Roaming Profiles on Windows Server 2003/XP

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I've been practicing with setting up roaming profiles (RUPs) in preparation for taking my 290 exam on Thursday.

Everything works fine (customised Start menu, desktop shortcuts etc) except for the desktop Wallpaper or background. Regardless of what image or pattern I set as the backround, all I get is a plain background. Although if I set the desktop background to "none" and then change the color setting, that does work.

Also, If you set the background to an image file which resides on only the computer it is set on, will that image still be able to follow a user around as they use different PCs on the network? Presumably once set on an RUP, the background file becomes part of the RUP and is therefore copied to the server as part of the profile.

 

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Things may be different in 2003 than 2000 but the only time I remember running into problems with this, and it's been a while since I've used RUP's, is when the backgrounds and screen savers that the original profile used were'n't available on the other computers. ntuser.dat, and I can't recall the other file used off the top of my head, don't include the specific screen savers and wallpaper files. They just refer to them so if the file isn't accessible from the other computers then the profile can't use it and just uses a default.

I'm sure if my memory is wrong someone will correct me.

 

I think that where you save the background image file to affects weather or not the image will follow the user.

If you want itto follow the user then the easiest way to apply it to the profile would be to open up the file, right click it and select set as desktop background.
This way what it does is to store the image into the users profile, meaning that it will follow them.

 

To an extent I think I've solved my own problem. To enable users to have .bmp or .jpg files as wallpaper, you have to enable Active Desktop through Group Policy (User config\Admin templates\Desktop\Active Desktop). I then configured the Active Desktop Wallpaper setting.

Using this feature you can designate a particular .bmp or .jpg file as the wallpaper file for a particular group. Then all members of that group get that wallpaper through GP as soon as they log on. Users cannot change or alter the wallpaper set for them.

So now I'm gonna enable the Active Desktop setting, but without setting the mandatory wallpaper and see if that enables users to select their own backgrouds.