Would you like to learn how to use a group policy to configure the Wallpaper on Windows? In this tutorial, we will show you how to create a group policy to configure the desktop Wallpaper.

• Windows 2012 R2
• Windows 2016
• Windows 2019
• Windows 10
• Windows 7

Hardware List:

The following section presents the list of equipment used to create this tutorial.

Every piece of hardware listed above can be found at Amazon website.

Tutorial GPO - Configure the wallpaper

Create a shared folder and place a copy of the Wallpaper.

This will be the distribution point of the wallpaper file to the network.

GPO - Desktop Wallpaper

In our example, a shared folder named WALLPAPER was created.

All the domain users and all the domain computers were given read permission over this folder.

GPO - Sharing permission

In our example, this is the path to access the network share.

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On the domain controller, open the group policy management tool.

Windows 2012 - Group Policy Management

Create a new group policy.

Windows 2012 - Group Policy Objects

Enter a name for the new group policy.

Windows - Add GPO

In our example, the new GPO was named: MY-GPO.

On the Group Policy Management screen, expand the folder named Group Policy Objects.

Right-click your new Group Policy Object and select the Edit option.

Windows - Edit GPO

On the group policy editor screen, expand the User configuration folder and locate the following item.

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Right-click on the Files option and create a new File.

GPP - Desktop Wallpaper

Select the Update action.

On the source field, enter the network path of the wallpaper.

On the destination field, enter the local path to save a copy of the wallpaper.

GPP - Wallpaper desktop

In our example, the GPO will create a local copy of the wallpaper file.

Next, configure the GPO to automatically enable the local copy of the image file as the wallpaper.

On the group policy editor screen, expand the User configuration folder and locate the following item.

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Access the folder named Desktop.

GPO - Wallpaper configuration

Enable the item named Desktop wallpaper.

Enter the path to the local copy of the wallpaper file.

GPO - Desktop Wallpaper configuration

To save the group policy configuration, you need to close the Group Policy editor.

Congratulations! You have finished the GPO creation.

Tutorial GPO - Desktop wallpaper

On the Group policy management screen, you need to right-click the Organizational Unit desired and select the option to link an existent GPO.

Windows-2012-Applocker application

In our example, we are going to link the group policy named MY-GPO to the root of the domain.

GPO- tutorial linking

After applying the GPO you need to wait for 10 or 20 minutes.

During this time the GPO will be replicated to other domain controllers.

On a remote computer, login and verify the wallpaper.

Group policy - Wallpaper desktop

In our example, we used a GPO to automatically configure the Windows wallpaper.