Desktop Wallpaper Location Context Menu in Windows 10

The image you use as the desktop background can be the one that ships by default with Windows 10, or some image from your personal collection. Your background can also be set by any other app like your web browser or an app which downloads images from the Internet. Once you notice an image you like on your Desktop, you might want to find its location on the disk drive so you can save it for further use. Here is how to add a special context menu command to find the image quickly.

Here is how the context menu looks:

Windows 10 keeps the path to the source image as a binary value in the Registry. When you set an image as your desktop background, it will be converted to match your screen and position preferences like fill, zoom, fit etc. The path to the source image is written in a binary value named TranscodedImageCache at the following Registry key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

See the following screenshot: To extract the path of the image from the TranscodedImageCache value, we'll use a special VB script described in the article Find your current wallpaper image path in Windows 10.

The script looks as follows:

Const HKCU = &H80000001 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER

sComputer = "."   

Set oReg=GetObject("winmgmts:{impersonationLevel=impersonate}!\\" _
            & sComputer & "\root\default:StdRegProv")

sKeyPath = "Control Panel\Desktop\"
sValueName = "TranscodedImageCache"
oReg.GetBinaryValue HKCU, sKeyPath, sValueName, sValue


sContents = ""

For i = 24 To UBound(sValue)
  vByte = sValue(i)
  If vByte <> 0 And vByte <> "" Then
    sContents = sContents & Chr(vByte)
  End If
Next

CreateObject("Wscript.Shell").Run "explorer.exe /select,""" & sContents & """"

Let's integrate it with the context menu of File Explorer. To save your time, I prepared a set of files which includes the script above and two ready-to-use Registry files to add or remove the context menu item.

To add "Desktop Wallpaper Location" Context Menu in Windows 10, do the following.

Download the following ZIP archive:

Download Files

Extract the archive contents to any folder you like.

Unblock the extracted files.

Copy or move the file WallpaperPath.vbs to the folder "C:\Windows\System32". Confirm the UAC prompt if prompted.

Double-click the file "Add Desktop Wallpaper Location.reg" to add the context menu entry.

Now, right click the Desktop and test the context menu command. It should open your current wallpaper in a new File Explorer window.

To remove the context menu item, double-click the file "Remove Desktop Wallpaper Location.reg" and remove the file C:\Windows\System32\WallpaperPath.vbs.

To save your time, you can use Winaero Tweaker. It will allow you to enable the entry with one click.

You can download Winaero Tweaker here:

Download Winaero Tweaker

That's it.

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