gpo wallpaper

Hi, I'm having the same problem. Its definately something to do with the gpo itself and not with the image which we initially thought.

Thanks in advance - I really need to fix this urgently

We have the same task to set corporate logo wallpater on all our desktops. But we use third-party solution Desktop Authority by Scriptlogic to manage this. The best thing is that we don’t need to write login script for such 'temporary' task. The more 'minute' tasks and... you realise frequently that your 24x7 is all spent to these tasks. We set the wallpaper to load either from our shared folder on fileserver or locally (script defines it automatically based on IP address segment criteria to save some bandwidth). It quickly tweakable, what means that we don't need to write accompanying script for branched cases. Scriptlogic distributes 45-day fully functional copy, so I guess you can get it and check it at work.

It is also possible to set Active Desktop wallpaper using administrative templates within Scriplogic's Desktop Authority. You need to open the system.adm administrative template and set Active Desktop Wallpaper there. You can set either remote path, local relative, or local hard. Local relative means that I can not bother of where, in which folder or drive partition the specific system folder on the specific domain client machine is located in. I just set the path to use KIX script variable much like we do this using system environment variable %systemroot% but smarter because it is known that environment variables do not always work.

1. active desktop sucks

2. windows does not like jpegs for backgrounds. I don't know how that works when it is active desktop, but I think it converts it to a bmp when you use a jpeg. so if possible just switch to a bmp.

3. if you want to accomplish this, the best way is to set the standard wallpaper and then disable allowing users to change it. you can do this by setting the value in user config/admin temps/control panel/display/disable changin wallpaper.

4. it is fairly easy to set a desktop wallpaper via vbscript at login. if you want, i will post a solution (if i get bored i might do it someday anyways).

I know this thread has been inactive for a while, but for some reason it showed up at the top of my co-workers Google Search. I figured I'd make it a useful thread again.

When editing the wallpaper in GPO, you need to realize that the Active Desktop part in the GPO setting name is a bit misleading. Really this setting should just be called Wallpaper with notes that you need to enable Active Desktop if you using any file format other than .bmp.

Same information, reworded: You only need Active Desktop to be enabled if this setting contains a .jpg or .htm(l) file. If your put a .bmp file in this field, it will apply without the need to Enable Active Desktop.

For those who don't know what I'm talking about, the GPO setting is located at:
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Desktop > Active Desktop
The Active Desktop Wallpaper setting is what I'm referring to.

Tested and verified on Win2k3 DC and a WinXP client.