Monday, September 29, 2008

Windows XP (Vista?) Login Screen - Screen Saver

I was searching on how to disable the "Windows XP" screen saver on the login screen, and simply have it use the "Blank Screen" Screen-saver.

The url this post links to, describes where (near the bottom of the page) to go in the registry to edit this setting, but didn't mention how to set it to the blank screen, add my recipe to it to get the blank / black screen screen-saver.

Browse to the following key with regedit: HKEY_USERS\.DEFAULT\Control Panel\Desktop
In the right side of the window, change the SCRNSAVE.EXE entry by double clicking on it, to contain:

C:\WINDOWS\system32\scrnsave.scr

That's all.... this can also be used to change to any other screen saver, just point it to the appropriate file.

WHY?: I did this on some vmware virtual windows XP machines to reduce any extra load the screen savers would put on them while they were sitting at the login screens.

EDIT: another link to microsoft on the subject:
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314493