Too many desktop pictures

I just went to "Display properties/Desktop" and under the background list of pictures a whole mess of my pictures from "My pictures" folders are listed there. I never put them there and am wondering how to break the link. I did a search and they are only in "My pictures" folder with a jpg extension. I always thought wallpapers had to have bmp extension and be in the windows folder. It seems like hundreds of my regular pictures got linked to here and show up in the list. If I change the name of one of them, the old name still shows in the list but when I click on it I just get a white screen.
Any ideas what I did now?
Floyd

 

Hi Floyd,

XP is hard coded to select those pictures for Wallpaper. You will either have to delete them or move them somewhere else.

But be careful since XP also gets Wallpaper images from:

BMP Files from %Systemroot% (WINDOWS folder)

BMP, JPG, GIF, JPE, DIB, PNG, HTM files to the following locations:

%Systemroot%\Web\Wallpaper
%USERPROFILE%\My Documents\My Pictures [& sub-folders]
%AppData%\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

So...your problem isn't really a problem, it's XP's way of trying to serve you. The burden is so small that you won't gain anything fooling with it.

 

Thanks Surferdude. You're probably right about it not being worth it but...
It's going to drive me crazy knowing all those pictures are in my wallpaper list.
A couple of points in case it matters to anyone.

I tried changing the file and folder names. It doesn't matter.
I cut them from "My Pictures" and put them elsewhere on drive C:, it still found them.
I have 2 laptops and it doesn't happen to them. I even copied the whole "My Pictures folder over to them and nothing happened in my wallpaper properties on the laptops.
I un-shared all my folders thinking that might have done it. Nothing.
I had a virus a few days ago and wonder if that didn't do something.

Anymore ideas I'll be happy to hear.
Thanks
Floyd