Click one of the buttons above to download the latest version of Automatic
Wallpaper Changer
Version History
4.11.0 - May 26, 2012
Added the ability to specify a file containing an alpha-channel mask to
be applied to the main image when it is displayed over the background. Full
description here.
On XP systems the file open dialog is now forced to open in thumbnail mode
when selecting graphic file on the Preferences screen (Background, Picture
Frame etc.).
Added Photoshop (.psd) files to the list of files that can be used as a
picture frame. Previously only .png and .gif.
Bug fix - Start button would sometimes show the word Start instead
of Restart even though the timer was running.
4.10.46 - February 16, 2012
Bug fix - New method of displaying wallpaper broke screensaver
4.10.33 - February 05, 2012
The way the AWC wallpaper is constructed and displayed on screen has been
changed so that it should now display on multimonitor systems correctly irrespective
of how they are laid out. Note that this can mean that opening the underlying
bitmap in an editor might mean that you do not see what you expect. I only
have access to systems with two monitors so reports of any problems on systems
with more than that will be appreciated.
Screensaver functionality changed to match the new way of handling multimonitor
systems.
On Windows 7 systems you can now set the OS Logon Screen background to be
the wallpaper that is currently displayed on your desktop. Note that on multimonitor
systems it is the wallpaper on your primary monitor that is used.
Restart button caption now changes between Start/Restart depending on current
status
4.10.14 - January 10, 2012
Fixed bug where wallpaper does not change if all windows are minimised and
no desktop icons highlighted because AWC thought that a full screen program
was running in the foreground
Added sort direction indicators to file view column headers
Added view mode indicator icons to make it easier to see what mode you are
in
Folder/Files list column headers use slightly larger font
Minor changes to some button labels and their tooltips so they change depending
on what view mode you are in
Bug fixes to prevent crashes when some menu items were selected before AWC
had loaded any files
4.10 - December 19, 2011
Added the ability to drag and drop one or more folders onto the file list
in View By File mode. All image files in each dropped folder are added to
the list. Recursion of subfolders is not supported.
Updated program icon so it resizes with high definition on Windows 7.
When graphical items are selected in preferences their contents are now
displayed as a thumbnail on the page.
General Program Options page has been split into four separate tabs as it
was getting very cluttered.
You can now take a snapshot of the current set of screens' wallpapers and
have that snapshot displayed when the wallpaper is cleared.
Standard Filtering (Folder View Only) in Preferences has been split into
three separate tabs to make room for additional option.
Exclude Folders option has been added to Standard Filtering. You can define
one or more folders that should not be searched for files when refreshing
the file list.
Added the option to apply a texture to the final wallpaper. This is somewhat
experimental but works well depending on the kind of images you are using.
Fixed bug where user adding a new display to the system without restarting
Windows would cause AWC to show an error message on each change.
Added option to delete the list of recently used themes.
4.9.26 - September 26, 2011
Fixed problems with graphical picture frames not being transparent
Added Balanced Smart option to transparency options. This adjusts the edge
which is treated as transparent depending on how resizing has made the image
fit on the screen
Background image for each monitor is now stored in memory ready for reuse
instead of rereading from disk each time
/EXCLUDE command line option added. This allows you to specify the name
of a text file which contains a list of folders that should not be read when
looking for files. I'll add this functionality to the preferences page at
a later date.
4.9.1 - December 20, 2010
New option to display the comment that you've added to a file on the screen
You can now edit the file comments in either file or folder mode.
Added the ability to use EXIF geotag information stored in the image to
open Google Earth at the location the picture was taken. This was inspired
by the way the iPhone stores latitude and longitude when you take a picture.
New option that allows you to simply open the folder containing the image
file in Windows Explorer when you opt to edit a file.
Fix to problem where, when tiling pictures, AWC could enter a locked state
and show very high CPU usage.
Initial fix for Windows 7 problem where multiple monitor systems only displayed
properly if the monitors were physically laid out as Monitor1, Monitor2 etc.
If Monitor2 was to the left of Monitor1 the image layout was wrong. The problem
is due to Microsoft changing the way the desktop is displayed in order to
support its own, very limited, Wallpaper changer, so virtual screen positioning
is ignored. This is still not a complete fix as the monitors must be laid
out next to each other (in any order), they cannot be one above the other
yet. I'm still working on that.
The speed with which meta-data can be extracted from files when using advanced
searching options has been greatly improved.
The preferences page previously called File name has been renamed Caption.
You can now select to display different items as a caption on the image:
file name, file comment and original image date.
Moved the option that defines whether to use the created or modified date
of the file to the General preferences page.
Added a new page to the Preferences screen to allow the user to manage which
file extensions should be treated as image files. Along with the previously
supported file formats I've added a number of others: TIF, PSD (photoshop),
and Camera RAW.
Camera RAW formats for a large number of camera manufacturers are now loadable.
Go to the new Extensions page of the Preferences screen and tick the formats
you want to load. Note that the appalling lack of standardisation for RAW
formats, even from the same manufacturer, means that some files work but others
of ostensibly the same format don't. In particular EXIF metadata retrieval
can be a bit hit or miss.
AWC can now be set to pause the change process if there is an application
running full screen: typically video players or games.
Fix to an issue where a corrupt image file could be loaded without detection
and then lock up AWC when it tried to display it. My thanks to Moverickslayer
for pinning down the culprit and for all his feedback from beta-testing the
new version.
Fixed small issue where loading a new theme, in which the image position
was different from the current one, resulted in the current wallpaper being
redisplayed in the new position before the new theme loaded.
If an image is redisplayed after editing the timer is now reset to full
duration so you get enough time to enjoy the changed image.
4.8.17 - September 9, 2010
More load time theme fixes
Added ability to delete displayed file using hot-keys. Only the first two
monitors are supported for this.
4.8.5 - August 31, 2010
Fixed bug in function to load a recent theme where the theme was a File
View based one. Selecting the theme from the list of recently used themes
resulted in an error saying that there were no files selected for display
and the saved list of files was not reloaded.
4.8.2 - August 25, 2010
The Preferences screen has been completely redesigned. It's intended to
be less cluttered, more user friendly and allow more explanatory text to be
displayed
New setting that allows wireless network connections time to reconnect after
returning from standby
Minor tweaks to support the Windows 7 interface changes
You can now filter on the the text contained in image comments for JPEG,
GIF and PNG files
Added a means of editing image file comments
Enhanced Theme management
Function of Save button changed so that it still saves the current preferences
as the default if no theme is currently selected but saves any changes to
a loaded theme to the theme itself NOT as the default.
The Save settings on exit option has change to Save settings on exit or
when loading a new theme.
Currently selected theme is displayed in status bar.
Theme menu is available by right-clicking on the theme name in the status
bar.
Users can assign their own hotkeys to various AWC functions
No hidden files option added
In File view I've added an option on the list's pop-up menu to jump to the
position in the list of the currently displayed file
4.7.54 - Installation Set Fix- March 7, 2010
Issued new installation set as the wrong version of a component was included
in the previous one. This meant that EXIF rotation broke.
4.7.50 - February 25, 2010
Filter by image dimensions added
Filter by orientation added (e.g. portrait only)
Ampersands in file names now display correctly
Window focus issues when using tray icon fixed
Main window is no longer hidden by default when minimised in Windows 7 so
it complies with interface standard. Option added to preferences so that this
behaviour can be forced.
Task bar icon handling now Windows 7 compliant
In File View AWC no longer displays a file not found image when
asked to display files that have been deleted from the disk but are still
in the file list
In File View corrected logic when deleting a file in multimonitor mode so
that the next file in the list in displayed rather than the first one.
You can now select Do not show me this message again option on
some informational messages. Select Reset Hidden Prompt Message from
View menu to turn them back on.
Updated to FreeImage version 3.1.31 so that recent modifications to EXIF
standard are supported
JPG decoding enhanced for greater clarity
You can cancel the filtering process by pressing <ESCAPE> key
Fixed bug where dragging a shared folder from a remote computer did not
add the folder to the list
When deleting a file in folder mode AWC now selects a random file to replace
it rather than always selecting the last file in the list
Now accepts a theme (.SET) file as a command line argument. This means you
can just drag and drop a theme onto your AWC shortcut or set up a simple file
association.
4.7.20 - December 06, 2009
Fixed bug in tiling algorithm on multi-monitor systems so that only the
image that needs to be tiled is tiled as opposed to all images as was happening
before
When a new version of AWC is available AWC will now now download the latest
version of its installation program directly instead of just opening the download
page. This should prevent confusion when people download what should be the
latest version from Download.com but the site hasn't caught up yet.
Trying to launch a second instance of AWC now simply opens the running instance
instead of generating an error message.
Restored old taskbar position handling and made it an option to resize so
that the image does not partly lie underneath
Worst fit mode now takes account of position setting
4.7.0 - November 07, 2009
Added a graphical picture frame option
Pictures containing Alpha channels or other transparency (PNG and GIF)
are now rendered properly
Image sizing and positioning now takes account of the task bar
Status bar shows file processing info during change process.
When restarting or otherwise doing a potentially long file search, the
status bar now shows progress so that the system doesn't look frozen
Removed comdlg32.ocx component because it caused problems on some systems
All file save and file open dialogs now use use native API calls and should
therefore reflect the style of the operating system better
In view by file mode I've added a file info box
If the setting to automatically check for new version at startup is on,
no error message is displayed if there is not currently a connection to the
internet
Added an input box to enable the user to manually enter a UNC path. Hold
<SHIFT> key when clicking Add button
Rotate desktop hotkey added <Ctrl>+<ALT>+<T>
Rewrote splash screen to be quicker and more compact
Rewrote date/time retrieval for files in the View by file list so it should
fill quicker
Added small program that is called by uninstall process to force AWC to
close before starting the uninstallation
Screen saver now works properly when password protected (override timer
still not working on Windows 7 64-bit though)
4.6.21 - August 12, 2009
Added view by file mode so users can select individual files and display
them in different sort orders
Background image can now be stretched to fill the screen as well as tiled
Tweaked some menus so single monitor systems don't need to access submenus
for delete and edit etc.
Fixed up-down button bug that had the buttons work the wrong way round on
some Vista systems
Added quick start guide for new users
Restyled main screen to make access to features more obvious and easy
4.5.35 - March 30, 2009
Save your current settings and image folders to a file as a Theme. This
lets you create image themes which can be quickly loaded later
You can now put a frame around the displayed image
Swap images around on multi-monitor displays (Edit/Rotate)
Tray icon text now shows full path info to displayed files with ellipsis
if too long to fit
New users are prompted for the image directory to use at start-up
Default settings set to what is most commonly required
4.4.39 - March 16, 2009
Alpha blended fade effects added
When no background image is used the wallpaper is displayed using desktop
background colour rather than black
Enforce maximum stretch when resizing small files
Added more options to position the filename on screen
Added opacity setting to filename display
Program icon code updated to support Vista large icons
Added hot key to open preferences screen - CTL+ALT+F2
Command line settings added to support latest functionality
New tab added to preferences as Image Processing tab had no more room
Screen Saver added.
4.3.45 - March 09, 2009
Bug fix - Expiry warning continued to pop-up after registration when restricted
rights user was using AWC. (My thanks to Daven for his expert analysis)
4.3.38 - March 03, 2009
Multiple monitor support added
All attached monitors display the wallpaper sized appropriately to the
individual monitor's resolution etc.
Option to display a different image on each monitor.
User can select an image to tile over the whole monitor background before
painting the wallpaper on top of it
Check and prompt message in registration process to ensure the user has
admin rights
Add directory dialogue made resizable
4.2.1 - February 21, 2009
Main window resizable
Save window position and size on exit.
More natural period specifying
Menu option to open AWC registration page in browser
Fixed bug in Registration window where some combinations of reg data string
lengths meant that the Register button was greyed out.
If /X command line switch was used then the preserve file list logic was
not enforced.
4.1.0 - February 14, 2009
Added minimum file size filter to preferences screen
Fixed error when invalid path or file in browse for external editor
4.0.1 - February 12, 2009
New version released as shareware
Multiple directory selection
Option to automatically start at logon
Fixed Autoredraw error for large and high res images
