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I am deploying some custom corporate wallpaper as part of a Windows 7 rollout. Some people will be using dual monitors, and the additional monitors may be either 4:3 or widescreen.

I want to use the same wallpaper on both screens (i.e. 2 copies of the same wallpaper, not stretched across both.)

If I set the background to "stretch", it uses the aspect ratio of the primary monitor to stretch the wallpaper on both monitors. So, for example, if I have a dual monitor setup using a 4:3 TFT as primary and my (widescreen) laptop LCD as secondary - the image shows on the laptop LCD in 4:3, with a black stripe down either side.

I've only noticed this as an issue with my "custom" wallpaper. Both the default MS wallpaper and the built in Lenovo wallpaper don't seem to have this issue. Is this by using "trickery" such as using an image larger than the largest resolution you will have and centering it? (i.e. so you crop out part of the image.) Or can this be done "properly"?

I don't want to use 3rd party software to do this, but would happily do a bit of Powershell scripting if this would solve the issue.

Thanks in advance,


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This really belongs on our sister site superuser.com =) –  Antoine Benkemoun May 28 '10 at 8:50
Thanks @Antoine - Never sure what the distinction is. I thought SuperUser was more of a "home user" site, and Serverfault was based at admins. –  Ben May 28 '10 at 9:38
Well that's right but this is a very home user oriented question I think. –  Antoine Benkemoun May 28 '10 at 9:57
@ben, at least four people think this isn't the kind of question expected to be ask on here and that it's more appropriate for superuser.com as it's a "general computer troubleshooting question". –  Chopper3 May 28 '10 at 14:37
@Ben, you're just running into the fine line between a question about all the individual computers on a network VS how two or more computers on a network interact; hence people will disagree as to which site the question belongs on. –  Chris S May 28 '10 at 14:54
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up vote 1 down vote accepted

I'm still using XP SP3, but have some problem. Laptop have a wide-screen and external LCD an old 4:3 ratio, so I used the trick you write about use a big picture centered as wallpaper. It work just fine.

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Just to add to the above, did some more digging and I think the attached image shows how those crafty MS designers have done it.

(For the "aesthetics" out there, note how the green and white lines come in accross the corners of most of the resolutions.)

alt text

(See http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/a25fbc6728.jpg for full size)

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