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Adding Your First Active Object

To switch Active Desktop on, right-click any blank area of the Windows desktop and select Active Desktop, View as Web Page. (If you use Windows Me or 2000, it will be Active Desktop, Show Web Content.) Your desktop should switch to a dark blue background with the Windows logo in the upper-right corner: This logo is a live Web link. If you click it while you're online, Internet Explorer will open the Microsoft home page. But this is only a test of what you can do with Active Desktop. Soon you'll see how to change the background color, add your own links, and remove the Microsoft logo if you don't like it.

Here's how Active Desktop works: When you turned Active Desktop on, you told Windows to select a new wallpaper file called Windows98.htm (or WindowsMe.htm or Windows2000.jpg), stored in the C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper folder (or in Windows 2000, the C:\WinNT\Web\Wallpaper folder).

If you didn't get the blue background with the Microsoft logo in Windows 98 or Me (or if you experience problems seeing the blue desktop), you can manually select it through the Display Properties panel: Right-click the desktop, select Properties, and choose the Windows HTML file from the list on the Background tab. (Active HTML background files can be distinguished from ordinary bitmaps by their Internet Explorer icon.)

Active Object Placement 101

In Windows Me and 2000, you get a bonus: Microsoft provides a sample "My Current Home Page" embedded desktop object. You can turn it on while you're connected to the Internet by right-clicking the desktop and selecting Active Desktop Menu Options. This object is a live link to Microsoft's MSN home page.

Windows 98 users can add this (or any other) object by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Active Desktop, Customize My Desktop, which opens the Display Properties panel to the Web tab. Click the New button, answer No to the prompt to visit Microsoft's gallery, and enter http://www.msn.com in the New Active Desktop Item dialog box. Click OK in the next pop-up dialog box, and Active Desktop will add the link to the list of Active Objects. Click OK again to close the Web tab. The embedded MSN window appears on the desktop, where you can resize the window by dragging any of its borders. Reposition the window by pointing and clicking just above the top border to reveal a hidden, gray title bar.

Windows 98, Me, and 2000 users can all embed windows for other Web pages (such as the Google search engine or the Yahoo portal) by following the same procedure. Why would you want to? By embedding search engine pages into the desktop, you eliminate the need to open a new browser window just to do a search. (In Windows Me and 2000, you can speed the process by right-clicking the desktop and choosing Active Desktop, New Desktop Item, instead of selecting Customize My Desktop and working from the Display Properties Web tab.)