Background not loading properly

[Dom_]

Hi,

 

I'm having an issue with SOME user's backgrounds not loading when they log on, it just loads a blue screen with a little x in the top left corner. It seems to affect a few random users, despite rebuilding their profiles.

 

I have tried to delete one of their profiles too, and copy a working one - this worked for one user, but not for another :|

 

Any idea's? Not too important as the background they're meant to get is $hit anyway.

[Azhibberd]

Where are you having the background pulled from? I mean we have it stored locally (a batch script checks on the server to see if it has been updated and copies over the new one if its date created has changed) Although we have had it before where the local copy if the file was too big would corrupt so we made sure its a nice file size then it was fine.

[jmcdermott]

we have seen a issue here using jpgs as backgrounds, sometimes the image just would not load, fixed buy converting image to bmp.

[ricki]

Have a look at BGinfo it works great.

 

BgInfo

 

Richard

[Dom_]

It's shared from the server and applied through active desktop, it is a Jpeg, I'll set it as bitmap and report back

[Michael]

If you have IE7 installed, this will stop Active Desktop working properly. I also recommend and use BGInfo. If you want to continue using Active Desktop, you must go back to IE6.

[rasssp]

Another vote for BGInfo here, works brilliantly, only problem I have now is students can change the wallpaper!

 

annoying, but it resets on logout so it doesn't stick

[Dom_]

Aha, it was IE7 that was causing the issue!

 

Cheers everyone.

[cjohnsonuk]

Another vote for BGInfo here, works brilliantly, only problem I have now is students can change the wallpaper!

 

annoying, but it resets on logout so it doesn't stick

 

We have the latest BGinfo running at Machine startup via the machine policy to give a "generic" PC info page so we can see info/settings without having to log on. This lets staff tell us what PC they can't log into just by reading the screen.

 

We have another running at login that shows login time, user name and MOTD

 

By default bginfo saves the resulting bmp into %temp%/bginfo.bmp

 

The actual bmp file displayed by windows is saved somewhere on the PC. I did find this in the past but I'm stumped now as, halfway through this post, I can't find it! Our idea was to run

 

attrib +r %temp%/bginfop.bmp 

 

from the login script to set the image file (not the BGinfo one shown but the windows one that I can't find) to read only.

 

Without resetting this attribute they shouldn't be able to reset the desktop using the right click "set as desktop image" method.

 

Its not fool proof but it may slow them down.

[cjohnsonuk]

 

Its not fool proof but it may slow them down.

 

Talking of slowing them down...

 

If I change the image or the text for our BGinfo settings (like a Red nose backdrop for example) not all the PCs pick this up, some do some don't. They are all in the same OU. The one I was using this morning didn't pick it up over 5 reboot/gpupdate cycles but then after about 15 minutes it did. The images for the backgrounds are stored in the netwlogon folder and I checked that they had synchronised to all DCs.

 

Even when they do pick it up it can take minutes for the desktop image to appear. WHen I run BGInfo from the command line it takes ages to start up (usually about a minute and it is generally sluggish when being operated). I don't have another network to test it against.

 

Its been bugging me for a while.

 

Help!

 

(please...)

 

ChrisJ