Prevent Your Desktop Background Being Changed

We all personalize our computer to some degree such as applying custom themes, organizing folders with dedicated Icons that represent It's contents and the list goes on. Having an attractive desktop background, Is certainly part of this equation and If you have multiple users on your PC, they can alter It at any time. As such, In this tutorial, I will show you how to prevent changes to your desktop background In It's entirety.


Upon purchasing your PC, one of the first things you do, Is get rid of the boring manufacturer's desktop background and apply one of your own, and you'd certainly want It to remain that way. Unauthorized changes, can obviously happen by users with physical access to your computer, or sometimes It can get messed up when performing Windows updates and/or Installing third-party software.

To keep your desktop background Intact, I will demonstrate how to securely prevent It from being changed, by using the good old Group Policy Editor. Do note that the GPE Is only available In Windows 10 Pro, Enterprise and Education editions. If you're running either of these, then this tutorial Is for you. So without further delay, let's get this started.

Step One:
To access the Group Policy Editor, open the Run menu, enter gpedit.msc and hit OK.

Step Two:
The Group Policy Editor will now open, so navigate to the following directory.

User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalization

Then on the right pane, double-click on Prevent changing desktop background as shown below.

Step Three:
To the left of the window, select the Enabled radio button, and hit OK to finalize the change.

Step Four:
This has now locked the desktop background In place. Let's make sure It's taken effect, by navigating to Windows Settings > Personalization. Here's my desktop background settings, before applying the above change. Every option Is fully functional.

Step Five:
And this Is the result after Implementing the setting via the Group Policy Editor. As you can see, the option to change the background Is grayed out, hence It will remain as Is.

Final Thoughts:
Although this may not entirely prevent automated changes to your desktop background, such as a nasty virus that's Infected your PC, It will definitely stop any user from physically changing It via the Personalization settings or Control Panel. To go back to It's default state, refer to Step Three above, select the Not Configured radio button and hit OK.