Light Adjusting Wallpaper Changer (LAWC) 0.9.9.0 Released

Light Adjusting Wallpaper Changer (LAWC) [FREE]: Is an advanced and feature rich Windows wallpaper manager that will adjust the images based on the time of day, so they can darken and lighten automatically. The aim is to not only give you much more control over your wallpaper display, but to also minimise glare and blue light at night, and to brighten and increase blue light during the day.

A number of bigger issues with the application have been resolved, and a lot of smaller ones cleaned up too. The source code is also now available on Github.

This release *should* be close to the final 1.0 version, except for bug fixing of course.

Read more, and download it here

Light Adjusting Wallpaper Changer Icon

Detect Network Changes Released

The Release Candiate of the Detect Network Changes application is now available.

Tired of not knowing when your network goes down? Online gaming being interrupted by outages? Use the Detect Network Changes application to get alerted when the state of a network changes in Windows, rather than having to check the network icon.
You simply select the network you want to monitor, and if it disconnects or connects, changes IP Address, network ID, adapter ID, connection ID, Adapter name, or Network name, then you will be notified via a sound, notification and/or a popup.

This software is FREE and Open Source

Feel free to give Detect Network Changes a go! Let me know what you think, and if you find any problems.

Detect Network Changes Application Icon

Fix Configuration system failed to initialize Errors

If, like me, you have tried the most popular fixes for the error “Configuration system failed to initialize” when you run certain application(s), and the problem is still persisting, then my rather drastic fix might help you too.

Warning: Back up your system before attempting any of these sorts of fixes. And try them at your own risk. I have not tested this fix on other systems.

Here is what I did that fixed the error:
1. Open File Explorer as Administrator
2. Navigate to This PC – your system drive (usually C:) – Windows
Microsoft.NET folder
3. Rename the Framework folder to something else, eg. FrameworkOLD
4. Rename the Framework64 folder to something else, eg. Framework64OLD
Note: You might get some warnings and messages about some apps are still running and using the framework. Stop as many as you can find. Worst case, restart in safe mode to do steps 3 and 4.
5. Start a command prompt as administrator
6. Run the command sfc /scannow
7. When that is finished, open the Control Panel / Settings window
8. Search for Update
9. Choose Check for Updates, and press the button Check for Updates
10. When the Update has finished, reboot the PC.
11. Test the app out, and hopefully the problem is resolved!

Advanced Fixes

If you still get “Configuration system failed to initialize” errors, then have a look in the C:\Users\(USERNAME)\AppData\Local\(COMPANY NAME) folder. Eg, for applications made by Strangetimez which are used by Fred, you would look in the C:\Users\Fred\AppData\Local\Strangetimez folder.
It gets trickier in here, as there could be a few issues. There may be multiple folders for the same application. Within these folders, you may see folders for version numbers (eg. a folder called 1.0.8.123, 1.0.8.129, and 1.1.0.1). Each of these will contain configuration information for that version of the application.
Try checking out the user.config files in the latest version (1.1.0.1 in the example above) of each of these folders. Check that these files do not have errors in them by opening them with Notepad. If there are funny characters in there (non text), then there might be a problem. If the text does not end with something like the following, then that could be another problem:

        </YourAppName.Properties.Settings>
    </userSettings>
</configuration>

You could try editing / fixing the file yourself (difficult if you dont get it right). Another option is to look in the folder of a previous version, and see if there is another user.config file there. As long as the configuration data has not changed between those versions, you can replace the faulty file with the complete / formatted one.

I hope that helps! Please let me know in the comments if you have a fix yourself, or if one of these worked for you.

Wallpaper Modes/Fitting Explained (with Examples!)

Trying to figure out the difference between the choices that Windows (and other OSs) gives you for wallpaper modes, can be very confusing. Even nicely summarised explanations like this and this, can still be confusing without some illustrations to show how wallpapers with different aspect ratios affect these different modes.

So, here are example pictures of each of the modes, with different sized and shaped wallpapers. This is particularly handy to know if you are using LAWC (Wallpaper Changer), and want to change how your wallpapers are displayed.

Wallpaper Modes Explained

Original Images
Centre
Fill Width
Fit / Fill Height
Stretch
Tile
LAWC**
1280x720
720x1280
481x481
3840x2160
2160x3840
Wide Screen Test Pattern3840x1080
Here are example pictures of each of the modes, with different sized and shaped wallpapers. This is particularly handy to know if you are using Windows Wallpapers and LAWC (Wallpaper Changer), and want to change how your wallpapers are displayed.

* The source images are 1280x720 (720p), 481x481, and 3840x2160 (4k). The desktop resolution is 1920x1080 (1080p).
** LAWC mode is only relevant to the LAWC Wallpaper Changer application. Not available in standard installations of Windows, iOS, Linux, etc. LAWC mode will also adapt based on the size and aspect ratio of the image.

Try LAWC – a FREE wallpaper changing application for Windows, that makes the most of these modes.