Automatically Adding Icons to Desktop

In my corporation, the desktop guys have set something up on the local
computers that restores certain shortcuts to the desktop everytime the system
boots. So even if I delete, for example, the shortcut to Lotus Notes, when I
reboot, the desktop icon comes back! I've searched all over the place for
batch files, VBSs, etc., that are recreating these icons and I cannot figure
it out. I think they may be using some sort of group policy, but I can't
tell.

Does anyone know how they might be restoring these icons to the desktop? I
need to make it stop.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight!

-Mike

The only people who can help you are "the desktop guys". They control
your computer via group policy - actually, it's the company's computer -
and there ain't a thing you can do about it.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

MountainMike wrote:
In my corporation, the desktop guys have set something up on the local
computers that restores certain shortcuts to the desktop everytime the system
boots. So even if I delete, for example, the shortcut to Lotus Notes, when I
reboot, the desktop icon comes back! I've searched all over the place for
batch files, VBSs, etc., that are recreating these icons and I cannot figure
it out. I think they may be using some sort of group policy, but I can't
tell.

Does anyone know how they might be restoring these icons to the desktop? I
need to make it stop.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight!

-Mike

Thanks for the response, Mr. Grey.

Indeed, I'm afraid you may be correct. GP is the only way I can think
they're doing this. Which brings up another question. I read the following
in a microsoft publication:

"If you do have a requirement for a domain client *not* to execute domain
GPOs, you need to change a setting in the LGPO that will make a registry
change on that local client when it is next booted. This key is checked both
when the client boots and when a user logs onto the domain. If the key is
properly set, the user and computer will have only the LGPO applied, and any
domain GPOs will be ignored."

If I can block the domain GPO it should tell me whether it is what is
reconstituting the desktop icons. The only problem is that I don't know what
I'm supposed to add to the registry to ignore the domain GPO. Unfortunately
the Microsoft article only indicated that it is possible, not how to actually
do it.

Have you ever seen such a registry key? One that blocks domain GPO?

Thanks.

-Mike




"Leonard Grey" wrote:

The only people who can help you are "the desktop guys". They control
your computer via group policy - actually, it's the company's computer -
and there ain't a thing you can do about it.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

MountainMike wrote:
In my corporation, the desktop guys have set something up on the local
computers that restores certain shortcuts to the desktop everytime the system
boots. So even if I delete, for example, the shortcut to Lotus Notes, when I
reboot, the desktop icon comes back! I've searched all over the place for
batch files, VBSs, etc., that are recreating these icons and I cannot figure
it out. I think they may be using some sort of group policy, but I can't
tell.

Does anyone know how they might be restoring these icons to the desktop? I
need to make it stop.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight!

-Mike

You don't have access to the registry, so it doesn't matter. Here's a
friendly tip: If I was prepared to risk my job, it wouldn't be over
group policies. Kampish?

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

MountainMike wrote:
Thanks for the response, Mr. Grey.

Indeed, I'm afraid you may be correct. GP is the only way I can think
they're doing this. Which brings up another question. I read the following
in a microsoft publication:

"If you do have a requirement for a domain client *not* to execute domain
GPOs, you need to change a setting in the LGPO that will make a registry
change on that local client when it is next booted. This key is checked both
when the client boots and when a user logs onto the domain. If the key is
properly set, the user and computer will have only the LGPO applied, and any
domain GPOs will be ignored."

If I can block the domain GPO it should tell me whether it is what is
reconstituting the desktop icons. The only problem is that I don't know what
I'm supposed to add to the registry to ignore the domain GPO. Unfortunately
the Microsoft article only indicated that it is possible, not how to actually
do it.

Have you ever seen such a registry key? One that blocks domain GPO?

Thanks.

-Mike




"Leonard Grey" wrote:

The only people who can help you are "the desktop guys". They control
your computer via group policy - actually, it's the company's computer -
and there ain't a thing you can do about it.

---
Leonard Grey
Errare humanum est

MountainMike wrote:
In my corporation, the desktop guys have set something up on the local
computers that restores certain shortcuts to the desktop everytime the system
boots. So even if I delete, for example, the shortcut to Lotus Notes, when I
reboot, the desktop icon comes back! I've searched all over the place for
batch files, VBSs, etc., that are recreating these icons and I cannot figure
it out. I think they may be using some sort of group policy, but I can't
tell.

Does anyone know how they might be restoring these icons to the desktop? I
need to make it stop.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight!

-Mike

MountainMike wrote:
In my corporation, the desktop guys have set something up on the local
computers that restores certain shortcuts to the desktop everytime the system
boots. So even if I delete, for example, the shortcut to Lotus Notes, when I
reboot, the desktop icon comes back! I've searched all over the place for
batch files, VBSs, etc., that are recreating these icons and I cannot figure
it out. I think they may be using some sort of group policy, but I can't
tell.

Does anyone know how they might be restoring these icons to the desktop? I
need to make it stop.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight!

-Mike

greetings.... i'm afraid there's nothing you can do if you can't edit
the registry on ur computer.....
"the desktop guys" might have put a shortcut to a small batch program
that might run on every startup to restore all shurtcuts to ur desktop
(probably have a certain advantage).
it might also be as simple as putting a small program in the "Startup"
folder of ur PC ,as i said, to restore the shurtcuts...
If u really need to lose ur job, contact me on my private email and
i'll show u how to break into ur own registry ,just kidding!

---------------
NEO

Gentlemen,

Thank you for your responses. Fortunately my company isn't that sensitive
to its users tweaking their systems. In my case I am the administrator of my
local machine, I have access to my local group policies and my registry. So
I can tinker with it all I want. My mistake was joining my company's
domain--which, as I understand it, caused my machine to inherit all domain
policies.

I've searched all the obvious ways to automatically restore icons to a
desktop: Batch files, VBSs, startup folder stuff, "hidden" run items in
HKLM/.../RUN, LGPOs, etc., and I just cannot figure this out. At this point
I'm actually more interested in just figuring out how these guys did this
than I am at actually stopping the "feature"!

I managed to stop the automatic restoration of the icons: I found the
"source" icons that are being copied to the desktop folder and erased them.
That stopped the annoying behavior, but I'm still curious about what
mechanism was used to auto copy these *.lnk files to the desktop...???...

-Mike

" wrote:


MountainMike wrote:
In my corporation, the desktop guys have set something up on the local
computers that restores certain shortcuts to the desktop everytime the system
boots. So even if I delete, for example, the shortcut to Lotus Notes, when I
reboot, the desktop icon comes back! I've searched all over the place for
batch files, VBSs, etc., that are recreating these icons and I cannot figure
it out. I think they may be using some sort of group policy, but I can't
tell.

Does anyone know how they might be restoring these icons to the desktop? I
need to make it stop.

Thanks in advance for any help or insight!

-Mike

greetings.... i'm afraid there's nothing you can do if you can't edit
the registry on ur computer.....
"the desktop guys" might have put a shortcut to a small batch program
that might run on every startup to restore all shurtcuts to ur desktop
(probably have a certain advantage).
it might also be as simple as putting a small program in the "Startup"
folder of ur PC ,as i said, to restore the shurtcuts...
If u really need to lose ur job, contact me on my private email and
i'll show u how to break into ur own registry ,just kidding!

---------------
NEO