Dave, I downloaded "Classic Shell" software to restore my Windows desktop and Start Menu to something like normal. In the process, and I know not how it occurred, my appearance theme changed to High Contrast#1. This introduced the black background onto MS Word etc. Emails and the web pages ( I think it did it to web pages) and of course Pic2Exe. Right clicking on the windows desktop, then Personalize and setting appearance to Windows Classic theme restored things to normal. Thanks for your help Leo