Deploy And Set Desktop Wallpaper, Lock Screen Images, Outlook Signature & Screensaver Using Microsoft Intune.

This article will discuss how to design, create, deploy, and set Windows personalization items like Outlook email signatures, desktop wallpapers, lock screen images, and video screensavers using Microsoft Intune. It will be an end-to-end guide for setting up the personalization of the above items. This article is written just for you if you run an organization with over 10000 employees and a mix of networked and cloud-managed devices. I hope you find this article informative.

For the sake of this article, I am an IT manager for a large organization with over 10,000 users worldwide. My team and I have been upgrading end-user computing devices from Windows 7, 8.1, and Windows 10 to Windows 11 in the last few years. Now, my organization finds itself in another folk on the road, where the device management functionality is moving from on-premises Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM) to Microsoft Intune. We find ourselves managing an environment that is partially networked and partially cloud-connected.

Previously, we used a combination of AD group policies and login scripts to set desktop backgrounds, Outlook signatures, lock screen images, and screensavers. We are looking for a solution to deploy the following Windows personalization items to all our users worldwide using Microsoft Intune.

WPSecure Personalization Packager satisfied all our requirements because it could create packages containing the items below and deploy them as standard applications using Microsoft Intune and SCCM. WPSecure Personalization Packages can be deployed to networked and cloud-connected devices, helping transition seamlessly. Download the Packager by clicking on the link in the top-right corner of this page.

Outlook email signatures for new and reply messages.
Desktop backgrounds for landscape and portrait screens.
Video screensavers for landscape and portrait screens.
Lockscreen images for landscape and portrait screens.

Lets talk tool, price and affordability

We found the WPSecure Personalization Packager very affordable, with the price set at 1 USD/YEAR/device compared to other providers who charge 1 – 2 USD/MONTH/User just for a single feature. We liked not having to set up new infrastructure servers, web apps, or databases. The silent installers created by the Packager are self-contained and intelligent, and they clean up after themselves after being removed from a device. The Packager allows us to distribute desktop wallpapers, Outlook signatures, lockscreen images, and video screensavers as one package; we love the 4 tools in 1 approach. Finally, we can use our existing software deployment tools like Microsoft Intune and SCCM to deploy the silent installers created by the Packager without investing in new technologies.

Lets design, create,package, and deploy

With a well-articulated statement of work, my team and I embarked on a journey to storyboard, design, create, package, and deploy the above personalization items. Below are the steps we took to accomplish that task.

Design and create desktop background images.
Design and create Outlook email signatures.
Design and create video screensavers.
Design and create lockscreen images.
Create a silent installation package.
Deploy the package using Microsoft Intune.

1. Design and create desktop background images.

Our internal communications team requested simplicity, coherence, clarity, and quality. With that mandate, my team started designing the images following the guidelines below.

Identify all possible screen resolutions on each monitor/screen within the network infrastructure, including work-from-home scenarios.
Identify all possible screen orientations (landscape and portrait) for each monitor/screen within the network infrastructure, including work-from-home and remote scenarios.
Desktop backgrounds/wallpapers should support the following resolutions: 1080P (Full HD): 1920×1080 pixels1, 2 K (Quad HD): 2560×1440 pixels, 4 K (Ultra HD): 3840×2160 pixels, 5 K: typically around 5120×2880 pixels1, and 8 K: 7680×4320 pixels.
Each image’s file size must not exceed 10 MB, and the image PPI (Pixels Per Inch) should be set at 72 PPI.
Design and create a landscape prototype for a desktop wallpaper image.
Design and create a portrait prototype for the desktop background image.
On approval, create images for other screen resolutions and orientations.

After a few days of design work, my team finalized the following designs. The design for portrait and landscape screens is in the image below. The design included a list of words in a Word Cloud that characterize a Great Team. The Word Cloud was positioned differently to suit landscape and portrait screens.

Based on positive feedback from the internal communication department, my team created images in the following sizes for other screen resolutions and orientations.

An end-user computing engineer told me that just an image in a 16:9 aspect ratio would suffice for most displays, but our mandate was that the designed images not be stretched or pixelated. So, we designed and created desktop wallpaper images from the following screen resolutions. The list includes landscape and portrait images.

Width	Height	Orientation
7680	4320	Landscape
5120	2880	Landscape
4500	3000	Landscape
4320	7680	Portrait
4096	2160	Landscape
3840	2160	Landscape
3440	1440	Landscape
3240	2160	Landscape
3000	2000	Landscape
3000	4500	Portrait
2880	5120	Portrait
2880	1920	Landscape
2736	1824	Landscape
2560	1600	Landscape
2560	1080	Landscape
2560	1440	Landscape
2496	1664	Landscape
2256	1504	Landscape
2160	4096	Portrait
2160	1440	Landscape
2160	3840	Portrait
2160	3240	Portrait
2048	1536	Landscape
2048	1080	Landscape
2048	1152	Landscape
2000	3000	Portrait
1920	1440	Landscape
1920	2880	Portrait
1920	1280	Landscape
1920	1080	Landscape
1920	1200	Landscape
1824	2736	Portrait
1800	1200	Landscape
1680	1050	Landscape
1664	2496	Portrait
1600	2560	Portrait
1600	900	Landscape
1600	1024	Landscape
1600	1200	Landscape
1536	2048	Portrait
1536	864	Landscape
1504	2256	Portrait
1440	1920	Portrait
1440	900	Landscape
1440	2160	Portrait
1440	960	Landscape
1440	3440	Portrait
1440	2560	Portrait
1400	1050	Landscape
1366	768	Landscape
1360	768	Landscape
1280	720	Landscape
1280	800	Landscape
1280	1024	Portrait
1280	768	Landscape
1280	960	Portrait
1280	600	Landscape
1280	1920	Portrait
1200	1800	Portrait
1200	1600	Portrait
1200	1920	Portrait
1152	2048	Portrait
1152	864	Landscape
1080	2048	Portrait
1080	1920	Portrait
1080	2560	Portrait
1050	1400	Portrait
1050	1680	Portrait
1024	768	Landscape
1024	1280	Portrait
1024	1600	Portrait
960	540	Landscape
960	1280	Portrait
960	1440	Portrait
900	900	Landscape
900	1440	Portrait
900	1600	Portrait
864	1152	Portrait
864	1536	Portrait
800	600	Landscape
800	1280	Portrait
768	1024	Portrait
768	1280	Portrait
768	1366	Portrait
768	1360	Portrait
720	1280	Portrait
600	1280	Portrait
600	800	Portrait
540	960	Portrait
500	500	Landscape

We used Adobe Illustrator to extrapolate the details of the master image and create other image sizes. After creating the other images, the source folder looked similar to the picture below.

The images in this folder are ready to be imported into the WPSecure Personalization Packager. But before we do that, we’ll have to create templates for Outlook email signatures for ‘new‘ and ‘reply‘ messages, video screensavers, and lockscreen images for landscape and portrait screens.

2. Design and create Outlook email signatures.

We used Microsoft Office Word to create Outlook email signatures in HTM and RTF formats and Notepad to create an Outlook email signature in TXT format.

Within the email templates (HTM, RTF, and TXT), we inserted placeholders that will act as markers into which user attributes like ‘FirstName,’ ‘LastName,’ ‘Email,’ ‘Address,’ etc. will be substituted.

There are two types of Microsoft Outlook signatures:

New message signature.
Reply message signature.

We’ll use the following guidelines when designing and creating the Outlook email signature templates for the ‘New‘ and ‘Reply‘ signatures.

The total file size of each Outlook signature and its assets cannot exceed 10 MB, and we recommend keeping the number of characters for each HTM file below 25,000.

New message signature: A new message signature is used when composing a new Microsoft Outlook message. It should include a ‘wpsecure_new.htm‘ HTML file and optionally include a ‘wpsecure_new.txt‘ file, a ‘wpsecure_new.rtf‘ file, and an optional ‘wpsecure_new_files‘ directory that contains resource files like images, CSS, etc.

Reply message signature: A reply message signature is used when replying to an email message. It should include a ‘wpsecure_reply.htm‘ HTML file and optionally include a ‘wpsecure_reply.txt‘ file, a ‘wpsecure_reply.rtf‘ file, and an optional ‘wpsecure_reply_files‘ directory that contains resource files like images, CSS, etc.

After we design and create the Outlook email signature templates, the folder containing the template will look similar to the image below.

User attribute placeholders

Before we started creating the email signature templates, we discussed the details of the user attributes and how to set them in the signature templates. When using the WPSecure Personalization packager, the user attributes are set using placeholders. The following table lists all the user attributes that can be retrieved from EntraID (Azure AD) or Active Directory Services.

Active Directory	Azure (Entra)	Description
ad_telephonenumber	az_businessphones1	Phone number associated with the user.
ad_l	az_city	City where the user is located.
ad_company	az_companyname	Name of the user’s company or organization.
ad_c	az_country	Country code or name where the user resides.
ad_department	az_department	Department or team within the organization.
ad_displayname	az_displayname	User’s display name (usually first and last name).
ad_employeeid	az_employeeid	Unique identifier for the employee.
ad_facsimiletelephonenumber	az_faxnumber	Fax number associated with the user.
ad_givenname	az_givenname	User’s first name.
ad_title	az_jobtitle	Job title or position within the organization.
ad_mail	az_mail	Email address of the user.
ad_mailnickname	az_mailnickname	Unique nickname for the user’s email address.
ad_mobile	az_mobilephone	Mobile phone number of the user.
ad_office	az_officelocation	Physical office location or workspace.
ad_postalcode	az_postalcode	Postal code or ZIP code of the user’s address.
ad_st	az_state	State or region where the user resides.
ad_streetaddress	az_streetaddress	Street address of the user.
ad_sn	az_surname	User’s last name or surname.
ad_userprincipalname	az_userprincipalname	Principal name used for authentication (usually the email address).

We created a ‘Text’ file containing all required placeholders. The documentation for WPSecure Personalization Packager recommends not entering the placeholders directly into the tools that make the HTM or RTF files and always copying and pasting them from the ‘TXT’ file into those tools.

Microsoft Entra ID app registration

Although our final goal was to move away from traditional management and move toward modern cloud-only management, we find ourselves managing an environment that is partially networked and partially cloud-connected. We would not be doing Entra ID app registration if we were only using Microsoft Active Directory Services.

Instructions on getting and assigning values for placeholders are documented here.

WPSecure Personalization Packager has two documented ways of doing this. We plan to use the ‘User self-service sync’ method as the primary deployment method. Using the ‘Organization-wide silent sync ‘ method, we will deploy an initial zero-touch user attribute draw-down. We will disable the deployment after an acceptable level of deployment success because it is not the recommended approach.

User self-service sync	Allow Users to download placeholder data for their Outlook signatures (Preferred method).
Organization wide silent sync	Allow Administrators to download placeholder data for Outlook signatures on behalf of the Users.

The above methods draw down the user attributes and write the attributes to the Current User Registry Hive. The WPSecure Outlook signature processing process replaces the placeholders with the corresponding values at runtime.

We will create Outlook signature templates in the following formats. Outlook signature in HTM format is required, but RTF and TXT formats are optional.

HTM format
RTF format
TXT format

Create a master Outlook signature template document

Multiple ways exist to create an email signature template. However, we chose Microsoft Word, a basic but relatively effective tool for creating an HTM signature.

We designed the email signature content in Microsoft Word and saved the file in HTM and RTF formats.

We replaced the relevant user attributes with placeholders from the placeholder text file.

We followed the following guidelines strictly to avoid placeholder scrambling. RTF files tend to scramble placeholders if an edit is made after inserting them.

We right-clicked and copied the placeholder from a text file
We point-clicked on the place where we wanted to paste the content
We pasted the placeholders to the right spot.
We ensured we did not edit the placeholders after pasting them.

After inserting the placeholders the Microsoft Office Word document looked similar to the image below.

We saved the file as a Word document as two different files.

wpsecure_new.docx
wpsecure_reply.docx

‘wpsecure_new.docx‘ will create the ‘New‘ message signature, and ‘wpsecure_reply.docx‘ will make the ‘Reply‘ message signature.

Outlook signature in HTM format

After creating the Outlook email signature templates, the folder looked similar to the image below. Using the DOCX templates, we can create the email signature templates in HTM and RTF formats.

Now that the template is saved in Microsoft Word, we will create a corresponding template in HTM and RTF.

We opened the ‘wpsecure_new.docx‘ file and saved the file as a Web Page Filtered (*.htm, *.html).

Outlook signature in RTF format

We open the ‘wpsecure_new.docx‘ file and saved the file in Rich Text Format (*.rtf).

We open the ‘wpsecure_reply.docx‘ file and saved the file in Rich Text Format (*.rtf).

Outlook signature in TXT format

We used Notepad instead of Microsoft Word to create Outlook email signatures in TXT format because we wanted a different layout. We used the same TXT-based email signature template for both ‘New‘ and ‘Reply‘ messages. We saved the file as ‘wpsecure_new.txt‘ and ‘wpsecure_reply.txt‘.

After creating Outlook email signatures in HTM, RTF, and TXT formats, the target folder will look similar to the image below.

We can import ‘New’ and ‘Reply’ message signatures into the WPSecure Personalization Packager. But before we do that, we’ll have to design and create video screensavers and lockscreen images for landscape and portrait screens.

3. Design and create video screensavers.

We are excited to design, create, and deploy a Video screensaver. Video screensavers provide message clarity and appeal that slideshows and other static screensavers cannot. We wanted to use the screensaver to inspire teamwork within our organization. MP4 Video files will be created with the following scenarios in mind.

Landscape video will be used if the display screen has a landscape layout.
A portrait video will be used if the display has a portrait layout.

We will design and create two MP4 videos, one for landscape screens and the other for portrait screens, with a file size of less than 50MB, per the WPSecure Personalization Packager requirements. We downloaded a video from YouTube for this article, edited it, and converted it to an MP4 file using Techsmiths Camtasia. The link to the video is below.

After editing, we had a landscape and a portrait video. The landscape video will run on a screen set with a landscape orientation, and the portrait video will run on a portrait screen. The graphic below shows how the screensaver will operate when deployed to a device with two screens: Landscape and Portrait.

We can import the landscape and portrait-oriented videos into the WPSecure Personalization Packager. But before we do that, we’ll have to design and create lockscreen images for landscape and portrait screens.

4. Design and create lockscreen images.

Lock Screen Images will serve the following purpose within our organization.

Organizational branding.
Device use disclaimer.
Seasonal greetings.

Windows Lock Screen images were traditionally only set in Landscape dimensions, with the Width of the image larger than the Height. The ‘Main monitor’ in Windows 10 and 11 is the only Screen that will display the Lock Screen image.

The WPSecure Personalization Packager enables you to set a portrait image if the main screen is oriented in portrait mode and a landscape image if it is oriented as landscape. My team and I developed a basic design with our logo and a legal disclaimer.

We can import the landscape and portrait-oriented lockscreen images into the WPSecure Personalization Packager. We have all the required personalization items, including desktop wallpaper backgrounds, Outlook email signatures, MP4 videos for screensavers, and lock screen images.

Important note

We downloaded and installed the WPSecure Personalization Packager using the link in the top right corner of this webpage. If you are following along, you should do the same.

We checked the prerequisites and verified that no group policies prevent the change of desktop backgrounds, Outlook signatures, screensavers, and lockscreen images. Click here to read the documentation.

5. Create a silent installation package.

We use the WPSecure Personalization Packager to create an installation file containing the video screensavers, outlook signatures, desktop wallpapers, and lock screen images. The tool will also generate an installation file in the ‘.intunewin‘ file format that can be deployed as a Win32 App using Microsoft Intune. Click on the button on the top right corner of the screen to download and install the packager.

After installing the WPSecure Personalization Packager we launched the tool from the start menu.

We agreed to the terms and entered the application.

After agreeing to the terms of use, we were redirected to the application’s main page. The buttons at the top of the page were personalization input buttons, and the buttons at the bottom were action buttons.

We clicked the “Import desktop background images” button to import the newly designed desktop background images from the folder that contains the images for the desktop backgrounds.

We selected all the images and clicked on “Open.” The image below shows a preview of a selected image from the Personalization Packager.

We clicked the “Import lock screen image” button to import the newly designed lock screen images (landscape and portrait) one at a time from the folder containing the images for lock screens.

We clicked the “Import Outlook signature” button to import the newly designed email signatures, both New and Reply message signatures, one at a time from the folder containing the email signatures. Click on the imported item to preview it.

We clicked on each imported Outlook signature template to ensure we imported the correct signature for ‘New‘ and ‘Reply‘ messages.

We clicked the “Import screensaver” button to import the newly designed MP4 videos (landscape and portrait) one at a time from the folder containing the video files.

After importing all the personalization items like desktop wallpaper images, video screensavers, Outlook email signatures, and lockscreen images, we clicked on the “Create personalization package” button to start the package creation process (this process creates the silent installer package).

Below are some brief notes on the personalization package.

A personalization package is a collection of all the settings and files you have imported or created for your desktop backgrounds, Outlook email signatures, lock screen images, and video screensavers. The selected destination folder has to be empty. The personalization package creation process creates two folders: general_install and intune_install.

The general_install folder contains installation files for deployment via enterprise software management tools like Microsoft Endpoint Configuration Manager (SCCM). Run the ‘wpsecure-install.exe’ to install the personalization package. More details regarding the enterprise installation and uninstallation process are in the ‘documentation.html’ file.

The intune_install folder contains the ‘wpsecure-install.intunewin’ file to be uploaded to the Microsoft Endpoint Device Management portal (Intune). The command line for this is identical to the general install.

The process also creates a ‘documentation.html’ file that provides all the information required to deploy the personalization package, such as the package version, install and uninstall command lines, and detection methods.

6. Deploy the package using Microsoft Intune.

After creating the WPSecure personalization package, it was time to unload to Intune and deploy the personalization package. We used the following “wpsecure-install. intunewin” file to create a win32 app deployment in Microsoft Intune Console.

We opened Microsoft Intune Admin Center (https://aka.ms/intune), clicked “Apps,” and then chose “Windows Apps.”

We clicked the “+ Add” button to create the Intune Win32 App deployment. The images below describe the first steps of the setup process.

The ‘documentation.html’ file provides all the information required to deploy the personalization package, such as the package version, the install and uninstall command lines, and the detection methods.