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If you are a Microsoft Windows user, one of the first things you most likely do when you set up your new computer is change the desktop wallpaper. When it comes to wallpaper options, you can choose a picture from your computer, a slideshow of images on your computer, or the Windows spotlight images.
If you are using multiple images or have maybe forgotten the location of the picture you are currently using, it may be difficult to find the file location of a specific picture. In this article, we will be showing you a way to add an open desktop background wallpaper file location right click context menu entry in Windows. Once you have this enabled, you can simply right click on our desktop to find the file location for the currently displayed background image.
To add this open desktop background wallpaper file location option, we will need to copy a script file to our Windows directory and then perform a registry edit. All the required files can be downloaded here.
Once you download and extract the zip file, you will have three files. Ones is the script file and then there will be a registry file to add the right click option and another one to remove it.
The file that we will be copying to the Windows folder is called Find_Desktop_Background.vbs. Here are the contents of the script file in case you want to see what it does.
Const HKCU = &H80000001 ‘HKEY_CURRENT_USER
sComputer = “.”
Set oReg=GetObject(“winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\” _
& sComputer & “\root\default:StdRegProv”)
sKeyPath = “Control Panel\Desktop\”
sValueName = “TranscodedImageCache”
oReg.GetBinaryValue HKCU, sKeyPath, sValueName, sValue
sContents = “”
For i = 24 To UBound(sValue)
vByte = sValue(i)
If vByte <> 0 And vByte <> “” Then
sContents = sContents & Chr(vByte)
End If
Next
CreateObject(“Wscript.Shell”).Run “explorer.exe /select,””” & sContents & “”””
When you copy the Find_Desktop_Background.vbs file into the C:\Windows folder, you will most likely see a message saying folder access denied. As long as you are an administrator on your computer, you should be able to click the Continue button to get past it.
Once that file is copied to the Windows folder, we can now double click the Add Open Background Location.reg file to add the information to the registry. Here is what is contained in this registry file.
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\DesktopBackgroundFileLocation]
“icon”=”imageres.dll,-5346”
@=”Open desktop background file location”
[HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT\DesktopBackground\Shell\DesktopBackgroundFileLocation\command]
@=hex(2):77,00,73,00,63,00,72,00,69,00,70,00,74,00,20,00,22,00,25,00,57,00,69,\
00,6e,00,64,00,69,00,72,00,25,00,5c,00,46,00,69,00,6e,00,64,00,5f,00,44,00,\
65,00,73,00,6b,00,74,00,6f,00,70,00,5f,00,42,00,61,00,63,00,6b,00,67,00,72,\
00,6f,00,75,00,6e,00,64,00,2e,00,76,00,62,00,73,00,22,00,00,00
When you double click the registry file, you will see an UAC prompt and you will need to click on the Yes button to continue.
You will then be shown a message telling you that Windows will import the contents of the registry file into the Windows registry. You will once again need to click the Yes button to continue.
You will then see a confirmation message and you can click the OK button.
Now when you right click on your desktop and choose Show more options, you will have a context menu option named Open desktop background file location. For Windows 11, you can also hold down the Shift key when right clicking to go right to the secondary menu.
When you click on Open desktop background file location, you will be taken to the folder on your computer that contains the image file.
If you are using the Windows Spotlight wallpaper option, you will be taken to the location of that image.
If you want to remove the open desktop background wallpaper file location right click menu entry simply double click the Remove Open Background Location.reg file and go through the same steps as you did to add it.
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