Windows XP forum: Wallpaper screw up

If part of your monitor is black you can try using the buttons on the front of the monitor to adjust the positions till it's centered. There might be an auto-center setting so check for it.

Or your monitor resolution setting may not be suitable for the wallpaer. Try and change it and see.

If it's a custom image the size may not suit the Desktop?
PowerToys has an Image Resizer that allows you to quickly resize any image to fit certain resolution setting like 1024 x 768 or 800 x 600.

If none of the above try updating your Video Card drivers with the latest driver form the manufacturer's website.

Then try running System File Checker and see if it fixes the problem.

See this link:
http://www.anzwers.org/free/xpdsl/sfc.htm

Or open Help & Support Center and search for SFC.

Let us know if it works.

and see the steps to run System File Checker (SFC).

The Help and Support is access from the Start Menu.
Lots of info on using XP. Its the best resource you can have and it right there in your PC.

Once SFC finishes the scan it shuts off.
That is normal as during the scan it replaces any system files if need be at the same time.

I gather your wallpaper is not fixed.

Did you check at the Laptop manufacturer's website to see if you can find any update for your video?

Is the resolution set properly to the prescribed setting?

You've kept the info on make/model of the laptop to yourself.

You did not sat if you've tried updating video driver or D/L DirectX 9.0b.

If you have done all that and it's still like that your other options are to use the recovery disks and restore to factory installed state.

Or return the Laptop to the service center and get them to fix it.

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I have had this problem for the past two months. Was driving me crazy. I have been scouring the internet looking for a solution. But I finally fixed it myself.
Like I suspected, the problem was that XP was thinking start point of the screen for wallpaper placement was not at the edge of the screen, so wallpaper was moved to the left.
To fix it, simply start registry editor and go to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Look for WallpaperOriginX and WallpaperOriginY. One of the values is definitely not set to 0. For me it was the WallpaperOriginX which was set to 250. SO wallpaper was shifted by 250 pixels. I set it to 0 and loaded the desktop again. Voila! problem fixed. Wallpaper was centered correctly.