What is a Desktop Wallpaper?

Do you know what desktop wallpaper is? No? Okay, let me explain.

When you switch on your computer and it finishes the boot up sequence, you see a screen with either a picture or a solid color and a bunch of icons. In computer terms the screen you see is called a desktop. It is the place where you can store shortcuts, images, documents and other files.

If you have never altered the default settings on your computer you will see a picture on the screen. This is called wallpaper.

If you put the two together you have desktop wallpaper.

So, the picture you see on screen when you boot up your computer is called desktop wallpaper. It is also known as computer wallpaper, computer background and sometimes just as a desktop.

But did you know you can easily change the picture to something else?

You can do this just by placing your mouse over any picture you see online, clicking the right hand button on your mouse and selecting "set as background" from the menu that appears. This is how you do it in Internet Explorer. Other browsers have similar options, but the wording changes slightly.

All Windows computers come packaged with a few wallpapers by default. If you don't like the idea of using an online picture as your wallpaper, you can choose from one of the pre packaged pictures.

In Windows Vista, right click on your desktop and choose Personalize. In the window that appears, choose Desktop Background and then Windows Wallpaper from the drop down menu. Now click on the picture of your choice and it will become your new wallpaper. The quality of these images is excellent, but you may prefer to find something more personal. Something that better defines your mood or conveys your personality.

To make an online picture work as a desktop wallpaper it has to be big enough to fit your screen resolution. Small pictures can be made into wallpapers, but they don't look great. The most popular computer screen resolution is 1024 x 768.

How to find desktop wallpapers online

There are hundreds of sites around that offer desktop wallpapers to their visitors. Some are better than others, but nearly all of them can be used for free. All you have to do is search Google for phrases such as desktop wallpaper to see what is available.

If you are looking a specific subject for your wallpaper, such as a squirrel or the Statue of Liberty, add the words to your search phrase and you will almost certainly find what you are looking for.