Disable Netscape's Wallpaper feature

[Steve Hooley!]

	At our University Library, horrified patrons are often confronted 
with wallpaper composed of grotesque and/or peculiar pornographic images. 
We use HP deskjet printers, which refuse to print if WIN.INI or 
PROGMAN.INI are attribbed as readonly. We are looking into asking 
Netscape for permission to decompile and edit netscape.exe to remove that 
pesky feature, but I see that may be no more than a fond hope (*sigh*).
	At Zach S. Henderson Library, where our network administrator is 
also a Henderson (coincidence? or diabolical plot?) we use a small bmp of 
the Clan Henderson Tartan as tiled wallpaper.
	My Rube Goldberg contraption to scrub the nasty pictures off the 
wallpaper consists of a hidden directory called COPIES, which has copies 
of WIN.INI, PROGMAN.INI, NETSCAPE.INI and other frequently altered files. 
The autoexec restores them to their places. We also use kb_off and kb_on 
to keep nosey users from entering by ctrl-break as the machine boots. 
Nice to know others have this problem.... 
 On Thu, 7 Nov 1996, Bill Moseley 
wrote:

> Netscape has the feature that will set any image found on the web as the
> Windows Wallpaper.  This feature is accessed by right-clicking the mouse
> any image and selecting "Set As Wallpaper".
> 
> When an image is selected to be used as the Wallpaper, Netscape writes the
> image to the Windows directory and then modifies the Windows wallpaper
> setting to point to this new file.  In the 16bit version of Netscape this
> file is called "NETSCAPE.BMP", and with the 32bit version "Netscape
> Wallpaper.bmp".
> 
> This simple way to stop Netscape from setting the Wallpaper is to create a
> Wallpaper that you find acceptable, rename it to the name used by Netscape
> (depending on 16 or 32 bit), and change the file's properties to include
> READONLY and HIDDEN.
> 
> Note: The Wallpaper uses memory, so I'd suggest keeping the .bmp file small.
> 
> Netscape 3.0 16bit seems ignores an attempt to set the wallpaper with the
> file set as READONLY, but Netscape 3.0 32bit will crash when attempting to
> set the wallpaper.  I don't see this as any problem, really, since Win 95
> keeps on ticking.  Just restart Netscape.
> 
> BTW - I looked into using a resource editor disable or "gray" the Set As
> Wallpaper feature, but that pop-up menu is created on-the-fly.  The "Set As
> Wallpaper" string in the .exe file doesn't have the normal associated
> resource header (which controls "gray", "inactive", etc.), so it seems that
> it can't even be disabled using a binary editor.
> 
> Another solution is to make the WIN.INI file readonly, as this is where Win
> 3.1 keeps the Wallpaper setting.  But this won't prevent the current
> session of Windows from displaying the new Wallpaper.  Also, it seems that
> some HP Printers fail to print if the WIN.INI file is readonly.
> 
> If anyone has found other ways to disable this feature I'd like to hear
> about it.
> 
> 
> Bill Moseley
> mailto:moseley at netcom.com
> 
> 

============ Stephen S. Hooley ================
== ***** Romulan Technical Assistant ********==
======== "It's Only a Job Description" ========
========= Henderson Library Computers =========
======== Georgia Southern University  =========
======== Statesboro, Ga       30460   =========
======== hooleyss at gsaix2.cc.gasou.edu =========
===============================================