CODEWITHSUNDEEP
pythonwindowsperformancebackgroundctypes
Philip Massey
Philip Massey

Reputation: 1429

Python - Change Desktop Background Fast

I was wondering if there was any way to - in Python - change the desktop background of a Windows 7 machine quickly. Right now I'm using:

ctypes.windll.user32.SystemParametersInfoA(20, 0, picture_path, 0)

And while this works, it's not very fast. I was wondering if there was some way to get the background to update in less than a second.

Thanks!

Edit -- It's probably worth noting that my goal it to change the background very fast between many known images.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1752

Answers (2)

Niek de Klein
Niek de Klein

Reputation: 8824

If you know how to work with PowerShell, you could try making a PowerShell function to change the background image (http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproui/thread/72a9b4bf-071b-47cd-877d-0c0629a9eb90):

Function Set-WallPaper($Value)
{
 Set-ItemProperty -path 'HKCU:\Control Panel\Desktop\' -name wallpaper -value $value
 rundll32.exe user32.dll, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters
}

and then call the PowerShell function from python: 

import subprocess
subprocess.Popen([r'path/to/PowerShell/script.exe',
                         '-ExecutionPolicy',
                         'Unrestricted',
                         'path/to/background_image.png'], cwd=os.getcwd())

Upvotes: 1

Johannes Jasper
Johannes Jasper

Reputation: 921

Have a look at this. They use bitmaps only but there are functions to convert images like shown here.

Upvotes: 0

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