Wallpaper/ Background Option Disabled?

I have inherited a laptop from a company that went under. My log in appears to have administrative rights, and I also appear to be able to log in as "Admin." They disabled every staff members ability to change the background on computers and laptops because of network issues. How to I get this ability back? Its a petty detail, but it would feel more like my space if I was able to make it more of, well, my space.

Thanks for any advice you can give!

 

Hi tobey1,

If this was my computer I'd be more concerned with recovery rather than aesthetics, do you have a valid key (usually on a label underneath the laptop) and can you post the model number (sometimes a factory restore is possible). If you have this it would be possible to make the laptop truly "my space ", however if you wish to retain the current setup then here would be a good place to start but be carefull

 

Wildfire,

Thanks for the info. I do believe the tag # is there. Going through the Group Policy Editor, it looks like everything under control panel is "Not Configured" ... so I understand that to mean that this option should be visible. The actual tab for this setting and for the screen saver are missing from the display properties window.

I may try to contact Dell - someone else told me I may be able to pay a fee to get the system software, but I have been using this laptop for almost a year and a half now and has a tremendous amount of files, photos, etc. on it ... I haven't backed it up in a few months and will need to do that first. My company fell apart a while ago and this is just one of those little things that has always annoyed me, even though it may appear petty. Everything else has worked OK (knock on wood ....)

Thanks again for your help! I will keep trying.

 

That's a good website, thanks! Unfortunately it did not do the trick, though. I agree, I need to back it up ... we have a laundry list of computer clean up tasks.

 

Search the Registry to see if there is a Key named HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System

If so and if it has a Dvalue string named NoDispBackgroundPage and set to 1, change it to 0 (zero) or else just delete the Dvalue.

As always, backup any Key before editing. Also consider renaming to be safer than deleting.

BTW, You can run Dial a Fix (freeware) and it will do the above job for you with less risk of doing a misstep in the Registry. Just run Dial a Fix and click the "policies" button. If the key is there, Dial a Fix will display it and allow deletion.

Dial-A-Fix