Disable desktop wallpaper change - help.

Hey there Fellow geeks,

P.C's are P4 -2.8 / 512mb - O/S Win XP Pro SP/3.
Also have system internals installed to show the user name, i.p, machine name and workgroup on the desktop.

I am currently working on a creating a newer updated image on a training unit as a master for ghosting images for our training wing.

I am trying to find a method to disable options to change the desktop wallpaper, in the main for the user profiles, can do the same for any other accounts but inparticular the users.

I have tried several things with some success although the Windows picture and fax viewer option, to set the current image as the desktop wallpaper, is still prooving to be a P.I.T.A (Pain In The A) option for me to disable. It's seemingly the only way the end users can get around the current setup.

I have come across documentation for disabling the Picture and fax Viewer although I would rather not remove access to it completely. As this means another free app would need to be installed.

I need to find a way that stops the user from saving the desktop wallpaper - each time when they login its got to be the company's logo and wallpaper.

There was one method that disabled the right click on the desktop - gpedit contextual dialogue box, this seemed to baffle most of the users but was prompted to renable this as part of the traning class's required it...the smarter users still got to the display properties via the control panel, this applet could be removed i guess but it still didnt resolve the picture and fax option...any idea's.. this seemingly simple task is starting to get to me a little bit.

I tried a link to a reg file from TweakXP site, that said that it would be able to stop the wallpaper from being changed well - nope, waste of time, restored the registry to be safe.

If you have managed to achieve this with out third party software this would be good, prefer not to have excess overheads on these units...though.

Cheers for any accurate, and if you have done it yourself and it actually worked, assistance. :cool

Cheers guys::wave

 

specify an Active Desktop wallpaper setting in Group Policy

 

Cheers for that satrow:-D, I will look into this on Monday, I'm off home for some well deserved R&R.:wave

L8r

 

Hey,

Yeah.. it worked following the gpedit.msc to the wallpaper and following the other reccomendations / options from it, about another two or three or so.. eventually tied it down...great friggin awesome I thought:-D resolved...this has been bugging me for a little while.

Unfortunately, I thought I had better try one further thing that can alter the wallpaper... unfortunatley this still worked.:confused;
Download any wallpaper app that has an installer? - installs the wallpaper and silly jumping unicorn, waterfall what have you, still gets around this...:cry.

Any further advice?

No I cant officially block these types of sites because we have a Training arm that requires users to have access to all types of media...Holy Bat guana Batman.. for their unit tasks to be accomplished. Its only a click away for the user but a real pain for I.T.

Perhaps I might look at a mapped drive with just tonnes of media files on a local print server already scanned safe and ready, and students can access it from there, that would be last resort if even allowed or acceptable...although to the user it would be faster than a single shared 75 user connection! lol

Thanks guys l8r...:wave