Nursing Informatics Book
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Wall Paper & Screen Savers

In an effort to personalize their computer, many people want to change the appearance of their desktop by adding wallpaper, or installing a screen saver.

Wall paper is a pattern that you select to have as a background for your desktop, which is the name for the Windows screen seen when the computer finishes booting. When no wallpaper is selected, the screen has a solid background, usually blue - unless of course the colors have been changed. You can change the appearance of the desktop by selecting either (or both) a pattern or wallpaper. Or, you can create your own wallpaper. Wallpaper uses RAM so if you use many programs at the same time, or the computer operates slower than you think it should, or you constantly receive out of memory errors, you will want to choose "None" for both wallpaper and screen savers..

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To Install or Uninstall Wall Paper on Your Windows 95 or 98 PC

  1. Click the start button.
  2. Click settings and then control panel.
  3. Double click "Display."
  4. Click the "Background " tab.
  5. If you want to:
    1. Change the pattern: click on that drop down box and make a selection.
    2. Change the wallpaper: click on that drop down box and make a selection.
    3. Get rid of wallpaper, click on none. You can have both a pattern and wallpaper.
  6. If you have created your own bitmapped file to use as wallpaper, click on browse and locate it in the file structure, then select it.

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Install or Uninstall Wallpaper for Windows XP (2002)

  1. Click on the Start Button
  2. Click on control panel
  3. Double click on appearances and themes
  4. Click on change the desktop background.
  5. Click on the Desktop tab.
  6. Scroll down the background box. To see what a background will look like, select it.
  7. If you have another image that you wish to use as a background, click on Browse to find it. Once located, click on Open." (Note: You may need to change the postion if the image is small.)
  8. When you find one you like, click "Apply."
  9. To uninstall, select "None" from the list.
  10. When the settings satisfy you click "OK."

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Screen Savers

When the original personal computer monitors were produced, if a screen image was left static for a long period of time, the phosphors that were lighted tended to burn the screen and produce a permanent shadow. To combat this, screen savers were developed. Screen savers are programs that change the current image on the screen to a moving object or design after a given length of time in which no keys are tapped or the mouse is not moved. The time before this occurs is set by the user. The image with which the user was working is easily returned by tapping a key or moving the mouse. Present day screens no longer have this problem, but people like screen savers and they have become a staple of modern computers. Screen savers do require a permanent place in the computer's RAM, so if performance suffers a user may want to turn off the screen saver.

To Install or Uninstall a Screen Saver on Your Windows 95 or 98 PC

  1. Click the start button.
  2. Click settings and then control panel.
  3. Double click "Choose a Screen Saver."
  4. Click the "Screen Saver" tab
  5. Drop down the box under Screen Saver by clicking on the down arrow.
  6. To see what a given screen saver looks like, click on it. When you have found one you like, click on Apply. (Note if you wish to use an object besides the ones that come with Windows it must be placed in the My Pictures folder. You will find it in the "My pictures slideshow" selection.
  7. On this screen you can also select how long to wait before the screen saver becomes active.
  8. When the settings satisfy you click "OK."

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Install or Uninstall a Screen Saver for Windows XP (2002)

  1. Click the start button
  2. Click control panel
  3. Double click "Display"
  4. Click the "Screen Saver" tab
  5. Select the screen saver that you want by clicking on the drop down box. If you wish none, click on none.
  6. On this screen you can also select how long to wait before the screen saver becomes active.

Last Updated: March 18, 2003

For questions or broken links please email the author .

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Copyright 2003/2008 Linda Q. Thede
All rights reserved