When you right-click on the Desktop and choose Personalize, the following options are displayed by default in the Personalize appearance and sounds page in Windows Vista:
- Window Color and Appearance
- Desktop Background
- Screen Saver
- Sounds
- Mouse Pointers
- Theme
- Display Settings
If one or more of the above options are missing, this may be due to Policies applied in your system. Here are the related Group Policy settings. (Each one links to the Microsoft Technet Website.)
- NoDispCpl
- NoDispAppearancePage
- NoDispBackgroundPage
- NoDispScrSavPage
- NoThemesTab
- NoChangingWallPaper
With these Policies enabled, you’ll see the following message when clicking Change desktop icons Tasks pane option in the Personalization window, or when accessing Display Settings.
If your system is a part of a company network, the Policies may have been enabled by your network administrator, and there is no way to bypass these Policy settings. In case your system is not connected to any network and you have administrative privileges in the system, you can remove the Policy settings via the registry or using the Group Policy Editor (gpedit.msc). Note that the Group Policy Editor is unavailable in Windows Vista Home Editions.
Removing the Policy settings
Download personalize_restore_vista.vbs and save to Desktop. Double-click the file to run it. Click Continue when you see the User Account Control (UAC) elevation prompt. Logoff and login back (or restart Explorer.exe process) for the change to take effect.
More Information
Here are the registry locations where the Policy settings for the Personalize page are stored:
Under HKEY_CURRENT_USER and HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE
SEE ALSO
Restore missing tabs to the Display properties dialog in Windows XP
Related Posts
- How to Access the Hidden Themes in Windows 7
- Stop About:Tabs Page From Showing Up When Opening a New Tab in Internet Explorer 8
- How to Restore the “You’ve Opened a New Tab” Window When Opening a New Tab in IE
- Restore Missing Folders to the Group Policy Editor in Windows XP
- How to Restore .BKF Files Using NTBackup in Windows 7 and Windows Vista
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I still can’t change desktop icons or get a desktop background to anything other than a solid color.
Worked like a charm!!! Thank you very much!!!
Worked for me, thanks! just opened the file, and after it another small window said for me to logoff and login again, now i have it fixed! it was missing windows color and appearance, theme, and desktop background, now restored
cheers :)
This did work for me. Thank you.
it didn’t work for me