WindowsRedditWallpaperUpdater

Reddit users know that they can usually find a subreddit for pretty much anything, so it is no surprise that several of them are dedicated to sharing impressive photos and artwork, many of which would look great on your desktop. WindowsRedditWallpaperUpdater is a simple application designed to update your desktop background automatically, using images from one or more of your favorite subreddits. It is lightweight and unobtrusive, but rather difficult to configure.

By default, the application downloads images from the aptly named EarthPorn subreddit, where users upload pictures that depict landscapes from around the world. You can also add new subreddits, but this is a more complicated process that we will explain later on.

The program changes the current background image automatically on a preset interval, 60 minutes by default. While you cannot save any of them locally, you can always find the latest one in the “User\AppData\Local\Temp” folder.

When it comes to configuring the app, things get rather tricky.  In order to change any settings, you need to open the XML configuration file in the program folder with Notepad or another text editor. Here, you can add or remove subreddit feeds, as well as change the update interval.

Naturally, the process is not particularly intuitive, but you can consult the online documentation if you can’t figure things out.

Unfortunately, it is not possible to filter the images based on resolution, so some of them may not be displayed correctly on your desktop. Also, the search algorithm is not customizable, and it is unclear how the app determines which images to download.

You can access the application’s system tray menu if you wish to skip the current wallpaper or shut down the program, but it would certainly be great if other settings could be altered from the GUI as well.

Overall, WindowsRedditWallpaperUpdater is clearly an application in the early stages of the development process, as it still needs a lot of work. Nevertheless, it can get the job done, as long as you don’t mind editing configuration files to alter the program’s settings.