Prevent users to change desktop background in Windows 7

If you share your computer with many people like in a family, then it is very often that you find the desktop background (wallpaper) in Windows changed. Your teenager son might change it to a hot babe wallpaper and cause embarrassment for you. What you can do is that you can disable changing of the desktop background altogether after setting your favorite one. Here is how :

  1. Press the key combination Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog. Type gpedit.msc in the Run dialog and press Enter.
  2. In the Group Policies Editor, navigate to User Configuration → Administrative Templates → Control Panel → Personalization in the left side treeview.

  3. In the right hand side pane, you will find a value Prevent changing desktop background. Double click on it. Choose Enabled and click OK to save the settings and close the dialog.

With this group policy setting enabled, no user on your computer will be able to change any desktop background setting, including the desktop wallpaper image and its style (centered, tiled or stretched).