[27702] in resnet
Re: Setting display resolution with group policy
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Umansky, Shawn)
Thu May 24 11:55:49 2012
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Date: Thu, 24 May 2012 15:21:36 +0000
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From: "Umansky, Shawn" <SUmansky@smcvt.edu>
To: RESNET-L@listserv.nd.edu
In-Reply-To: <086960B2AF09CC458C0AE60BE5D19D4818A2EF9DEB@ICE-MBX-6.ice.nd.edu>
Isaac, thanks for the prompt response. I particularly like the NirCMD solution. It seems simple, yet versatile. Much appreciated.
-----Original Message-----
From: Resnet Forum [mailto:RESNET-L@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Isaac Holmes
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 11:06 AM
To: RESNET-L@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Re: Setting display resolution with group policy
We have done this using three different methods over the years.
Initially I wrote a VB6 app that took the resolution and frequency as parameters and would change the resolution, this was run as a GPO startup script or during one of the first boots during our build process.
Recently we have started using NirCMD (http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/nircmd.html) in a similar manner. Also works for changing sound volumes and many other functions.
In a few cases where we have projectors that are using four wire VGA and cannot be set to stay at the desired native resolution because the default monitor driver does not support it we created our own monitor.inf file that only had the desired resolution available. Down side to this is the driver is not signed and so far we have had to manually install it where needed.
Isaac Holmes
Distributed Engineering Support
University of Notre Dame
-----Original Message-----
From: Resnet Forum [mailto:RESNET-L@LISTSERV.ND.EDU] On Behalf Of Umansky, Shawn
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 10:51 AM
To: RESNET-L@LISTSERV.ND.EDU
Subject: Setting display resolution with group policy
Has anyone on this listserv attempted to use group policy to control display resolution for all users of a group of computers? If so, I'd love to know what you discovered (i.e., did it work and was it difficult).
I'll try to give you a snapshot of our situation. We are currently using Symantec Ghost for image capture and deployment, and have a single Windows 7, 64-bit image for all of our classroom computers. I should also mention that the computer hardware for all classroom computers is identical (including the video card). The default resolution of that image is currently 1280x1024.
Historically, we have had to customize our classroom computer image with a lower resolution (1024x768) to ensure all of our various models of digital projector can display properly. However, as many of the projectors in those classrooms have been replaced over time, we now have a mix of projectors that can handle a resolution higher than 1024x768 and those that cannot.
Ideally, instead of having to modify the image to set the resolution, we would be able to put the computers that connect to the older projectors into their own OU and leverage group policy to downgrade the resolution for just those classroom computers. This would also give us the flexibility to set the resolution at a more granular level (i.e., if 85% of the classroom projectors can handle 1280x1024, we only downgrade the other 15%). This is something we do not currently have the capacity to control to that degree of granularity. Pushing out a group policy to control this would give us that.
My preference would be to push out a registry setting to HKCU for the classroom OUs. Server 2008 R2 makes this really easy to do. From what I've read, it does not appear to be quite that straight forward. I'm hoping that the collective intelligence of the group can tell me whether or not I'm barking up the wrong tree.
Has anyone else out there dealt with this? If so, what did you choose to do?
Thanks,
Shawn
Shawn L. Umansky
Network Engineer
Saint Michael's College
Phone: (802) 654-2763
SUmansky@smcvt.edu
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