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Lock Desktop Wallpaper easily, for free, and COMPETELY

Locked

Ok I’ve seen many threads about this and I have the best fix I’ve seen on here so far.

This fix will block users from the changing the background with any of the following:

Using the Display tab from properties or control panel.
Right clicking a thumbnail and choosing set as desktop background.
Using Internet Explorer or Firefox to find a picture, right click it, and choose set as background.

And it blocks other ways to.

Ok, there are 2 things you need to do. First one is in the registry. Login as the user you want to lock the wallpaper on and go to Run and type in regedit.

Navigate to the following key:
My Computer\HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

In the Policies key, you should have another key called System, if you don’t, right click in the Policies key and make a new one called System.

Once your in the System key, make two new String Values, one called Wallpaper and the other WallpaperStyle. Make the value of Wallpaper the path for the picture you want and make WallpaperStyle 0, 1, or 2 depending on the style you want it to be.
0 – centered
1 – tiled
2 – stretched

Now, that locks most of the ways. The only way around this is by finding an image with a web browser and using the web browser’s right click menu to choose set as desktop background. Here’s how to fix that.

Make sure you have set the desktop background at least once with the web browser in order to make the file for it’s backgrounds.

For Internet Explorer:

Navigate to the following folder where USERNAME is the name of the user who you wish to restrict:
C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Microsoft\Internet Explorer

Now, right click on the file called “Internet Exlorer Wallpaper.bmp” and go to the Security Tab. Then go to the user group that the USER is in or simply select the users name (you can only do that if your logged in as that user) and then go to the Deny check boxes and check them all. Click OK and now when they try to set the desktop background with IE it will say “Permission Denied” or something like that.

NOTE: If you don’t have the Security tab, go to Control Panel > Folder Options > View and uncheck the last box, it’s called Use simple file saring, then click OK and you should have the Security tab.

Repeat the above if you have Firefox only go to C:\Documents and Settings\USERNAME\Application Data\Mozilla\Firefox

And change the Security settings for the file called “Desktop Background.bmp”.

I have not been able to find any way around the above, and as long as you set the account as “Limited” they can’t go back and change the registry keys. And as long as you Deny the user Full Control to the IE and FF picture files, they can’t go back and allow it. But it’s better that they not know that anyways… 😉

Topic

Why?

In reply to Lock Desktop Wallpaper easily, for free, and COMPETELY

I don’t understand why anyone would care (short of pornography, of course) what a user chooses for wallpaper. Will the company suddenly go out of business if Joe Schmoe has a Spiderman logo wallpaper?

Bandwith for once

In reply to Why?

I work as an admin in a HQ of a large retail store network.
Our stores have only 256kbps link to our HQ.
When I need to do something on a store PC with remote desktop application (DameWare MRC) and said PC has a nice (but LARGE) wallpaper set – a 2 minute job streaches to 5 or 10 minutes.

Disable wallpaper in the feature set.

In reply to Bandwith for once

I can’t speak for DameWare, but most remote tools I’ve used have an option to disable the wallpaper, sound, graphics resolution, etc.

True

In reply to Disable wallpaper in the feature set.

True – DameWare also has those options but there are issues with them (like wallpaper disappearing permanently)

Settings

In reply to Bandwith for once

have you never looked at the Remote Desktop settings dialog? You can turn off all kinds of stuff to optimize the experience.

Why is the sky blue?

In reply to Why?

Asking why do this is like asking why the sky is blue. I posted this for INFORMATION, this is not me telling everyone that you have to do this. If you don’t want to or can’t come up with a reason, then don’t do it.

For me I did this because my parents didn’t want my sisters changing the background of our computer to random icanhazcheesburger backgrounds that looked stupid.

And there were several (old) topics about this exact same thing and people were asking all over for how to lock the desktop. Since none of them completely resolved it, I made this topic and then posted a link to it in the old topics where people needed it.

all and good

In reply to Why is the sky blue?

but when this thread sinks off the first page ( a day, maybe two), that’s when all the people will come wanting to know how to do this.

one gripe.

In reply to Why is the sky blue?

This only locks the wallpaper for the user you login under while creating the restriction. It seems that most people (myself included) are looking for a global configuration for all users current and future.

Anal rententive IT guys…that’s why

In reply to Why?

Honestly, if I was that worried about it, I’d just push out a wallpaper and make sure the wallpaper matched the policy I setup…bam…they change it, it magically goes back to “normal.”

Possible Enhancement

In reply to Lock Desktop Wallpaper easily, for free, and COMPETELY

Hi
With the Intenret wallpaper, changing the permissions is often difficult epsecailly on a large number of machines, so instead delete the exisitng file and create a directory with the name “Internet Explorer Wallpaper.bmp” and this has the same effect.
Of course the very intuitive users can still delete the directory to get round this.

Enjoy

what i am doing.

In reply to Possible Enhancement

I have written a batch file that loads a few keys into the registry at boot. The reason I have to do this is if a new user is created they have permission to change the wallpaper.

Another Idea

In reply to what i am doing.

So far, all the suggestions require you to login with the user whose profile you want to modify. I guess you could elevate that account’s permissions to make the modifications and then set them back after you’re done.

You can also lock down the profile with any account you want, as long as it has the permissions you need to make the changes, then copy that profile to the Default User profile. Any future profiles will be created with those restrictions already in place and you won’t have to go back and log into the user’s account

Color Masks Desired Wallpaper

In reply to Lock Desktop Wallpaper easily, for free, and COMPETELY

I followed all of the instructions to lockdown the wallpaper but it is being masked by the default background color that XP has. The computer recognises what the background is supposed to be but the color is essentially covering over it. How can I get rid of that color??

Yadda Yadda…Group Policy

In reply to Lock Desktop Wallpaper easily, for free, and COMPETELY

Fin

gp wont solve it that good

In reply to Yadda Yadda…Group Policy

so after reading this whole thread i decided to finally join the site, created a batch than later became an exe with other files now it loads the wallpaper i want into the windows folder, does the reg tweaks and it changes the Ie wallpaper and sets it non accesible. i have tried this on XP Pro Sp3 x86 ESN if somebody wants this i’ll send it but as zip so you can change the file you want. /also i dont like sendin exe files/ and you can personalize. since the original idea was from this site wel i deserve no credit. this works given the fact that i later retrict access to regedit andmy users are not That experts 😛 peace.

Welcome to TR.

In reply to gp wont solve it that good

You might want to look at the official FAQ:

http://techrepublic.com.com/1200-10871-5757160.html

or the unofficial New Members Guide:

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/techofalltrades/?p=152

Worked like a charm!

In reply to Lock Desktop Wallpaper easily, for free, and COMPETELY

like the title says, it worked like a charm! thanks for this very useful tip.

Atleast now my 5 yr old nephew, who’s too damn smart for his own good, can no longer change the background which he would do practically every damn day! lol

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