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How many times have you walked up to a system in your office and needed to click through several diagnostic windows to remind yourself of important aspects of its configuration, such as its name, IP address, or operating system version If you manage multiple computers you probably need BGInfo. 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.

Because BGInfo simply writes a new desktop bitmap and exits you don't have to worry about it consuming system resources or interfering with other applications.

Features:

Appearance Buttons

Fields: Selects what information appears on the desktop, and the order in which it is displayed. For networking fields (NIC, IP, MAC, etc.) a separate entry is created for each network card on the system. Use the Custom button to add special information you define yourself.

Background: Selects the color and/or wallpaper to use for the background. If you select the Copy existing settings option then BGInfo will use whatever information is currently selected by the logged on user. This option allows end users to personalize their desktop while still displaying the BGInfo information.

Position: Selects the location on the screen at which to place the text. If some items are very long (for example some network card names) you can use the Limit Lines to item to wrap them. The Compensate for Taskbar position checkbox adjusts the position of the text to ensure that it is not covered by the Taskbar. The Multiple Monitor Configuration button allows you to specify how multiple monitors attached to a single console should be handled.

Desktops: Selects which desktops are updated when the configuration is applied. By default only the User Desktop wallpaper is changed. Enabling the Logon Desktop for Console users option specifies that the wallpaper should be displayed on the logon desktop that is presented before anyone has logged onto the system. On Windows 95/98/ME systems the same desktop is used for users and the login screen, so this option has no effect. Enabling the Logon Desktop for Terminal Services users option specifies that the wallpaper should be displayed on the Terminal Services login screen. This option is useful only on servers running Terminal Services.

Preview: Displays the background as it will appear when applied to your system.

Configuration Menu Items

These are options that control how the bitmap is produced, where it is located and how to import/export settings.

File | Open: Opens a BGInfo configuration file.

File | Save As: Saves a copy of the current BGInfo configuration to a new file. Once created, you can have BGInfo use the file later by simply specifying it on the command line, or by using File|Open menu option.

File|Reset Default Settings: Removes all configuration information and resets BGInfo to its default (install-time) state. Use this if you can't determine how to undo a change, or if BGInfo becomes confused about the current state of the bitmap.

File|Database: Specifies a .XLS, .MDB or .TXT file or a connection string to an SQL database that BGInfo should use to store the information it generates. Use this to collect a history of one or more systems on your network. You must ensure that all systems that access the file have the same version of MDAC and JET database support installed. It is recommended you use at least MDAC 2.5 and JET 4.0. If specifying an XLS file the file must already exist.

If you prefer to have BGInfo update the database without modifying the user's wallpaper you can unselect all desktops in the Desktops dialog; BGInfo will still update the database.