Windows XP Screen Saver

[hlewton]

I do not want a screen saver and set it that way in the Desktop properties yet it seems each time I turn of the machine the Windows XP default screen saver is again active and set at 1 minute. I followed a suggestion from Windows Secrets' site where, as I understand it, I ran a script from from Kelly's-Korner's Web site which was supposed to disable the screen saver yet it still reappears. Any ideas how to stop this from happening again?

Thanks

[Claude]

Have you tried selecting another screen saver, set the time to 2 minutes, wait for it to kick in, then reboot, and check the setting and change it to "none". I'm not a 100% sure that this is how I fixed the problem when I had it a few years ago, but, it's probably worth a try...

[Hey Jude]

GO to Start>Run> type in regedit>double click HKEY_USERS >click DEFAULT > click CONTROL PANEL > click DESKTOP > scroll down to ScreenSaveActive and set the value to 0. You do this by double clicking on the words and a little box shows up and you change the 1 to a 0.

Changing "ScreenSaveActive" data key to zero will disable default screensaver; should you wish to enable screensaver again, just change the value back to 1 and you should be all set

I changed mine to "NONE" and it still kicked in. I tried the above and it worked for me. Hope this helps

[Claude]

I changed mine to "NONE" and it still kicked in. I tried the above and it worked for me. Hope this helps

Thanks, that's probably more reliable than my method.

[hlewton]

Thank you Claude I will give that a try.

[hlewton]

GO to Start>Run> type in regedit>double click HKEY_USERS >click DEFAULT > click CONTROL PANEL > click DESKTOP > scroll down to ScreenSaveActive and set the value to 0. You do this by double clicking on the words and a little box shows up and you change the 1 to a 0.

Changing "ScreenSaveActive" data key to zero will disable default screensaver; should you wish to enable screensaver again, just change the value back to 1 and you should be all set

I changed mine to "NONE" and it still kicked in. I tried the above and it worked for me. Hope this helps

Thank you and this is exactly what I understood the script I ran was supposed to do. Now that I know where to check I'll will see if it worked and make the change manually. Thank you.

[hlewton]

OK I tried the above suggestion and I do not have a "ScreenSaveActive" There are 6 items with ScreenSaver listed but I assume they are the actual screen savers.

[HansV]

Try HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.

x96.png

If there is an entry named ScreenSaveActive:
- Double-click the entry.
- Change its value to 0, then click OK.

If there is no entry in the right hand pane named ScreenSaveActive, do the following:
- Make sure that you're in HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop.
- Select Edit | New | String Value.
- Rename the new value to ScreenSaveActive.
- Double-click the new value and set its value to 0, then click OK.

[Bigaldoc]

OK I tried the above suggestion and I do not have a "ScreenSaveActive" There are 6 items with ScreenSaver listed but I assume they are the actual screen savers.

Sounds like maybe you were looking in the wrong pane from where Hey Jude suggested. NOT the left but the RIGHT pane. If yours doesn't look like mine, how 'bout a clip of what you do have?

EDITED: Sorry Hans, I swear I pressed F5 before I posted and yours wasn't there!

[HansV]

Not a problem, Al - your screenshot is very instructive!

[Hey Jude]

that's what I see Al :-)

[Bigaldoc]

What's also strange about this is that for a long time I used to have my screensaver set to none because I used power control to shut off the monitor instead. During that time I never had a screensaver problem.

However, since that time I've gone back to using a screensaver of the KET Screen Savers variety since I participated in their creation when I worked there, so I KNOW they're "safe" to use and contain beautiful photos.

[Hey Jude]

What's also strange about this is that for a long time I used to have my screensaver set to none because I used power control to shut off the monitor instead. During that time I never had a screensaver problem.

It just shows that 2 people can be looking at the same screen and be focused on totally different entries. I liked knowing how to manually activate or de-activate in the event the code didn't work. Thanks for the clarification

[hlewton]

Thanks to all of you and yes I found it in the right panel in both parts of the Registry and apparently the script I ran set it to "0" maybe after running it twice because in both places I found "ScreenSaveActive" the value was set to 0. I will keep an eye on it now to see it it works as I want it to.

[hlewton]

What's also strange about this is that for a long time I used to have my screensaver set to none because I used power control to shut off the monitor instead. During that time I never had a screensaver problem.

Al this is exactly what I had been doing for a couple years with no problem at all. Then suddenly, on its own, the computer decided I needed a screen saver and kept setting it to XP's screen saver. At first the time out would always be 10 minutes but as of late it has become 1 minute. In the time this has happened the only thing I can recall doing is MS updates which I do religiously. I can't recall installing anything that triggered this problem.

[hlewton]

The value remains at 0 yet upon the most recent reboot it defaulted to the Windows XP screen saver again. Any other suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

[HansV]

Check whether there is a ScreenSaveActive entry in any of the following registry keys:

HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Control Panel\Desktop

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Control Panel\Desktop

HKEY_USERS\.Default\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop

[hlewton]

Thanks Hans. I will check and report back.

[hlewton]

I only forum “ScreenSaveActive” in one of the keys suggested above and it too was set to “0”.

I decided to do a Registry search for “ScreenSaveActive” and found it in a few more keys. Two of them were set to “1” so I changed the following keys to “0”. They are:
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-19\Control Panel\Desktop
HKEY_USERS\S-1-5-20\Control Panel\Desktop


I found “ScreenSaveActive” in another key – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Win.ini\Windows had this value #USR:Control Panel\Desktop in the DATA key and I didn’t change it

[HansV]

I found “ScreenSaveActive” in another key – HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\IniFileMapping\Win.ini\Windows had this value #USR:Control Panel\Desktop in the DATA key and I didn’t change it

You did well not to change that value.

I'm out of ideas - perhaps it's time to reinstall Windows XP (or upgrade to Windows 7)...