How to Remove an Annoying Wallpaper Script from Your Windows 10 Computer

Have you ever found yourself in a bizarre situation where your laptop’s wallpaper changes to an amusing image—perhaps of two monkeys—every few minutes? This was the peculiar predicament faced by one user after a friend decided to play a prank by writing a simple script that modifies the desktop background on their Windows 10 machine. If you find yourself in a similar situation, here’s how to identify and eliminate such a script effectively.

Understanding the Script

The prank involved a script set to refresh the desktop wallpaper either every 10,000 seconds or whenever the computer was restarted. If you’ve noticed an unwelcome slideshow of quirky or funny images, there’s a good chance that a simple script is behind it.

For Windows users, these scripts can often be lurking in a couple of common locations, such as startup folders or task scheduler, which allow them to run automatically whenever the system boots up.

Steps to Remove the Script

1. Search for Scripts and Files:
2. Begin by searching for any .bat or .vbs files that were modified recently. If your friend created the prank script yesterday, use that as a timestamp reference.

3. You might also want to look for any suspicious image files with related modification dates.

4. Identifying the Script:

5. Upon reviewing the script, you might encounter code like this:

   “`vbscript
   Dim shell : Set shell = CreateObject(“WScript.Shell”)
   Dim wallpaper : wallpaper = “C:\Intel\download.jpg”
   Set oSHApp = CreateObject(“Shell.Application”)

   Do While True
   shell.RegWrite “HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\Wallpaper”, wallpaper
   wscript.sleep 3000
   shell.Run “%SYSTEMROOT%\System32\rundll32.exe user32.dll,UpdatePerUserSystemParameters”, 1, True
   wscript.sleep 10000
   Loop
   “`

This script continually changes the wallpaper by executing commands that write to the system registry and update the desktop settings.

1. Take Action:

2. If you’ve found the .vbs script, you can move it to a different location or delete it altogether. Make sure to check your Task Manager’s startup items and the Task Scheduler for any references to the script running at startup.

3. Check Other Locations: