Using Paint Program and Active Desktop, Users Can Override Wallpaper Set by System Policy

When you use system policies to apply wallpaper settings, a user who is running Active Desktop (which is available with Internet Explorer 4.0) can use Microsoft Paint to override the settings. The user can open a bitmap image, and then click Set As Wallpaper (tiled or centered) on the File menu. The wallpaper does not revert to the policy-applied settings, even when the user logs off or restarts the computer.

This behavior can occur because Active Desktop uses a different registry location to store its wallpaper settings.

To resolve this behavior, force the Active Desktop to reset the wallpaper to the policy-applied settings:

WARNING: If you use Registry Editor incorrectly, you may cause serious problems that may require you to reinstall your operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that you can solve problems that result from using Registry Editor incorrectly. Use Registry Editor at your own risk.

1. Start Registry Editor (Regedt32.exe), and then locate the following key in the registry:
   
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\Components\
2. Double-click the GeneralFlags value, and then type 1 in the Value data box.

Microsoft has confirmed that this is a problem in the Microsoft products that are listed at the beginning of this article.

This key is enumerated when the user logs on. The value 1 is invalid for this key. During logon, the system detects this invalid state. The components key and other values relating to the wallpaper are generated, and by default they use the standard wallpaper that is set by the policy.

You can use a system policy or a .reg file in a logon script to avoid having to reset the GeneralFlags value at every logon.