[1607, au] Themes / Personalisation

[timbo343]

Has anyone managed to get themes / personalisation to work on Windows10?

 

At the moment we have personalized the Login screen and pushing out a default background but what i'd like to do is to have a slideshow background with a few wallpapers cycling every 10 mins.

 

I've created a theme, configured it to what i want it to look like and click Save for Sharing. This saves the theme as a .deskthemepack which i would have thought would just work if the correct option in group policy was set (User Config > Policies > Admin templates > Control Panel > Personalisation > load a specific theme) and i've enforced it. However this doesn't seem to be the case.

 

Anyone able to help?

[timbo343]

I'd be grateful if anyone could help on this issue.

 

I spent the most of last night trying to get everything to work. I've managed to get the THEME to apply to user sessions however i cannot get the rolling background to start when the theme is applied.

 

I have the .theme file placed in NETLOGON and a Group Policy is set at Computer level to copy this .theme file to %systemroot%\resources\themes\nameoftheme.theme. - This works as expected.

 

Now the part that doesn't run as it should. In Group policy, under User Config > Policies > Admin Templates > Control Panel > Personalization, there is a setting called Load a Specific Theme. The path to the theme is %systemroot%\resources\themes\nameoftheme.theme. - the theme applies however the rolling background doesn't roll through the pictures.

 

I've tried lots of different versions on getting the theme to apply and now i've got to a point where the Personalization window remains open even though a script is telling the damm thing to close .... ARRGGHHHH!!!!

[sted]

does it work if you do it to a pc manually?

[timbo343]

does it work if you do it to a pc manually?

 

Yeah it does, however just after posting the 2nd post, i found something called ThemeSwitcher and this works for my test user. No dialogue boxes, no new windows, no asking if it needs to be run... it just runs however the exe has to be copied to each machine (not an issue) and then i've got a BAT file sat on our NETLOGON share that calls taskswticher on the local machine and runs the theme file located at %systemroot%\resources\themes.

 

My god, windows 10 don't half make it hard for personalisation!

[timbo343]

So, if any wants to do this then here are the steps:

 

- Download themeswitcher - store it in a central location to copy to local machines, i stored it in NETLOGON\background and used a computer config group policy to copy it from NETLOGON to a folder called BACKGROUND in the %systemdrive% of the local machine.

 

- Create your desktop backgrounds, put the jpeg files in a central location. I put mine in NETLOGON\background and used a computer config group policy to copy them from NETLOGON to the same folder above

 

- Create a theme with a user that has rights to modify the theme, if you want it to show a slideshow of images, make sure you set SLIDESHOW when setting up the theme.

-->Export the modified theme, right click on the theme > Save the theme. Now browse to %localappdata%\microsoft\windows\themes\ and find your theme. These files are in a .theme format. Move the theme to a central share ready for copying to the local machine. Same folder was used as above

--> Right click on the theme file and open with a text editor such as notepad.

--> On line 5 give it a name.

--> Scroll down to [Control/Desktop] and you may remove the "Wallpaper" string or set it to a wallpaper that you'd like to set.

--> Scroll down to [slideshow] and remove the IMAGEROOTPIDL or IMAGEROOT string and replace it with IMAGEROOTPATH:*pathofwhereyouwillcopyyourimagesto"

--> Interval is in milliseconds on long to wait for images to change

--> Shuffle: 1 is on and 0 is off

Here's the MSDN page that may explain it a little better: https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/bb773190(v=vs.85).aspx

- Create a computer config group policy to copy this theme to the local machine as above.

All these copy files can be put in one computer group policy.

 

- create a .BAT file that contains the location of the themeswitcher once on the local machine which will point to the theme file. The location of this BAT file is in the same folder as above on NETLOGON.

I have the following: %systemdrive%\background\themeswitcher.exe %systemdrive%\background\*nameoftheme*.theme

 

- Create a user config group policy > prefereneces > FILES to move the .BAT file from NETLOGON to the STARTUP folder in the ROAMING profile. (PLEASE NOTE: we use mandatory profiles and this has been tested with local profiles too.)

The location of the STARTUP folder is %userprofile%\appdata\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup, so in my group policy i had:

source: %systemdrive\bacground\*nameofbatfile*.bat

Target: %userprofile%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Start Menu\Programs\Startup\*nameofbatfile*.bat

This will ensure the BAT file is ran when the user has logged in.

 

Any files that are added to the location of where the JPEG files are, the slideshow *should* show these files.