Seeing a new background or wallpaper on your Windows PC or laptop can be a treat for the eyes, a refreshing experience, however, there are times when you’d probably like one image to stay as your background for some time whether it be your desktop or your lock screen. And, if you are in a situation where your background keeps changing, in this post we’ll discuss ways in which you can prevent your desktop background from changing or even stop changing the wallpaper on your lock screen.
Best Ways To Stop Wallpaper from Changing Automatically
Solution No. 1 – Turn Off Slideshow In Personalization Settings
It could be that you have set your background as Slideshow. A Slideshow will change the image of your background after every few minutes. Here are the steps to turn off Slideshow in Settings and prevent changing wallpaper –
1. Open Settings by pressing Windows + I.
2. Click on Personalization from the left-hand pane.
3. Click on Background
4. If you have selected Slideshow in Personalize your background, change it to Picture or Solid color.
Solution No. 2 – Disable Windows Sync Settings
In case you use more than one Windows device and use a Microsoft account on each of them, your setting will sync across all the devices. You can disable Windows sync settings and prevent changing the desktop background –
1. Right-click on the Start menu and select Settings.
2. Click on Accounts from the left-hand pane.
3. Under Account settings, click on Windows backup.
4. Toggle off the Remember my Preferences.
5. Sign in with a local account.
Solution No. 3 – Change Desktop Background Slideshow Settings
You can also take the help of Power Options in the Control Panel and tweak settings to disable the background. To do that follow the steps mentioned below –
1. In the Windows search bar, type control and click on Open from the right.
2. Click on Hardware and Sound.
3. Click on Power Options.
4. Click on Change plan settings.
5. Click on Change advanced power settings.
6. Expand Desktop Background Settings.
7. Set the Slide show to Paused for both On battery and Plugged in
Solution No. 4 – Make the Lock Screen Static
You can switch to a local account and disconnect from your Microsoft account. This step will also help disable the Windows ability to sync settings across all devices –
1. In the Windows search bar type lock screen settings and click on Open from the right.
2. Click on the dropdown next to Personalize your lock screen and select Picture.
3. Select a picture that you want to set the lock screen as.
Solution No. 5 – Stop Others From Changing Their Background
If the PC or laptop that you use is also used by several other users, chances are they are the ones changing the background. In that case, you can disable Windows background settings. While in Windows 10, you can do this by entering the Local Group Policy Editor, the scenario will be a little different in Windows 11, let’s have a look –
Windows 10
1. Press Windows + R to open the Run dialog box.
2. Type gpedit.msc in the dialog box and press Enter.
3. When the Local Group Policy Editor opens, navigate to –
User Configuration > Administrative Templates > Control Panel > Personalization
1. On the farthest right, under Setting, double-click on Prevent changing desktop background.
2. In the next Window, select Enabled.
3. Click on Apply and then, OK
Windows 11
Since Local Group Policy Editor is absent in Windows 11, you can run a third-party script and enable it. For this –
1. Open a Notepad.
2. Copy and paste this script –
@echo off
pushd “%~dp0”
dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientExtensions-Package~3*.mum >List.txt
dir /b %SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\Microsoft-Windows-GroupPolicy-ClientTools-Package~3*.mum >>List.txt
for /f %%i in (‘findstr /i . List.txt 2^>nul’) do dism /online /norestart /add-package:”%SystemRoot%\servicing\Packages\%%i”
pause
3. Save the script as .bat file
4. Run this .bat file as administrator
5. Let the process complete
6. Once the process is complete you will be able to run Local Group Policy Editor. You can now repeat the steps as shown above.
Were You Able To Stop the Background From Changing Automatically
Change is good but not every time. It could be that there is an image that holds significant importance for you that you would like to stay with for a while as your desktop’s background, and so can you. Do try out these fixes and let us know if you succeeded in preventing the background from changing automatically. If you have do give us a shoutout in the comments section below and on other social platforms Facebook, Pinterest, YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter.