HOWTO: How to Set a Screen Saver Through a System Policy

MORE INFORMATION

This policy enables three options in the user-based portion of a policy:

• The choice of screen saver.
• Enabling the screen saver.
• Enabling the password for the screen saver.

The screen saver will use the Default Wait time of 15 minutes. To use this policy, perform the following steps:

1. Enter the text below that is between the rows of hyphens (-) into a text file and save it as Scrsave.adm in the Winnt\Inf folder.
2. Open System Policy Editor and click Options and then click Policy Template.
3. Add Scrsave.adm to the listed template files.
4. The additional options will show under any user or group in the policy, with a label of "Screen Saver Policies."

Scrsave.adm <start>

   CLASS USER

   CATEGORY  !!Screen_Saver_Policy
           POLICY !!Screen_Saver
           KEYNAME "Control Panel\Desktop"
                   PART !!Screen_Saver_Location EDITTEXT
                   DEFAULT !!DEF_SCREEN_SAVER
                   VALUENAME SCRNSAVE.EXE
                   END PART
           END POLICY
           POLICY !!ENABLE_SCREEN_SAVER
           KEYNAME "Control Panel\Desktop"
                   VALUENAME ScreenSaveActive
                   VALUEON "1" VALUEOFF "0"
           END POLICY
           POLICY !!ENABLE_Password
           KEYNAME "Control Panel\Desktop"
                   VALUENAME ScreenSaverIsSecure
                   VALUEON "1" VALUEOFF "0"
           END POLICY
   END CATEGORY

   [strings]
   Screen_Saver_Policy="Screen Saver Policies"
   Screen_Saver="Screen Saver"
   ENABLE_SCREEN_SAVER="Enable Screen Saver"
   Screen_Saver_Location="Enter the location of the Screen Saver"
   DEF_Screen_Saver="%SYSTEMROOT%\system32\logon.scr"
   ENABLE_Password=Enable Password
				

Scrsave.adm <end>

For setting the amount of system idle time after which the screen saver will start:

In the CATEGORY !!Screen_Saver_Policy section add: In the [strings] section add: