On our family computer, my sisters are constantly downloading and installing all sorts of software, most of which isn't good. So I made there account limited so that they can't install stuff, it works great. But now their changing the background to random stuff that looks terrible, and since the family shares an account (minus me and my dad who are admins), everyone has to put up with random "icanhazcheezburger" backgrounds and such.
I already know that you can go to Run and type in "gpedit.msc" and then go to User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Display and Hide the desktop tab, but this hides it for all users which I don't want. Also they can still set the background from IE or FF by right clicking a image and choosing "Set as Desktop Background".
I have already cleared restricting this with my parents so don't think I'm trying to do something bad. They agree that they don't mind the background being restricted to just the plain Windows XP one. I just need to know how to stop the changing of the Desktop Background and make sure that they can't use a Internet Browser to set it either.
in group policies. check-out the Administrative templates…..
User Configuation—-Administrative Templates—Desktop—-Active Desktop
look at "Active Desktop Wallpaper"
Specifies the desktop background ("wallpaper") displayed on all users' desktops.
This setting lets you specify the wallpaper on users' desktops and prevents users from changing the image or its presentation. The wallpaper you specify can be stored in a bitmap (*.bmp), JPEG (*.jpg), or HTML (*.htm, *.html) file.
there are MANY types of restrictions possible in the "desktop" section….you can force it to be a Bitmap only as well….this Should also prevent any attempt at a 3rd party to change it. A re-boot might be needed to kick it off….I've not tested that. I would HOPE it would reject it completely without requiring a reboot…
[note: any changes of group policy will need a reboot, (or "force" a group policy refresh,) ]
in group policies. check-out the Administrative templates…..
User Configuation—-Administrative Templates—Desktop—-Active Desktop
look at "Active Desktop Wallpaper"
Ya that's why I tried at first but I don't want to change the wallpaper for all the users, just this one. And for "Group Policies" it doesn't even let you choose what group to change it for (Admins, Limited Users, etc.), it just does it for all user groups and all users, it's terrible.
Also thanks HCFG for the suggestion but I don't even have a method of online payment yet.
Fortunately though I found my own way =). I used 3 reg keys to hide the tabs for desktop and screen saver and themes so that you can't change anything about hte looks. Then I did some nifty stuff to the picture file that FF and IE output when you set a picture in it as the background. I changed the permissions and now when you try to "Set as background" in IE it says "not authorized" and in FF it does nothing. So thanks for the posts, but I finally got my desktop locked (I hope… I don't think my sisters can outsmart me at all but one of them figured out how to change the family account from Limited to Admin, and I have no idea how).
If anyone ever needs to do something like this PM me and I'll tell you exactly how I did it, that was just the outline.
