Group Policy Center

This week setting of the week allows you to prefer a custom logon background image in Windows 7. This setting is called “Always use custom logon background” and can be found under Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Logon.

Microsoft brought back the option to easily customise the logon background in Windows 7 as this was previously possible in Windows XP but it was removed with Windows Vista which left people with some pretty messy workarounds.

Once you have enabled this option all you have to do to create the “%windir%\system32\oobe\info\backgrounds” folder and populate it with a backgroundDefault.jpg image and your computer will then use that as the background image when logging on and off.

Note: Some sites will direct you to configured the OEMBackground or UseOEMBackground in the HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Authentication\LogonUI\Background however this setting will negate the need to set this key.

For more info on how to configure a custom background check out Windows 7 to officially support logon UI background customization

The setting of the week this week disables one of the features in Windows 7 that allowed users to pin programs to the taskbar. This option will be handy if you are in an environment where you want to prevent users from customising the taskbar such as a kiosk or library style computer. The setting can be found under User Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Start Menu and Taskbar and only applies to Windows 7.

Note: If you do apply this setting to your existing users all the existing pinned taskbar programs will be removed on the next logon.

Below are some screenshots of the UI with the setting enabled.

“Pin to Taskbar” is removed

“Pin this program to taskbar” is removed

All existing pinned programs will be removed.

This week setting of the week is called “Change Start Menu power button” which allows you to configured the start menu shutdown button in Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You can find this setting under User Configurations>Policies>Administrative Templates>StartMenu and Taskbar.

If you have setup your computer to support Hybrid-Sleep then you should consider configuring this option to help ensure that your users select the “sleep” option.

Before

After

Note: If you select the “Sleep” or “Hibernate” options and the computers does not support that power mode then the option of shutdown will be used instead.

This weeks group policy setting on the week is one that most IT administrators will probably want to implement. Now for personal use the Windows logon sound is quite nice however when you have an office packed with computers it can sound like a symphony in the morning as everyone turns on their computer. This is a new policy setting for Windows Vista but during the Beta is was not something that could be turned off. Luckily Microsoft heard loud and clear that this was an option they needed to add and by the RTM they had added this option for end users and IT admin.

As I mentioned before this is a Windows Vista or greater setting which can be found under Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > System > Logon.

This weeks setting is one that has just been mentioned in the AD Blogs Friday mail sack and until today was a setting/feature of Windows Vista/7 that I didn’t know existed. This setting display information about previous logons during a user logon and is very similar to the last logon screen I see when logging onto an online banking web site. This setting can be found under Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Logon Options and must be applied to workstations AND domain controllers for it to work. The only down side for this setting is that you need to be in 2008 native mode to work so this might exclude some organisations for now.

WARNING: Be sure that you apply this setting to your domain controllers first otherwise they will not be able to logon.

Below is the message a users will see when after the logon successfully when the previous logon was also successful.

In this example we see the message when someone logon successfully where the 5 previous logon events had failed. Obviously this logon count number (see highlighted below) would raise a really big red flag for a users especially if you are sure that you were not the one to logon incorrectly.

For more information check out:

http://blogs.technet.com/b/askds/archive/2009/04/15/the-lastlogontimestamp-attribute-what-it-was-designed-for-and-how-it-works.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd446680(WS.10).aspx

The setting of the week this week prevents users from running Windows Media Center on Vista or above versions. Unlike Windows XP which had its own dedicated version of Media Center, Vista Enterprise and Ultimate editions and Windows 7 Business, Enterprise and Ultimate had inbuilt support Windows Media Center. This setting would most likely be used in a corporate environment where they wanted to control the running of unproductive applications. This is either a user or computer based setting that can be found under Computer Configuration > Policies > Administrative Templates > Windows Components > Windows Media Center meaning you can either selectively apply it to users or to all the computers in your fleet.

When the setting is enabled the user will still see the shortcut to Windows Media Center however when the user tries to run the program they will be presented with the following dialogue box.

This weeks setting of the week is called “Set up a work schedule to limit the maximum network bandwidth used for BITS background transfers”… Phew…. This policy is used to configure the bandwidth allocation of BITS network transfers in your environment. This is obviously very handy setting manage your bandwidth if you are working in a bandwidth constrained environment such as a remote branch office. Some of the more likely application you have installed in your environment that use BITS are Windows Server Update Services or Branch Cache however third-party application can also use the BITS to transfer information.

This setting is used to control 3 of the 4 levels (see below) of BITS transfer priority that can be used by applications.

• FOREGROUND
• HIGH
• NORMAL
• LOW

The foreground transfer is always meant to be performed in real time so there is no option to control what amount of bandwidth this transfer method uses. For more info on BITS transfer priority see http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa362805(VS.85).aspx.

This setting can be found under Computer Configuration > Administrative Templates > Network > Background Intelligent Transfer Services (BITS) and will only apply to Windows 7 or computers with BITS 3.5 installed.

If you are considering this setting then also look at the other setting called “Set up a maintenance schedule to limit the maximum network bandwidth used for BITS background transfers” which will take precedence over the work schedule rule. You may want to use this maintenance schedule to allow the use of more bandwidth after hours when the network is not as busy.