8th January 2001

Don't touch my computer. In Pirilloland, that's a big no-no. I flipped out years ago when I found a Desktop icon was off by two or three pixels. Stopping users from changing your settings isn't always easy. Forget about posting a "Don't touch" sign; the Background tab (in your Display Properties dialog) can be hidden with a little bit of Registry hacking. Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER \ Software \ Microsoft \ Windows \ CurrentVersion \ Policies \ System and create (or edit) the DWORD value: "NoDispBackgroundPage" (sans quotes). Set its value to 1 and it'll take effect instantly; to reverse this tweak, simply change the value to 0. This won't stop a determined user from changing the Desktop graphic entirely, but it'll sure slow him down. ANCILLARY: you can conserve video memory by not having a background image. For those with older, slower video cards looking to squeeze as much performance as possible from their systems, this should be kept in mind.