How To Prevent Changing Of Lock Screen Image In Windows 8 [Tip]

The Windows 8 Lock screen contains two basic elements: the lock screen image with dynamic icons for battery & network, application status message badges, and the login screen where you enter the password to log in to Windows. If you’ve been using Windows 8 beta versions, you may know that it allows users (administrators and standard users) to change the lock screen background image. If you’re a system administrator, then you can prevent other PC users from changing the lock screen background image using Local Group Policy Editor. In what follows, we will guide you through the process of disabling lock screen image customization options. It will disable the Personalize >Lock Screen window (accessible from PC Settings) to restrict users from changing the default/currently applied lock screen background image.

To begin, make sure that you have logged in to Windows as Administrator or have required administrative rights to change local group policy settings. First off, go to Start Screen, type gpedit.msc, select Apps from the right sidebar, and then click gpedit.msc in the main window.

This will open Local Group Policy Editor. Now, navigate to the following location.

 Computer Configuration/ Administrative Templates/Control Panel/Personalization

The main window includes all the Personalization related policy settings. Now, right click the policy setting named Prevent Changing Lock Screen Images and select Edit.

This will open a separate window, from where you can tweak the default policy setting. At the top, there are Not Configured, Enabled and Disabled options available. Selecting each setting will let you read its effect in Help section. To enable Prevent Changing Lock Screen Image, just select Enabled from the list and click OK.

Once done, you need to enforce the changes made to group policy settings. To do so, close the Local Group Policy Editor and open the Run dialog box. Enter the command “gpupdate /force“ and click OK.

Once policy setting is updated, your PC users will not be able to change the Lock Screen image background. When you navigate to PC Settings–>Personalize, it will show you a message, saying “Some settings on this page have been disable by group policy”.