How to change the desktop wallpaper from powershell.

Powershell change wallpaper

set-itemproperty -path "HKCU:Control Panel\Desktop" -name WallPaper -value accipiter.png

@gabrielkryss You can put BirkhoffLee's post above in a ps1 file like so:

# Note: if scheduling this script, you may need to check 
# that the powershell session is logged in as the user

$path = $args[0]

$setwallpapersrc = @"
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;

public class Wallpaper
{
  public const int SetDesktopWallpaper = 20;
  public const int UpdateIniFile = 0x01;
  public const int SendWinIniChange = 0x02;
  [DllImport("user32.dll", SetLastError = true, CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
  private static extern int SystemParametersInfo(int uAction, int uParam, string lpvParam, int fuWinIni);
  public static void SetWallpaper(string path)
  {
    SystemParametersInfo(SetDesktopWallpaper, 0, path, UpdateIniFile | SendWinIniChange);
  }
}
"@
Add-Type -TypeDefinition $setwallpapersrc

[Wallpaper]::SetWallpaper($path)

And call it like so:

wallpaper.ps1 D:\wallpapers\wallpaper.jpg

Or you could keep your wallpaper at a specific location (e.g., $env:LOCALAPPDATA\wallpaper.png) and have your script simply set that path as the wallpaper.

Is there a way to get these awesome scripts to work for an entire DIR, instead of single file?

Cheers

$setwallpapersrc = @"

...

Thank you very much, perfectly working with powershell, amazing :o

It doesn’t seem that this works, just tested on windows 10 (server?) in an azure lab VM I had lying around. Is this broken in newer windows versions or am I doing this wrong? I copy-pasted the command and used a random JPG I found on the internet as the test background. I received no errors when I run it, but it didn’t change anything. If I use get-itemproperty I can see WallPaper is set to fish.jpg but the desktop background isn’t changing…

Oh never mind you just have to restart the system. Is there any way to force the wallpaper/desktop update?