Hello,
So to cover my bases, I have worked on this problem for about 2 days now and invested about 10 hours of research and testing. I have already read the TechNet articles on wallpaper and folder redirection settings as well as many other articles about changing wallpaper via registry edits (to find a workaround) and about folder redirection itself.
Environment:
Server 2008, Windows 7 machines
Problem:
Folder redirection GPO has been properly configured in that all folders are redirected properly and can be accessed EXCEPT the users desktop background does not carry over to other machines and will give a black background.
What I Know:
1) Windows Machines are on Win7 SP1, therefore they have the hotfix that deals with black backgrounds
2) In the registry HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\Wallpaper references
\\ServerShare\users$\%USERNAME%\Application Data\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\TranscodedWallpaper.jpg
3) This file is interpretted differently by different win7 machines depending upon some local setting
4) It APPEARS that transcodedwallpaper.jpg references HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Desktop\General\WallpaperSource or HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Themes\CurrentTheme
5) Changing the Internet Explorer key in the registry doesnt update the wallpaper, however updating the wallpaper changes the key path to the new wallpaper
6) Machines are running a Dell Pre-installed Theme or the Win7 Aero Theme
7) When you change the background with a theme selected it creates an "Unsaved Theme" called Custom.theme that is located in C:\Users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Themes
8) Folder redirection does not redirect local app data, only the roaming app data
9) Even with Folder redirection applied, the theme on each machine in the registry at HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Theme\CurrentTheme is set to C:\users\%USERNAME%\AppData\Local\Microsoft\Windows\Theme\Custom.theme and not to the redirected server share (\\servershare\users$\%username%\....)
What I want to know:
1) Does folder redirection even have the capability of making the users desktop wallpaper follow across machines? It seems like in windows 7 if win 7 bases the wallpaper off of a theme and the theme is located in the local app data folder, it wont get redirected, therefore folder redirection wouldn't have this capability in windows 7.
2) If it does have this capability, how can I make it work. If your answer is a link to another article, I have probably already tried it.
What I have tried:
1) Registry edits of all the above mentioned keys to try and manually set the desktop background
2) Logoff script/Logon script to copy the Custom.theme file out ot the server and set it on the local machine
3) Wallpaper is a .bmp
4) PowerShell script to try and update parameters after registry edits
invoke-wmimethod win32_process -name "create" -argumentlist "rundll32 user32, UpdatePerUserSystemParameters"
5) Double and Triple Checked permissions on GPO and tested to make sure redirection was working properly
NOTE: The issue is not that I can't get a background on the PC. After I log in with a black background I can set it to something else, or to the users old background, but this is not ideal.
Thank you for any help or insight you may have,
-Ryan Castner