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Group Policy Background Color

I'm having trouble setting the background color to black for PCs within my organization using Group Policy. I realize that Group Policy doesn't allow for this inherently and so I researched other ways to do this. I didn't want to do this through a login script and "tatoo" the registry with the correct entry. I created an adm file to work with Group Policy that I found by another user on here, robbe, and it is here:

CLASS USER
CATEGORY "Desktop"
POLICY "!!ChangeBGColor"
KEYNAME "Control Panel\Colors"
PART "!!ChangeBGColor" EDITTEXT
VALUENAME "Background"
DEFAULT "0 0 0"
REQUIRED
END PART
END POLICY ; !!ChangeBGColor
END CATEGORY ; Desktop

[STRINGS]
ChangeBGColor ="Background color"

When I add this to Administrative Templates within a GPO, nothing changes. I then came across a nice program by Desktop Standard, called PolicyMaker Registry Extension which installs into GPMC. When you go to edit the GPO now, it adds a registry section in there which allows you to select the exact registry key and value that you desire. This doesn't work at all either. The standard settings work fine within GPO, but either of these methods I have tried do not work. I have left a question in a forum for the Registry Extension program, but does there exist a simpler solution to this problem? Thank you in advance.

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Jay_Jay70

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lkula166

ASKER

You know I forgot to mention that this was a 2000 domain that I was working on, seems to be easier on 2003, though the GPMC which runs on XP makes this much easier to administrate. And thanks for the info, I was only half way there. I had loaded the template, and then never enabled the setting I wanted. Thanks again.

P.S. I came across another adm file in a post by NJNetworks which seemed a bit clearer and may help other people.

CLASS USER
CATEGORY "Desktop"
CATEGORY "Custom desktop options"
KEYNAME "Control Panel\Colors"
POLICY "Background color"
EXPLAIN "Allow you to control the background color of the user's desktop."
PART "Enter the RGB values of the user's desktop background (ex: 128 128 128)" TEXT
END PART
PART "Color" EDITTEXT
REQUIRED
VALUENAME "Background"
END PART
END POLICY
END CATEGORY
END CATEGORY

Jay_Jay70

good stuff :)

David Haycox

Neither of the templates above worked for me as is. Here's how I got it to work (only a few changes):

CLASS USER
CATEGORY "Desktop"
KEYNAME "Control Panel\Colors"
POLICY "Background color"
EXPLAIN "Defines desktop background colour in RGB"
PART "Background color" EDITTEXT
VALUENAME "Background"
DEFAULT "0 0 0"
REQUIRED
END PART
END POLICY ; "Background color"
END CATEGORY ; Desktop

Charlie8

I'm trying this also. Tried all of the above - no good.