How many times have you walked up to a system in your office and needed to click through several diagnostic windows to remind yourself of important aspects of its configuration, such as its name, IP address, or operating system version? If you manage multiple computers you probably need BGInfo. It automatically displays relevant information about a Windows computer on the desktop's background, such as the computer name, IP address, service pack version, and more. You can edit any field as well as the font and background colors, and can place it in your startup folder so that it runs every boot, or even configure it to display as the background for the logon screen.

Because BGInfo simply writes a new desktop bitmap and exits, you don't have to worry about it consuming system resources or interfering with other applications.

Installation and Use:

By placing BGInfo in your Startup folder, you can ensure that the system information being displayed is up to date each time you boot. Once you've settled on the information to be displayed, use the command-line option /timer:0 to update the display without showing the dialog box.

You can also use the Windows Scheduler to run BGInfo on a regular basis to ensure long-running systems are kept up to date.

If you create a BGInfo configuration file (using the File|Save Settings menu item) you can automatically import and use those settings on other systems by adding the /I or /iq command line option.