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I've setup client desktop background via GPO Administrative Template, in user configuration. It works fine but sometimes users randomly reports they get a black wallpaper instead of the designated one. I checked the Event Viewer but couldn't find any error about that policy.

GPO screenshot

99% of the users have laptops and travel, so they not always have the domain server available for fetching the image. So I thought I'd change the policy to copy the background locally on the computer and set it from the C: drive, but the black wallpaper was happening anyway! This is still a non-issue as it happen even when users are in LAN. And I occasionally checked, the domain was correctly reachable via its DNS name.

I know it's hard to debug such a issue without a log, but I was wondering if there's a mistake or something which could lead to this result.

The only problem in the network is that some DCs has been taken offline without being correctly removed from the AD, they're still linked. But all DHCPs has been set up to use the remaining DC as primary DNS (and Google as fallback). Could this have some influence on GPO implementation?

Thanks

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    [...]some DCs has been taken offline without being correctly removed from the AD[...] all DHCPs has been set up to use [...] (and Google as fallback) => That's two issues, you should fix that before trying anything else
    – Swisstone
    Apr 9, 2021 at 19:59
  • I haven't investigated much further, but in my situation, it seemed the \\domain share wasn't accessible at logon. It could be a share configuration or permission problem.
    – Maxxer
    May 16, 2023 at 11:12

2 Answers 2

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If you're using WinSvr 2008 R2, check if the wallpaper correctly applied on the client computer registry, locate the registry on:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

check if there is value on Wallpaper entry, try to open that value if it's opening the correct wallpaper

You can refer to this KB from microsoft Wallpaper not applied

My organization was using a UNC Path wallpaper when this black wallpaper happen, we change the GPO to copy the file to client and using local path for the wallpaper

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The only problem in the network is that some DCs has been taken offline without being correctly removed from the AD, they're still linked. But all DHCPs has been set up to use the remaining DC as primary DNS (and Google as fallback). Could this have some influence on GPO implementation?

This could have influence on anything, everything or nothing at all... because it's completely wrong.

  1. Domain Controllers must be properly removed from Active Directory, otherwise some domain member or another will try to contact them and fail. If you can't properly demote a DC, you should at the very least remove any reference to it from AD and DNS (and yes, this includes all the multiple-levels-nested SRV records).
  2. Please repeat with me: domain member computers must only use internal DNS servers which host your domain DNS zone. DNS is used in AD for locating Domain Controllers (amongst other things), and public DNS servers such as Google's don't have any information about your AD domain and your DCs.

Please fix both those (glaring) errors; then you can start debugging GPO issues.

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