Web page as a wallpaper?

[mrbios]

Hi there,

 

I'm just looking into ways of forcing the teachers here to go to the intranet page before asking us 101 questions about things that are already on there (clicking on internet explorer is far too much hard work!)

 

Is there a way of setting our intranet page to be the desktop wallpaper for all staff via a GPO and if so how? my google powers are weak today it would seem.

 

Thanks

[sted]

it can be done as i wrote a html menu as a desktop to replace winsuite but i think i just set it as the desktop in a mandatory profile

[Ignatius]

Can't this be done via Active Desktop? See here.

[PEO]

You will need to set this in the profile.

 

copy profile

have an account to pick up copied profile and make the profile .dat

 

login with admin cradentials

 

right click desktop and selct 'Desktop' Tab

click the 'Customize Desktop' Button.

 

On the Desktop items window click the 'Web' tab

 

click 'new' button

 

type the address for the intranet e.g. http://intranet and click ok and apply

 

this intranet will then be shown on the desktop

 

it will be tiny and will need to be enlarged to fill the screen

 

move the mouse over the intranet window on the dektop and click the little down arrow in the top left of the window. select cover desktop.

 

click ok to on the desktop window and logoff. restart machine and then go back to the profile and make it a .man again.

 

copy to target profile

[Michael]

It should be pointed out Active Desktop isn't available if you have IE7 or IE8 installed (on XP). It isn't available at all in Windows Vista or Windows 7.

[Ignatius]

Thanks Michael, I was unaware of that.

[TheFopp]

It should be pointed out Active Desktop isn't available if you have IE7 or IE8 installed (on XP). It isn't available at all in Windows Vista or Windows 7.

 

Not true....

 

I have an Active Desktop pushed out via GPO and it has run happily with IE6, IE7 and IE8 all on XP.

 

I wrote a nice little html menu that matches our school design and links to the useful areas of the intranet (e.g. webmail, moodle, staff resources, timetables etc). Sits nicely on the right-hand side of everyones desktop.

 

Also have a different Active Desktop page for the students pointing to useful areas for them.

 

I'll link an image in the morning if I remember.

[Michael]

Not true....

 

I have an Active Desktop pushed out via GPO and it has run happily with IE6, IE7 and IE8 all on XP.

 

Officially from Microsoft that is what they'll tell you, but yes, there probably are ways around it. Typically, this is why I use BGInfo to control/deploy desktop wallpapers.

[Ignatius]

I'll link an image in the morning if I remember.

Hmm - now I'm confused about Active Desktop and various IEs! Maybe I'll do some testing at home to see what I can get working. I'm not a coder - I'd be interested to see the HTML code (with anything confidential stripped out) if you'd be willing to share it.

[PEO]

XP SP3, IE7 no problems here

[TheFopp]

XP SP3, IE7 no problems here

 

There's nothing special with the code. Its just a standard webpage I built. Told GPO to use this webpage as the Active Desktop. Apply the GPO to the right PCs in Active Directory and it works.

 

Originally set it up about 5 years ago. Has worked ever since no matter which version of IE (6,7 or 8).

 

According to this article Release Notes for Internet Explorer 7 Active Desktop has been removed in Vista... doesn't say it wont work on XP in IE7... just Vista.

[Michael]

And it is removed from Windows 7 too. Not sure why Microsoft decided this. I suspect it may be to do with security.

[CESIL]

Good luck with getting teachers to notice what's on the page...

 

I have our internet homepage set to our intranet and I don't think anybody has ever noticed the messages I put there...at least until I added flashing lights around the message box and even that only worked for short time...

[mrbios]

Thanks for the info guys, we've decided not to bother with it now if it's something which is being phased out in newer OS's - that and the fact theres no quick GP way of switching it over without having to change the profiles etc