When I choose to change the Desktop wallpaper,in the menu are hundreds of Pics to to choose.......there should be only about 10 (Bliss/Water etc etc)......I have discovered that ALL the pics that appear in the Desktop wallpaper menu are also the ones that I store in "My Pictures".

What on earth is the relationship between the two,and why are they accessible......am I sharing the My Pictures folder or something?............the only way at present not have them appear in the desktop menu is to remove them from "My Pictures"...Weird heh!
XP HOME OS

Barry:

When you choose Save As...to add a graphic file, do you rush through it and just click away?

Is is possible your default is for C:/WINDOWS (? I think that's where your wallpaper is stored)? If so, just make sure you select My Pictures, the next time you save a graphic file.

I think the Save In default is usually the last place you saved something. My graphics always default to My Pictures; after that, I'll copy/paste something elsewhere if I need to.

I would right click on each of the affected folders, click on the Sharing tab, and make sure they are set to NOT share.

I was recently scrounging through my PC and came across an empty My Pictures folder in a Shared Documents folder...can't remember, exactly where it was. I have hundreds and hundreds of folders with "toys" in them; hard to keep track.

Try the right click thing, and see if it solves your problem.

Hope this helps

Hi Bazcaz, the following is from THIS Newsgroup

"Suggestions:

The pictures that show up under display properties, desktop are located in
these folders:

C:\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents\My Pictures
C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper

Under My Computer scroll down to Shared Documents/Shared Pictures. If
Shared Pictures is listed, remove it.

TweakUI for XP: Unchecking "Lock Web Content" under Explorer to be added
to desktop disables the pictures from being listed.
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/pro/downloads/powertoys.asp

Workaround:

Create another folder (under your user profile), remove the pictures from My
Pictures that you don't want listed under Backgrounds and in the My Pictures
folder, create a shortcut to the new folder. Or create subfolders within My
Pictures.

Disable Default Save As to My Pictures (Line 111)
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com/xp_tweaks.htm

To use the Regedit: Save the REG File to your hard disk. Double click it
and answer yes to the import prompt. REG files can be viewed in Notepad by
right clicking on the file and selecting Edit."

I opted for the subfolder option,I created a folder in My Pictures named it My Pics, now when I right click and select Save Picture As..
I open the My Pics folder and save there. None of these images appear in the Backgrounds window of Display Properties.

Thanks Redder and Sonnet for your advice, The only way after trying the other suggestions not have all those pics in the Desktop menu is to create a sub folder in MY PICTURES,put the pics in there and then remove it to the desktop.
If I leave the sub folder in the MY PICS they still show up in Desktop menu even after applying the No shared option.......I also deleted SHARED PICS folder and still to no avail.
I also noticed there were about 30 pics in the Desktop background menu named SDS and this had baffled also for they were not pics I had put there,on investigation it turned out they are Stardock (Object desktop/Windows blinds etc) which I installed about a month ago,the SDS files I just deleted from the C:\WINDOWS\Web\Wallpaper.

So to cut a long story short the only way I found that was a success was to bypass altogether storing pics in MY PICTURES (Ironical that).

Again is not big deal for I only change the wallpaper about twice a month(I like a change)and it is not so much the fact that it is difficult but rather WHY do these things happen and what is the reason....I am sure you both know where I am coming from,once again thank you both for your time an input.

Cheers, Barry