How can I pin useful images (screenshots, color palettes, cheat-sheets) to the desktop in Windows 7 so they're actually visible?

I used to have half-a-dozen sheets of paper pinned up on the wall behind my screen - things like the .NET string format cheat sheet, Powershell quick reference, the hex codes for our corporate colour scheme. Then we moved offices and now I don't have a wall any more, so I want to use my Windows desktop to do the same thing. It's really easy to take a quick glance at the desktop by tapping Win+D twice, so it works fairly well - but it's a bit laborious setting it up!

I've taken to pasting snippets onto my wallpaper using Photoshop, then "re-selecting" the wallpaper image to force Windows to refresh it - which is a bit of a roundabout way of doing it. Desktop gadgets would probably have worked, but since MS deprecated the feature and shut down the gadget gallery, there isn't really a reputable place to find them.

Any ideas? Anything that'll let me pin JPGs and PNGs to my desktop without having to edit my wallpaper every time?

Dylan Beattie

Posted 2015-01-21T10:15:22.230

Reputation: 693

Aside from this online desktop creation tool that might help speed up the process, there's no existing feature or 3rd party tool that I know off. : http://www.quickpicturetools.com/en/multiple_picture_wallpaper/

– Samuel Nicholson – 2015-01-21T10:50:32.587

Answers

Perhaps use a 'Sticky Notes' type utility. The one built into windows 7 doesn't allow pictures, but there are replacements that do.

Here's a couple examples, found via a quick search or two:

Stickies is a sticky notes program that "can store text or images".

It's freeware.

enter image description here

Notezilla allows you to paste images into the stickies.

It's payware, but has a free trial.

enter image description here

Both of these offer "sticky management" and other features beyond what you are requesting (yet may find useful).

I've never personally used either of these. :)

Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007

Posted 2015-01-21T10:15:22.230

Reputation: 103 763

1Stickies would be PERFECT apart from one tiny flaw... when you press Win+D, it hides the stickies - and I can't see any way to prevent this! – Dylan Beattie – 2015-01-22T16:09:26.170

1+1 for Notezilla. @Dylan, recently I found that another shortcut key Win+M minimizes all programs and shows all the desktop sticky notes. At least this works with Notezilla. Pressing Shift+Win+M restores all the programs again. Try that with Stickies program too. – Gautam Jain – 2015-05-22T10:11:56.740

-2

The easy way to do this is:

Right Click Desktop -> Gadget -> Slide Show

Jun

Posted 2015-01-21T10:15:22.230

Reputation: 1

Enabling Gadgets on Windows 7 opens a huge vulnerability which is the reason they were discontinued by Microsoft – Ramhound – 2017-12-18T00:50:19.250