Group Policy and Desktop in Windows 10

Whatever the reason, you might wanna change or prevent users from doing so regardless, this article helps you set/remove the registry values handling this option.

Basicly it all boils down to this registry key

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

In here there can be a “key” (folder) called System and System contains one or two values (Strings – Reg SZ) called Wallpaper and Wallpaperstyle

The string Wallpaper holds the path to the image file fx. c:\images\companylogo.jpg

The string WallpaperStyle holds a value 0-4, where

• 0 – Centered
• 1 – Tiled
• 2 – Stretched
• 3 – Fit
• 4 – Fill

If these values are there your users can’t change their desktop background it will write something like this is adminstrered by your company or systemadmin etc.

Group Policy – GPO setting

To prevent users from changing their desktop and afterwards set a wallpaper for them, navigate to

User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalization

Afterwards navigate to

User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Desktop > Desktop Wallpaper

And Enable it and set the path for the wanted image along with the style