Force a specific screen saver 1

[xcfmx]

We have a client that wants to force specific desktops to use a certain screensaver. I have found that this can be done using domain policy, however, the policy is per user and not per computer. What is the best way to implement this?

 

[Brimestone]

I had a client request the same thing once, the only way I could do it was to delete all but the one screen saver from all the computers. It worked fine.



Computers are like a bag of hammers, they won't do a damn thing until you pick it up and SMASH something with it!!

 

[mwiner]

you could always try loopback processing (computer policy). With that you can assign user policies to a computer. When a user logs into that computer the "user" settings for the computer will be applied to every user that logs in. You can still even apply different user polices like normal.

In the loopback processing you can tell it to replace or merge with the user's group policies.

Just do a google or microsoft search for loopback. It is kinda funky, and takes a good few times of reading though it to understand it. But very useful especially for terminal servers.

let us know how it goes.

 

[bcastner]

Open notepad and copy/paste the below. Edit the screensaver selections to what you want. Save the file as screen_saver.reg :

********* start copy/paste below this line
REGEDIT4

; prevent users setting screensaver options
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Policies\System]
"NoDispScrSavPage"=dword:00000001

; set screensaver feature active [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ScreenSaverActive"=dword:00000001

; Set the screensaver to be used: [HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop]
"SCRNSAVE.EXE"= "path and screensaver file"

; Password protect the screen saver
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ScreenSaverIsSecure"="1"

; Set Screen saver timeout
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ScreenSaveTimeOut"="value in seconds"

********** end copy/paste above this line

Make the edits for screensaver name, and timeout values. In both cases the quotation marks are important.

Screen saver name "gotchas"

. The filename of the screensaver should not have spaces:
E.g.: Marine Aquarium.scr > rename it MarineAquarium.scr

. Use short form files names in the registry.
The screensaver will work correctly if it is listed as so:
c:\windows\system32\marine~1.scr

. Watch for double sets of quotation marks:
Screen Savers do not work correctly if listed as so:
""c:\windows\system32\marine aquarium.scr""

Place you completed registry file in the logon script. The line should be:

regedit /s screen_saver.reg

 

[mwiner]

bcastner, Unless I am mistaken he wants to apply this policy to specific machines not users.

If he wanted to per user then the screen saver group policy would work.

-Matt

 

[xcfmx]

mwiner,

Your suggestion worked perfectly. I was not aware of loopback processing. Thanks a lot for your help.