Best Free Wallpaper Changer

Updated Fri, 06/04/2010 - 15:01 by Jojoyee

 

In a Hurry?

Go straight to the Quick Selection Guide

Introduction

After seeing the same wallpapers on the desktop for some time, most PC users would prefer a change to make it more lively, dynamic and interactive. Windows 7 allows some basic settings to change wallpapers automatically, whereas earlier versions of the Windows system only allow for changing wallpapers manually. Going for a better choice with more features? Check out these free and good wallpaper changers that are reviewed and rated based on the features below: User interface or ease of use. Change wallpapers at time intervals set by users Set position of each wallpaper Synchronise wallpapers with folders Auto close after changing the wallpaper to free up system resources Slide show and other useful features

Discussion

Wallpaper Master has a good user interface with many useful features. The program can be set to auto start at windows logon or auto close after 30 seconds to save system resources. It allows you to categorise the lists of wallpapers and rate each wallpaper so that better ones are chosen more often. It's easy to add files to the list or simply monitor a directory to update the list of wallpapers. Wallpapers can be set to change when windows starts or on certain intervals in sequential order, shuffle mode, or random order according to ratings. The position of each wallpaper can be set to center, stretch, tile or resize as well. On the downside, the program allows adding up to 5,000 images per category in the free version, but that's good enough for most average users.

Wallpaper Cycler Lite offers you to change the wallpaper on startup with other features such as auto shutdown, timer and cycle wallpapers. This program manages wallpapers in multi-level categories, which can be linked to folders on your hard disk to automatically detect new wallpapers. Position of the wallpapers can be set to default, center, tile, stretch to fill, stretch to height, stretch to width, stretch with or without aspect to each wallpaper in the categories. It includes a mode to show a slide show of all your wallpapers in the categories. It can also monitor your CPU load when it wants to cycle and prevent cycling when your CPU is too busy. This free program shows some other features in the context menu but they are only enabled in the pay version. These restricted features include wallpaper layouts, tags, search folders, etc.

If you don't like this restriction and prefer a simpler program, EvJO Wallpaper Changer is good choice. It changes your wallpapers at every startup, once a day, at sunrise or sunset, or other time intervals. This program consists of several options, such as auto start, auto close, changing the wallpaper when the program starts or closes, changing the wallpaper in random order or in sequential order of the wallpapers in the list. Position of the wallpapers can be set to auto, center, tile or stretch based on a global setting instead of individual wallpapers. It has a clean and intuitive user interface, easy to use, and complete with extra features such as downloading photos from flickr, search photos by tags, text or user photos, draw a company logo or calendar on the desktop, etc. However, this program does not support synchronisation of wallpapers with folders and the slide show feature.

WallMaster is another alternative which has a simple and intuitive control panel to customize your desktop wallpaper conveniently. It allows you to change wallpaper on startup, auto shutdown after the wallpaper changes, with other features such as shuffling wallpapers and timer. A double click on the program's icon in the tray, the wallpaper changes instantly, a right click shows up a full context menu for mastering your desktop wallpaper, hiding icons and others. With this program, you can also create, save, load or append a showlist of your favorite wallpapers with an option to disallow duplicate items. Each wallpaper in the showlist can be set to tile, center, fit to screen, custom or auto fit. On the down side, this free program allows a maximum of 50 wallpapers to be appended to each showlist. Other features such as folders synchronisation and slide show features are not supported.

Looking for a wallpaper changer with a calendar? MuralPix Manager is well worth trying. It offers a possibility to make a frame around an image as part of the wallpaper. The frame color is calculated so that it corresponds to overall image color tone. Further, a calendar can be painted automatically to the wallpaper with various settings. It allows you to add folders and auto detect changes of files in the folders, set time intervals of changing wallpapers, etc. The wallpapers in the folders can be used by a screen saver included in the program. The program can be set to auto start or run in a silent mode, but auto close is not included. Besides, its user interface is not as good as some other programs, and settings of margins and images apply to all rather than individual wallpaper files.

As an alternative, John's Background Switcher can be used to change wallpapers with optional calendars as well. The program supports multiple monitors and features setting auto exit, time intervals, selecting images from the folders or from other online resources such as Flickr, Picasa Web Albums, Facebook, etc. Wallpapers can be set to center, stretch, scale, in a thumbnail mosaic, a four-picture montage or a snapshot scrapbook. This setting applies to all but not individual wallpapers. A picture browser is included to view images either downloaded or used in montage, but no slide show is available.

Looking for a cross-platform wallpaper changer? Wally is a good wallpaper changer running on Win32, Linux and Mac OS X platforms. The author of the software re-uses the idea from John's Background Switcher (JBS) and fulfils the universe of wallpaper changers not covered by JBS. The user interface looks close to that of JBS, but it allows wallpaper position to set to centered, tiled, center tiled, centered maxpert, tiled maxpert, scaled, center auto fit or scale and crop. The setting of positions applies to all wallpapers in the folders. The program supports features such as time intervals, selecting images from the folders or from online resources, displaying images' EXIF data in system tray tool-tip, saving downloaded photos, run-time folder change detection, etc. No auto exit of the program is noted.

Other Wallpaper Changers

Read more...
http://www.techsupportalert.com/content/best-free-wallpaper-changer.htm?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+gizmosbest+%28Gizmo%27s+Best-ever+Freeware%29&utm_content=Google+Feedfetcher

Don