Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of bytheplanet
bytheplanet

asked on

How to prevent users from changing backgrounds in a Windows Server 2003 Environment?

I need to prevent auser from changing his background, I have enabled Active Desktop and defined  a wallpaper with group policy but he still can change the wallpaper. He is taking web content and setting as his windows background. How can I stop this.


Thanks,


    Jeff
Avatar of wordartist
wordartist

Sounds like your user is setup as a local or domain admin.  You can check by going into Active Directory, find your user double click, check the "Members Of" tab.  You will also have to check his local machine, click start, control panel, users, find your user, check the "Members Of" tab.  If your user has admin or domain admin listed in either of these places remove it and he won't be able to change that if you have the policies set right.  
Avatar of bytheplanet

ASKER

How should the policies be set...because I think I have them set right.

Thanks

   Jeff
He's not a member of the admin on local box, and in the domain he's only a domain user.

Jeff
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of johndeerb
johndeerb

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial
there is no disable display in control panel but there is a remove display in control panel...do I need to enable this

Jeff
Are you putting gpo on at domain controller or local machine?
I was aiming at DC.
I'm on a 2003 domain controller trying to aim it at a domain user machine

Jeff
sorry, i missed the 2k3 thing.. i got 2k

enable the remove display in ctl panel
u got a disable changing wallpaper?
ok...I did that I'll have to wait and see if this fixes it.

Thanks a bunch

Jeff
Your problem doesn't seem like it is with the policy.  Even with the policy in place, it does not prevent the user from going online, right clicking a picture, and choosing set as background. The policy only prevents the user from going into the display/desktop settings and changing the background....it doesn't disable the "set as background" option.

What you need to do to prevent this is to do a registry tweak:

http://www.winguides.com/registry/display.php/169/

Also, for the future remember to troubleshoot policy problems you can use the Resultant set of Policy tool or type gpresult.exe from a command line.  These tools are very good in letting you know what policies are and are not being applied.....this helps to narrow down and determine if it is a problem with the policy not being applied or if the policy just is not doing what you thought it would as is the case here.

Remove the display button fron the control panel won't stop the user from using the "set as background" button....you need the registry tweak above in order to disable that option.
I have a gpo with those settings (and more) in it and also internet restrictions on it.  It works great, but it's a pain when I go to work on the machine, because I have to log them off and log me on to get into anything useful (control panel, network settings, etc.)
But it sure is nice not to have to look at the pictures of male soap stars that the ladies around here like to put on their desktop!
jb
This is away from the post, but johndeerb you can use "secondary logon" to keep from having to log them off and you on.  If you interested search the net.  It is a great option we use.
Thanks, wordartist!  I'll check that out..

luv2smile- I don't really understand what is going on in your situation, but in my gpo, users don't have the option to set as background.  I have my gpo applied to an Organizational Unit in AD, and if I put MY user account (domain admin and all) into that Organizational Unit, I lose that ability.  If I go to a pretty picture and right click to try it, the set as background option is grayed out, and can't be clicked.  (Just FYI)

jb