- Have you customized your PC’s theme and icons and don’t want anyone else to change them?
- Changes in Local Group Policy Editor and Registry Editor block that option
While there are computer users who hardly customize any aspect of their user experience, others prefer to configure every last detail. Especially these may be annoyed that someone close alters that provision. That’s why, blocking the customization of your PC’s desktop is important if you want to prevent others from changing the theme and icons of your computer and today we will teach you how to do it.
The good news is that although Microsoft does not provide us with a direct solution in Windows 10/11, we will always be able to resort to the configuration of the Local Group Policy Editor and the Registry Editor. Taking advantage of a series of modifications in them, we will prevent others from making changes to our PC.
How to prevent others from changing your desktop icons
Before starting with the respective tutorials, it seems pertinent to clarify that in some of them we resort to the Registry Editor. Unlike the Local Group Policy Editor, this section of Settings is sensitive.
Therefore, we suggest that you make a system backup before entering the Registry Editor. This, to make sure you can roll back to a stable point of Windows if something goes wrong. Regardless of whether you do it in the cloud or on your own machine, don’t go on without it.
From the Local Group Policy Editor
Let’s see how to prevent others from changing your desktop icons with Local Group Policy Editor:
- Press Win + R to open the Run command dialog
- Type gpedit.msc and click OK to open the Local Group Policy Editor
- Go to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Control Panel, Personalization
- Double-click the Prevent changing desktop icons option on the right side
- Select Enabled in the options, and click Apply and OK
Remember that you have to restart your PC for the changes to take effect. You can also check it like this:
- Press Win + I to open system settings
- Click on the Personalization option and then select Themes in the left panel
- Click on the Settings option from the desktop icon on the right side
- If the option is grayed out, it means that it is perfectly locked
From Registry Editor
Let’s see how to prevent others from changing your desktop icons with Registry Editor:
- Press Win + R to open the Run command dialog
- Type Regedit and click OK to open Registry Editor
- Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Policies, Microsoft, Windows, Personalization
- Right-click in the empty space on the right side and click New, DWORD (32-bit) Value
- Name it NoDesktopIcons and press Enter to assign it
- Double click on the NoDesktopIcons value and set the value data to 1
- Click OK and then close Registry Editor
Remember that you have to restart your PC for the changes to take effect.
How to prevent others from changing your desktop theme
From the Local Group Policy Editor
Let’s see how to prevent others from changing your desktop theme with Local Group Policy Editor:
- Press Win + R to open the Run command dialog
- Type gpedit.msc and click OK to open the Local Group Policy Editor
- Go to User Configuration, Administrative Templates, Control Panel, Personalization
- Double click on the option Avoid changing the theme
- Select Enabled in the options, and click Apply and OK
Remember that you have to restart your PC for the changes to take effect. You can also check it like this:
- Press Win + I to open system settings
- Click on the Personalization option and then select Themes in the left panel
- Click on the Settings option from the desktop icon on the right side
- If the option is grayed out, it means that it is perfectly locked
From Registry Editor
Let’s see how to prevent others from changing your desktop theme with Registry Editor:
- Press Win + R to open the Run command dialog
- Type Regedit and click OK to open Registry Editor
- Navigate to HKEY_CURRENT_USER, Software, Policies, Microsoft, Windows, Personalization
- Right-click in the empty space on the right side and click New, DWORD (32-bit) Value
- Name it NoThemes and press Enter to assign it
- Double click on the NoDesktopIcons value and set the value data to 1
- Click OK and then close Registry Editor
Remember that you have to restart your PC for the changes to take effect.
Conclusions
Sharing your Windows devices is a great thing, because you can offer someone else a solution to their problems. But if you also make sure no one messes around by blocking desktop customization, even better.
Have you been able to block the customization of your PC desktop with these tutorials?
