Here I will explain what my goal is, what's happening, and how I have things configured.
My Goal
- User signs into their local workstation. When they sign in, they get the default company wallpaper. Let's call thisWallpaper #1.
- User then launches their Remote Desktop Services (RDS) desktop. When they sign in, they get our custom Remote Desktop Services wallpaper. This allows the user to know that they are working in RDS. Let's call this Wallpaper #2
- User does their work, and then signs out of RDS.
- User signs out of their local workstation.
- Repeat above process without issue.
What's happening
- User signs into their local workstation. When they sign in, they get wallpaper #1 (expected)
- User then launches their RDS Desktop. When they sign in, they get wallpaper #2 (expected)
- User does their work, and then signs out of RDS (expected)
- User signs out of their local workstation. (expected)
- The next time the user signs into their local workstation, they get wallpaper #2 (unexpected). It should be wallpaper #1. Wallpaper #2 follows them forever until the roaming profile is blown away.
How I have things configured
Here is a picture I made of our OU layout. I obviously didn't want to take a screenshot of our actual layout but here's a simplified version of it
- I’m setting Wallpaper #1 inside the “User GPO” GPO
- I’m setting Wallpaper #2 inside the “Loopback / User GPO” GPO
- The Wallpaper policy I’m using, for both of these GPOs, is User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Desktop > Desktop > Desktop Wallpaper. The wallpaper is being pulled from a shared network location.
- The loopback policy is using Merge mode. The reason for this is because we have other user GPOs that still need to apply. Since Wallpaper #2 is being applied in this GPO, it will override the User GPO (only when the user is in the RDS Server).
- Our “Computers” organizational unit is separate from the “Users” and “RDS Servers” OU and does not have any loopback processing on it.