How to Enable / Disable Changing Themes, Wallpapers, Screen Savers and Other Desktop Settings?

In Windows you can change desktop wallpaper, screen saver, themes and other appearance settings by right-click on Desktop and select "Properties".

Sometimes you might want to disable all or a few options in Desktop Properties to restrict users or you might want to enable those options in case they are disabled by your system administrator or a virus infection.

Following tutorial will help you in enabling or disabling all or a particular option in Desktop Properties:

NOTE: This tutorial will work for almost all Windows versions.

A. Disable Themes Tab in Desktop Properties:

Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. Now go to: regedit 

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ Explorer

If "Explorer" key is not present, then create it. Now in right-side pane, create a new DWORD valueNoThemesTab and set its value to 1 to disable it.

B. Disable Desktop Tab in Desktop Properties:

Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press enter. Now go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ System

If "System" key is not present, then create it. Now in right-side pane, create a new DWORD valueNoDispBackgroundPage and set its value to 1 to disable it.

C. Disable Screen Saver Tab in Desktop Properties:

Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. Now go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ System

If "System" key is not present, then create it. Now in right-side pane, create a new DWORD valueNoDispScrSavPage and set its value to 1 to disable it.

D. Disable both Themes and Appearance Tabs in Desktop Properties:

Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. Now go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ System

If "System" key is not present, then create it. Now in right-side pane, create a new DWORD valueNoDispAppearancePage and set its value to 1 to disable it.

E. Disable Settings Tab in Desktop Properties:

Type regedit in RUN dialog box and press Enter. Now go to:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\ System

If "System" key is not present, then create it. Now in right-side pane, create a new DWORD valueNoDispSettingsPage and set its value to 1 to disable it.

BONUS TIP: In case you want to enable a restricted tab in Desktop Properties, just delete the required DWORD value as mentioned above or change its value to 0 instead of 1.