How to Prevent Users from Changing Desktop Wallpaper in Windows?

If you run a company, you might want to set your company logo or any particular wallpaper on all of your users' desktops. On the other hand, if you use a single system you might still want to have your desired wallpaper on Desktop and it really annoys when someone changes the wallpaper.

So if you are tired from people changing the wallpaper and want to prevent users from changing it everyday, then this tutorial will help you.

In this tutorial, you'll learn a way to set your desired wallpaper on Desktop and no one will be able to change it neither from Desktop Properties nor by right-clicking on an image and select "Set as Desktop Background".

So here we start our tutorial:

1. Type regedit in RUN dialog box or Startmenu Search box and press Enter. It'll open registry Editor.

2. Now go to following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies

3. Under "Policies" key, create a new key "System". It might already exist in some systems.

4. Now select "System" key and in right-side pane, create a new STRING value Wallpaper and set its value to the exact path of your desired wallpaper. You can use .JPG and .BMP files in this method.

e.g. if your wallpaper exists in "E:\Wallpapers\Wall1.JPG", then set the same path as value of "Wallpaper".

5. You can also set the wallpaper style e.g. Centered, Tiled or Stretched. Create a new STRING value WallpaperStyle and set its value to as following:

0 (Centered)
1 (Tiled)
2 (Stretched)

6. That's it. Now restart or log off your system and no one will be able to change the wallpaper.

PS: If you also want to disable the "Desktop" tab in Desktop Properties, then you can visit following tutorial:

How to Enable / Disable Changing Themes, Wallpapers, Screen Savers and Other Desktop Settings?

And if you want to prevent Registry Editor so that no one can delete those new STRING values, then visit following tutorial:

All Kinds of Restrictions for Windows 2000, XP, 2003 and Vista

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This article was posted in Troubleshooting, Windows 7, Windows Vista, Windows XP.

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18 Comments

Rishi

Cool tip man. Keep 'em coming.
Deyaa Addeen Fahmy Shedeed

Appreciate, thanks.
Srinivas

really its good. but there is also a problem. the wall paper can be changed.
If some one make a new wall paper and rename with the earlier one the wall paper is changing.
VG

^^ thats obvious but you can set the image file permission to only your account so that no one can replace it.
imp

It can also be changed if you go online and right click an image on a website and select the set as wallpaper option, in firefox anyway.
kyo

someone change mine. and i can not change it back. i've using this thread and still does not change at all. help please !!!
Joe C

I followed the directions to the letter and yes, my admin account now has a fixed Wallpaper.

The questions is how can I use regedit for the Guest account to have the same affect?

As a Guest, I do not have the authorization to run regedit.

Thanks and regards,
Joe C
Joe C

The solution that I was looking for became clearer after a bit of thought.

1. As an Admin, set the user account as computer administrator.

2. Log into the guest account and use the solution above to set the wallpaper as desired.

3. Log out of the user account and reset the authorization back to limited user.

For test purposes log out of the user account and back in to verify that the registry
change does what its was supposed to.

Cheers!
George

I tried this and it does not work. I am using Windows Steady State and I dont know if that effects this or not, but users can still change the backround. Any tips?
Laith

can we do a batch and send to all user inshall a defuly wall paper , prevent them from change it ?