BgInfo: Show System Hardware and Software Information on Windows Desktop Background

There are many ways to check your computer hardware and software information such as using System Properties, using dxdiag command, using systeminfo command, etc. You can also take help of 3rd party software such as HWiNFO for detailed system information.

But opening system properties or executing commands requires various steps and mouse clicks. Wouldn’t it be great if you could show your computer hardware and software information on your Windows Desktop so that you can see it immediately whenever required?

Today in this article, we are going to share a free and very small utility for Windows operating system which can show your system information on Desktop background for easy and quick access. It can be used in Windows XP and all later Windows versions.

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BgInfo is a free software created by Sysinternals team at Microsoft which allows Windows users to show their desired system information on Desktop background as shown in following screenshot:

System_Information_Windows_Desktop_Background.png

It can show following information on Desktop:

  • System Type
  • User Name
  • OS Version, IE Version, Service Pack Details
  • CPU, Memory, Volumes, Free Disk Space
  • Network Card, Network Speed, Network Type
  • Default Gateway, Subnet Mask, DHCP Server, DNS Server, IP Address, MAC Address
  • Host Name, Machine Domain
  • Logon Domain, Logon Server
  • Boot Time, Snapshot Time

BgInfo_Tool.png

You can add or remove desired fields from display on Desktop background. To remove any field, just delete its line of code from the left-side area of the program. You can also add new fields by clicking on “Custom” (User defined fields) button, it’ll work like showing text watermark on Desktop.

It also allows you to change and customize font type, size, style (bold, italic, underline), font color and text alignment (left, center, right).

You can also change and select text location on Desktop using “Position” button. You can put the information on left, center, right, top or bottom on screen.

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By default, this tool copies current user wallpaper and saves a new BITMAP (BMP image file) for it containing system information and then applies the BITMAP as Desktop background. That’s why it doesn’t consume any extra system resource and doesn’t run in background. If you want, you can set any desired wallpaper as background for this tool using “Background” button in this program.

You can also take a backup (export) of your customized settings using “File -> Save As” menu. It’ll save the configuration information as .bgi file. In future, you can restore (import) BgInfo settings using “File -> Open” menu and then select the saved configuration file on the same system or a different computer.

If you want, you can add the program shortcut in Startup folder to run it at system startup.

To remove the information from Desktop, either log off/restart your computer or apply a different wallpaper using Desktop Properties.

Interested people can download the tool using following link:

Download BgInfo Tool

Thanks to our reader “ianM” for sharing it…

Published in: Software, Windows 10, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows Vista, Windows XP

About the author: Vishal Gupta (also known as VG) has been awarded with Microsoft MVP (Most Valuable Professional) award. He holds Masters degree in Computer Applications (MCA). He has written several tech articles for popular newspapers and magazines and has also appeared in tech shows on various TV channels.

Comments

NOTE: Older comments have been removed to reduce database overhead.

  1. VG, if I have multiple NIC cards is there a way to select which NIC is shown on the BGInfo and ignore the others ?

  2. – Related to the IP Address, I have 3 NIC cards and am only interested in one NIC and its IP Address – Thanks

  3. VG, could you please make the point that on Windows 7 and later, BGInfo will crop part of your desktop background out since it zooms into the image (for some reason), and then add the text. This could be troublesome for people who have, say, photos of people, since they could become cropped out.

  4. ^^ Thanks for your input. I’m sure other people will take benefit from it while reading this page. 🙂

  5. A better tool is Desktopinfo.exe makes BGinfo look silly. Auto updates systeminfo and customizable. I have used BGinfo for a while until I found this cool utility. glenn.delahoy.com/software/index.shtml

  6. I’ve known this program for the long time, we’re using it to put computer names and support phone number onto users’ desktops.

  7. ^^ There were rumors in past that this command can be used to speed-up Internet Explorer. But it was not actually!

  8. Andy
    I made a custom WMI Query called “IP Addr No Nulls”:
    SELECT IPAddress FROM Win32_NetworkAdapterConfiguration WHERE IPEnabled=True

    It’ll show you the IP addresses of the active NICs.
    This may or may not be exactly what you need 🙂

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