Low bandwidth Windows wallpaper

I connect to several different machines over a VPN using windows remote desktop. I would like to find several low bandwidth friendly wallpapers to distinguish one machine from another. It's not that my VPN connection is so slow that I have to turn wallpaper off in the RDP settings, but when the wallpaper is visible and the screen refreshes, it slows me down.

The problem is that most wallpapers are designed to be visually appealing with all kinds of high definition color contrasts.

Anyone know where I can find wallpaper that is free and lo-res?

Mark Arnott

Posted 2012-08-06T22:12:23.367

Reputation: 265

12 answers make up the idea solution, mix of solid colours + BgInfo from sysinternals (or equivalent) – Nick Josevski – 2012-08-06T23:21:19.193

Answers

Personally I wouldn't use wallpaper at all - I'd leave the desktop a solid color, and make them each a different color (essentially color-coding them). This is the lowest bandwidth method to do this.

Shinrai

Posted 2012-08-06T22:12:23.367

Reputation: 18 051

21Use a black, grey or white desktop colour, e.g., #000000 to #FFFFFF. The three consecutive color bytes bitmap gets the most data compression through the wire, the lowest bandwidth! – William C – 2012-08-06T23:29:12.760

2@WilliamC - Clever! (Although obviously not of very much practical difference.) – Shinrai – 2012-08-07T01:56:32.247

6@WilliamC: I don't think that will do anything. – Mechanical snail – 2012-08-07T09:23:26.480

Its low bandwidth, but it also has some limits and is not immediately obvious to the next admin what the color schema is. This is an option, but its a distant second to something like BgInfo or having the machine name as a dekstop background. – Freiheit – 2012-08-07T13:48:06.207

@Freiheit - I've personally never found the need for BgInfo, and can't see it unless you're talking about a lot of systems. From the sound of OP it sounds like this is probably five or fewer. I've never had trouble keeping my boxes straight in an environment like that. – Shinrai – 2012-08-07T14:15:14.710

fyi, if you set a solid color background in windows 7, you might have to install a hotfix to avoid a 30 second delay during the logon process. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977346

– Jon Schoning – 2012-08-07T19:17:02.417

Watch out when setting a solid color as your desktop background! http://support.microsoft.com/kb/977346

– Der Hochstapler – 2012-08-07T19:25:41.330

1It says that the 30 second delay problem doesn't appear if you connect remotely (which is what the OP is doing). – JJJ – 2012-08-07T19:48:06.677

An option would be to use BgInfo from Sysinternals to display the system information which would allow you to differentiate each session by simply seeing the machine name on the desktop. And you get the added bonus of seeing all the other system information as well.

It automatically displays relevant information about a Windows computer on the desktop's background, such as the computer name, IP address, service pack version, and more. You can edit any field as well as the font and background colors, and can place it in your startup folder so that it runs every boot, or even configure it to display as the background for the logon screen.

Metro Smurf

Posted 2012-08-06T22:12:23.367

Reputation: 918

If you're using this over a low-bandwidth connection, should you choose options that do not update frequently to avoid redrawing/refreshing the background? – Freiheit – 2012-08-07T13:46:46.583

I have used BgInfo and it works well enough. But you have to read and I don't want to expend any unnecessary brain cycles. I just don't have enough of those. :-) And in this case it's not dozens or hundreds of servers - only 4 different machines – Mark Arnott – 2012-08-07T14:27:05.503

2@Freiheit - This doesn't update much. What BGInfo does is run, extract the system info, write it to a bitmap, and set that as the desktop background. Generally, you have it run once, at logon. It then exits until the next boot/logon. – Fake Name – 2012-08-08T07:22:13.347

I would recommend to create a wallpaper with computer name, IP and whatever details you need. Also, you can use a very handy and free tool called BGInfor (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897557.aspx) Good luck :)

ElektryczneNozyce

Posted 2012-08-06T22:12:23.367

Reputation: 101

I use @Shinrai's answer of the solid color, but if you must have specific backgrounds, one thing to do is make a very small jpg/png/gif image and use it as a "centered" background. I usually put in the name of the computer, and that's it.

Then I color code the background color.

--Erty

Erty Seidohl

Posted 2012-08-06T22:12:23.367

Reputation: 597