Set Desktop Wallpaper and Logon Screen Background via Group Policy

Group Policies allow you to set the same corporate desktop background wallpaper and Windows logon (lock) screen image on all computers in the domain.

You will need a JPEG file of the image you want to use as your wallpaper. The image resolution must match the minimum resolution used on your company’s monitors (for example, 1280×1024). Such an image will be centered and stretched when displayed on a high-resolution monitor.

You can pre-copy the JPEG file to users’ computers via GPO, or place it in a shared network folder that is accessible to all users. We will use the SYSVOL directory on the domain controller to store the background image files. This directory is automatically replicated between all the DCs, which makes it possible to reduce the load on the WAN channels when clients download the wallpaper file. In my case, the UNC path to the background image file looks like this \\woshub.loc\SYSVOL\woshub.loc\scripts\Screen\corp_wallpaper.jpg.

Check that all users and computers in the domain have permission to read this file in SYSVOL.  The Authenticated Users group must have read access to the image file).

Set Desktop Background Wallpaper Using Groip Policy

1. Open the domain GPO Management console (GPMC.msc);
2. Create a new group policy, gpoSetCorpWallpaper, and assign it to the OU with the users you want to apply the wallpaper to. In this example, we will assign the policy to the domain root because we want the wallpaper policy to apply to all workstations and servers in the domain. Edit the GPO you have created;
3. Go to User Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Desktop -> Desktop;
4. Enable the Enable Active Desktop policy;
5. Then enable and configure the Desktop Wallpaper policy. Specify the UNC path to the JPEG image file in SYSVOL and set the Wallpaper Style to Fill;
   The Fill wallpaper style enlarges or shrinks the image to fit the width of the screen. It looks well almost any screen resolution.
6. Update the Group Policy settings on the user’s computer and restart the explorer.exe process (or simply logoff  the session). Check that the new wallpaper image is displayed on the desktop.

If you want to prevent users from changing the wallpaper image, enable the Prevent Changing Desktop Background policy in User Configuration -> Administrative Templates -> Control Panel -> Personalization.

Using WMI GPO filters, you can target a policy so that it only applies to workstations running desktop versions of Windows 10 and 11:

Select * from Win32_OperatingSystem WHERE Version like "10.%" AND ProductType= "1"

Change Desktop Wallpaper Using the Registry and GPP

You can set the parameters and the desktop background image through the registry. The registry parameter Wallpaper (REG_SZ) contains the path to the wallpaper image file (HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\ or HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System). In this parameter, you must specify the UNC path to your image in a shared network folder or SYSVOL.

The WallpaperStyle parameter (REG_SZ), which configures the position of the image on the desktop, is located in the same registry key. Use a value of 2 to center the image and to stretch it.

To prevent users from changing the desktop wallpaper image, create the following registry key:

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ActiveDesktop]
"NoChangingWallPaper"=dword:00000001

Deploy these registry settings to user computers using Group Policy Preferences (GPP). Navigate to the User Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Registry section and create two registry items with the Update action.

Item Level Targeting in GPP allows you to more accurately assign wallpaper images to users. For example, you can apply a custom desktop wallpaper only to certain users (who are added to an AD security group) and computers running Windows 10.

Open the properties of the registry parameter in the GPP, go to the Common tab, enable the ‘Item level targeting‘ option, and click on the Targeting button. Configure two rules “the operating system is XXX” and “the user is member of the security group XXX”.

This allows you to apply different desktop backgrounds to different categories of employees.

Change the Default Logon and Lock Screen Background via GPO

You can use Group Policies to change the default sign-in and lock screen image in Windows. In the GPO section Computer Configuration -> Policies -> Administrative Templates -> Control Panel -> Personalization, enable the policy Force a specific default lock screen and logon image and specify a path to the new lock screen image.

However, this GPO only applies to computers running the Enterprise or Education editions of Windows 10/11 and to Windows Server.

You can change the Windows 10 Professional login and lock screen background image via the registry.

1. Edit your GPO and go to Computer Configuration -> Preferences -> Windows Settings -> Registry;
2. Create the following parameters in the HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE registry hive with the path SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\PersonalizationCSP:
   

   Parameter name	Action	Type	Value
   LockScreenImagePath	Replace	REG_SZ	Full path to the image file (can be a UNC path)
   LockScreenImageStatus	Create	REG_DWORD	1
   LockScreenImageUrl	Replace	REG_SZ	Full path to the image file (can be a UNC path)
   PersonalizationCSP	Create	REG_DWORD	1

   

3. Restart your computer and check that the Windows sign-in screen and the lock screen have a new background image that you have specified.