInfo (int uAction , int uParam , string lpvParam , int fuWinIni) ;
public static void SetWallpaper(string uri)
System.IO.Stream s = new WebClient().OpenRead(uri);
Image img = System.Drawing.Image.FromStream(s);
Bitmap copy = new Bitmap(img.Width, img.Height);
Graphics g = Graphics.FromImage(copy);
Rectangle rect = new Rectangle(0, 0, img.Width, img.Height);
g.DrawImage(img, rect, 0, 0, img.Width, img.Height, GraphicsUnit.Pixel);
g.Dispose();
img.Dispose();
// Save to a temp file:
string tempPath = Path.Combine(Path.GetTempPath(), "wallpaper.bmp");
copy.Save(tempPath, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Bmp);
RegistryKey key = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey( @"Control Panel\Desktop", true ) ;
key.SetValue(@"WallpaperStyle", 1.ToString( ) ) ;
key.SetValue(@"TileWallpaper", 0.ToString( ) ) ;
SystemParametersInfo( SPI_SETDESKWALLPAPER,
0,
tempPath,
SPIF_UPDATEINIFILE | SPIF_SENDWININICHANGE );
function Set-Wallpaper([string] $imgurl)
compile-CSharp $code
[test.Wallpaper]::SetWallpaper($imgurl)

Cannot change Desktop Background image

When I go to change my Desktop Background, it will try and load up the pictures in my Pictures folder (but no subfolders). I can switch my background to one of these images, even though the "Loading" progress bar is still visible.
Here is the odd thing, however. If I click on any of the other types of images (Apple Images, nature, Plants, Black & White, Abstract, and Solid Colors), nothing appears. I jumped over to another user on the same computer, and those images populated properly. Any ideas on what is going wrong? Why can't I change my background image? I've had this problem with both Mac OS 10.5.0 and 10.5.1.

I managed to fix this problem.
I did verify and repair permissions just for kicks. Not sure if that helped or not, but I did it anyway.
Then I went back into the System Pref pane, and clicked on Apple Images, then clicked on the Change Picture checkbox. While none of the images appear in the white box, my background did change to one of the Apple Images (such as the black and purple Leopard-only background). I then closed System Preferences, opened it back up, and the images loaded up properly this time!

Selecting and deselecting desktop background images

Can I select which Apple photos to use when setting desktop background to Change Picture? Put another way, can I deselect pictures I don't want to see? I hoped the "-" box at the bottom of the list would let me deselect folders or even specific images within folders, but it doesn't. I would like to have only the nature pictures in the Change Picture rotation.

You would have to create your own folder or album with select photos for this type control.
Use the + sign to add your album.

VPN on Snow Leopard (Desktop)

I am using iVPN to setup a VPN server on my desktop computer running OS X Snow Leopard. It's setup to use the L2TP, IP Address range 10.0.1.220 to 10.0.1.230 (my home network is 10.0.1.x. DNS is the standard open DNS servers which should be ok.
Everything seems to be setup correctly and I can start the server just fine.
Dialing in is also cool - I setup my mac VPN connection from work to dial in and "Send all traffic over VPN connection" and this seem to be causing issues. I am no longer able to use my client computer to surf the web.
Any suggestions?

I fixed it but no idea how!

Installing snow leopard,no disk image?

Hey guys, I recently had a friend of mine who put snow leopard on a disc forme so i could update my computer but when i insert the disc and click on the .dmg file it opens up "disk image" but there is nothing there to click on? What must i do to get the diskimage to show so i can proceed with the installation??
Cheers

Just because you have a disc, if you use it for a purpose not intended upon purchase, you are breaking your agreement with Apple. The contents of the disc are the property of Apple and how that intellectual property is to be used is determined by the EULA (End User License Agreement) that you agree to before installation.
This is what you agree to:
"A. Single Use License. Subject to the terms and conditions of this License, unless you have purchased a Family Pack or Upgrade license for the Apple Software, you are granted a limited non-exclusive license to install, use and run one (1) copy of the Apple Software on a single Apple-branded computer at a time. You agree not to install, use or run the Apple Software on any non-Apple-branded computer, or to enable others to do so. This License does not allow the Apple Software to exist on more than one computer at a time, and you may not make the Apple Software available over a network where it could be used by multiple computers at the same time."
http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/docs/macosx106.pdf

Upgrade From Snow Leopard Desktop to Snow Leopard Server

I just installed Snow Leopard on my Mac Pro and it's running great! I upgraded it from 10.5 and it worked just fine for me. I was looking at the Snow Leopard Server and all the features it offers for the other Macs on my home network. My question is this: Can I install Snow Leopard Server on my Mac Pro without having to do a clean install? I have everything set up perfectly and I really don't want to have to reconfigure everything.
My other question is, besides the server software, is there any difference between the server and desktop versions? More specifically, am I still going to be able to use my audio creation/editing software and play the few games I have? Does the server strip out any functionality or is it exactly the same thing as the desktop version, but with added server tools?
Thanks in advance for your input!

1. No, you cannot upgrade from Client to Server. You will need to erase and install.
2. Generally, you can do the same things. It isn't exactly the same, even ignoring the server tools. Are there some things that won't work? Maybe. Namely because developers don't typically code with MOSXS in mind.
My question to you is this: What do you want from MOSXS that you cannot do with the Mac OS Client? And are you set on using it on your Mac Pro?
I ask because:
1. Client does most of the thing people want to do that are "server" like.
2. It isn't a good idea to mix server and production environments. OS X Server is typically easy to setup for basic operation, however, there will be issues and you will have to dig a little to get things working. Which means you will stopping and starting services, issuing terminal commands, modifying plists and .confs and rebooting. Sometimes it goes so wrong that you have to reinstall.
This is why if you are serious about a server, you should really consider a separate machine. The Mac Mini is a great option for a light duty server.
Also, carefully consider your needs. Can the things you want to do be accomplished with OS X Client and maybe a few web services. Not trying to sway you either way, but it isn't always as simple as "Click the Start button and the service is working."

FCS showing desktop background images

I recently purchased and installed FCS, I'm running into an issue where the timeline, viewer, browser, and etc are showing the desktop background and cannot figure out what's going on.

If you have ShapeShifter installed, uninstall it and the problem should go away.
-DH

Satellite C660/C660D - Desktop background image not loading

Satellite C660/C660D: Trying to load any image from whatever source fails, with the error message 'an internal error has occurred'. I have tried all the procedures in control panel; none allow a change of background image, although colours can still be altered, as well as themes.
Microsoft advises this is a manufacturer issue, as my OS is OEM.
Can anyone help identify this error and suggest how to fix it?

>Microsoft advises this is a manufacturer issue, as my OS is OEM.
This is a typical MS answer if the Windows system has not been purchased separately LOL and this is NOT a notebook problem.
Would recommend checking this MS knowledge base article:
+Unable to change background picture in Windows 7+
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2504610

Can we extract a Mac desktop background image?

I really like the zen garden background and would love to be able to work with it as an image file. Any idea on how to access it in the system? in the file package somewhere? can search around, but thought one of the experts on the board might have a thought on it.
thanks!

please ignore.... just found it in the HD/Library/Desktop Pictures/ folder...

Snow Leopard Desktop Background Images

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