Domain users: Desktop Wallpaper turning black.

Panagiotis Chatzilabrou 5 Reputation points
2023-02-15T08:21:25.85+00:00

Hello,

I am a system administrator for the company I work for. My boss wanted me to add a specific wallpaper for all the computers in our domain. So I activated and changed all the wallpapers with GPO. At the start, everything seems to work fine. After a day or two, some users complained to me that their desktop turned black.

I managed to fix some by using this cmd command :

del /F /S /Q %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\TranscodedWallpaper

del /F /S /Q %USERPROFILE%\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles*.*

gpupdate /force

But it didn't work for everyone, and now I have computers with black wallpaper. Any idea how can I fix it once and for all ?

Windows
Windows
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  1. Daisy Zhou 20,791 Reputation points Microsoft Vendor
    2023-02-16T04:07:58.45+00:00

    Hello @Panagiotis Chatzilabrou,

    Thank you for posting in our Q&A forum.

    Based on the description"So I activated and changed all the wallpapers with GPO", would you please
    tell us how you deploy all the wallpapers with GPO?

    If you deploy wallpaper using the GPO setting under "User Configuration >  Administrative Templates > Desktop > Desktop > “Desktop Wallpaper”， whether you put wallpaper file in a local path or a network path?

    If it is a network path and wallpaper will be black if there is no network.

    Also， you can deploy wallpapers through the steps in the following similar thread.
    https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/a38dac9d-edd0-41ef-a3f7-b6be3bd0bc12/how-to-deploy-desktop-wallpaper-through-group-policy-for-offline-user-in-server-2012

    Hope the information above is helpful. If you have any question or concern, please feel free to let us know.

    Best Regards,

    Daisy Zhou

    ===============================================

    If the Answer is helpful, please click "Accept Answer" and upvote it.

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  2. Panagiotis Chatzilabrou 5 Reputation points
    2023-02-17T13:45:21.0666667+00:00

    I have done it like the link you sent me. I am copying the wallpaper locally to the domain's pc and then in Wallpaper Desktop i am using the local path. I just tried the solution with creating this registry setting but it didnt work.

  3. Θεόδωρος Μαυρομμάτης 0 Reputation points
    2024-07-04T08:19:59.8733333+00:00

    On the client computer with the black desktop background

    run (win + r)

    %appdata%

    Microsoft\Windows\Themes

    Delete the cached jpg file

    Refresh Desktop