Take that bad background and run it into IRFANVIEW. Resize it to your desktop's size and then save it as a BMP. Use that BMP and mystery of mysteries you may get your background and speed too.
Explainer: The JPEG decoder MSFT used appears to be not too smart (sorry MSFT) as it renders the JPG to a bitmap over and over and over. Maybe some day they'll do a one-time conversion to a bitmap and use that for the session?
Bob
I have 2 identical Dell 530 desktops, Quad CPUs, same hardware, etc..
After installing Win 7 on each one, one of the computers (I'll call it the good one) would boot and when reaching the "Welcome" sign, it would take less than 5 seconds to reach the desktop.
The other computer (I'll call it the bad one) would take 40 seconds from the "Welcome" sign to reach the desktop.
After checking ALL the "Services", "Startup", and connections, nothing improved on the "bad" one. No errors in the "Logs", nothing started in the MS Config "Startups".
I tried everything.
After a full day of trying to figure out the problem, I noticed the "good" computer was using one of Win 7 themes, with the background picture, ect..
I never liked to use a theme with pictures and always had the "bad" computer set to just a solid color.
I decided to set the "bad" computer to use a theme with the picture and all the rest.
After re-booting, I couldn't believe it. The "bad" computer reached the desktop as fast as the "good" computer!
Go figure!

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