[dubsdj]

I have come across a really annoying problem with Active Desktop Wallpaper GPO on Windows 8

It is set to redirect to a wallpaper which is located in a dir on the server.

when the user first logs onto a windows 8 PC, the correct background is applied.

however when I change the background on the server... the user will still get the previous background on the windows 8 computers. If i click personalisation it shows the updated wallpaper but it simply won't refresh to it!

The only way to get it to work is removing the users local / roaming profile and then the updated wallpaper is displayed!

the wallpapers work fine on XP and Windows 7 PC's...

I'm sure it's something in the users profile which needs removing on logoff but I cannot find what it is! Must be some reference or jpg file hidden i the users local / roaming profile.

[dubsdj]

Ok, I think I have found it!

If I remove the folders

c:\users\username\appData\LocalLow

and

c:\users\username\appData\Roaming


This appears to fix the problem. I will test it more and try and find out exactly what file it is.

[Tripredacus]

You may run into some OS stability problems with those folders removed.

[dubsdj]

Yes true

the only other way I have found that works is to do the following:

create 2 files in your wallpaper folder
1 JPG
1 BMP


in the active desktop > wallpaper setting in group policy, simply change the path to JPG and then next time BMP and so on..

so you just swap the name to JPG or BMP each time you update the wallpaper

THIS WORKS and doesn't require any deleting of profile folders etc.

it only takes a minute to go into group policy and change the path extension... but still it's annoying I know!!

Hope Microsoft sorts this out... real pain this is!

[Tripredacus]

dubsdj, on 30 October 2012 - 10:39 AM, said:

Hope Microsoft sorts this out... real pain this is!

Active Desktop was deprecated with Vista.

[dubsdj]

Well thanks for that useful piece of information.

1. Active desktop needs to be enabled to redirect wallpaper in group policy ( as far as I was aware??). I had previously tried not enabling active destop but then you just get a nice black background on xp,windows 7 and windows 8 pcs..

Are you saying there is another way in group policy? Please share..

2. Works fine in Windows 7

This post has been edited by dubsdj: 30 October 2012 - 03:56 PM