Background Wallpaper Design Changes During Logoff Procedure (285187)

SYMPTOMS

When you log off from Windows 2000 Professional, you may find that the background design (the "wallpaper") on the computer screen changes.

CAUSE

This behavior can occur because there are two types of background in Microsoft Windows 2000, the regular bitmap background and the Active Desktop background, which is layered over the regular bitmap background. For security reasons, Active Desktop is turned off during logoff, removing the top background image and leaving the last selected regular bitmap image as the background.

When the logoff process is complete, the background disappears entirely because backgrounds are stored in user settings. When you are not logged on, there are no user settings and therefore there is no background.

WORKAROUND

To work around this behavior, change the background to None, and then change it again to an Active Desktop design. When you do this, the last used regular bitmap background is set to None. When you log off, you will see no change in the background at all. Follow these steps:

In Control Panel, double-click Display.
Click None, and then click OK.
Double-click Display again, click an Active Desktop background, and then click OK.

MORE INFORMATION

The same change of background occurs when you manually turn off Active Desktop by right-clicking the desktop, clicking Properties, clicking Web, and then clearing the Show Web content on my Active Desktop check box.

If you use the Start menu, click Shutdown, and then click Logoff, you will probably see the background change for only an instant. If you press CTRL+ALT+DEL, the background changes and stays changed until you click an action (for example, Cancel, Logoff, or Task Manager).