Windows 10: Change Screen Saver Settings in Windows 10

How to: Change Screen Saver Settings in Windows 10

How to Change Screen Saver Settings in Windows 10


A screen saver is a moving picture or pattern that displays on the screen(s) of your PC after you have not been active on the PC for specified period of time to wait. Screen savers were originally used to save older, monochromatic monitors from damage, but now they are mainly a way to personalize your PC or enhance its security by offering password protection.

Windows comes with several screen savers. You can also use the Photos screen saver to create your own screen savers from personal pictures that you've saved in your Photos library. There are screen savers available to download from the web like from WinCustomize - Free Screen Saver Gallery.

This tutorial will show you how to change your screen saver settings to turn on or off screen saver and password protection on resume in Windows 10.

*note To turn on screen saver, select any screen saver (step 3) other than (None), select a wait time (step 6), and check or uncheck On resume, display logon screen (step 7).

*note To turn off screen saver, select (None) under "Screen saver"(step 3), and uncheck On resume, display logon screen (step 7).

*note To show the lock screen instead of a screen saver, select (None) under "Screen saver" (step 3), check On resume, display logon screen (step 7), and select a wait time (step 6).

*tip To stop a screen saver and return to your desktop, move your mouse, press a key on the keyboard, or touch the screen if it's a touchscreen.


EXAMPLE: Screen Saver Settings






Here's How:

1. Open Settings, click/tap on the Personalization icon, click/tap on Lock screen on the left side, and click/tap on the Screen saver settings link at the bottom of the right side. (see screenshot below)

*tip If you like, you can also press the Win+R keys to open Run, enter the command below into Run, and click/tap on OK to directly open Screen Saver Settings.

*Arrow rundll32.exe shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl,,1



2. Do the steps below.


3. Choose or Change Screen Saver
A) Select a screen saver you want in the Screen saver drop down menu. (see screenshot below)





4. Change Settings of Selected Screen Saver
A) Click/tap on the Settings button. (see screenshot below)



B) Choose the settings you want for the selected screen saver, and click/tap on OK. Some screen savers will not have any settings available for it. (see screenshots below)



















5. Preview Screen Saver
A) Click/tap on Preview to see what your screen saver will look like, before clicking OK in step 8 below. (see screenshot below)





6. Select Idle Time to Wait before showing Screen Saver
A) In the Wait drop down menu, select how many minutes you want Windows to wait while you are inactive on the PC before showing the selected screen saver. (see screenshot below)





7. Turn On or Off Password Protection on Resume from Screen Saver
A) Check (turn on) or uncheck (turn off) the On resume, display logon screen box. (see screenshot below)




8. When finished, click/tap on OK.


That's it,
Shawn


Related Tutorials

• How to Enable or Disable Screen Saver in Windows
• How to Enable or Disable Changing Screen Saver in Windows
• How to Create Screen Saver Settings Shortcut in Windows 10
• How to Change Screen Saver Grace Period to Bypass Password Protection in Windows
• How to Change your Theme in Windows 10
• How to Add or Remove 'Personalize (classic)' context menu in Windows 10
• How to Automatically Lock Computer in Windows 10
• How to Automatically Lock Windows 10 PC with your Phone
• How to Enable or Disable Screen Saver Password Protection in Windows
• How to Specify Screen Saver Timeout in Windows
• How to Specify a Screen Saver in Windows

:)

 

Problem with Screen Saver display on windows 10

Old title: Screen Saver on windows 10

I updated from windows 8 to 10 and now I am having problems with the screen saver not showing pictures on a full screen. Any suggestions? I have tried changing the resolution but it is set at the highest.

 

Windows 10 sleeps after every 1 minutes

Check your screen saver!

I had this problem too. I trouble-shot and changed every power setting I could find. However the problem was that the SCREEN SAVER in my new Windows 10 computer had come set to 1 minute! To find the screen saver (which is NOT with the power settings),
open your control panel. Select Personalization. Now select Screen Saver, which may be one of the icons along the bottom of the window. Now you can set your screen saver to come on after some more reasonable amount of time.

It's kind of amazing and annoying how hidden the screen saver choices were.

 

Hello mdrew, *Smile

I don't understand what you want to know about step 10. Please provide more details.

 

whoops. You nailed it in #10. I need to read better. Feel free to delete these posts. Thanks Brink. Loving tenforums btw.

 

That's ok. I'm just glad it was able to help. *Smile

 

ah, it did it again. I need to reframe the question/comment. "Disable password prompt on Resume"
Right here: Require Sign-in on Wakeup - Turn On or Off in Windows 10 - Windows 10 Forums
was the password I was getting prompted for. This fixed it. Maybe a cross post would be helpful?

 

Great news. It's fine. *Smile

 

Brink, help! Please. I'm looking for a registry tweak for step 10 above.
I'd like to click one icon and add or remove the check mark for On resume, display logon screen. Obviously one .reg file to turn it on, and one reg file to turn it off would be appropriate, but I can't find the darn registry key. Any help would be appreciated. All the tweaks I've tried were for previous versions of Windows and don't work with Windows 10 (free 64 bit version) Thanks

 

Hello paj692, and welcome to Ten Forums. *Smile

You could use a group policy setting to toggle this. Check the On resume, display logon screen box to have it turned on, then use the group policy .reg files bellow to toggle enable/disable.

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

ScreenSaverIsSecure

0 = disabled
(delete) = enabled


Enable_screen_saver_password_protection.reg

Disable_screen_saver_password_protection.reg

(To undo the above if needed)
Undo_screen_saver_password_protection_policy.reg

 

Thanks Brink for the speedy reply. That was just like one of the tweaks I'd seen for a previous version of Windows. It neither places a check mark in the box or removes a check mark from the box, but I'm going to see if it worked anyway. I just figured I had the wrong key. Thanks anyway.

 

It won't check/uncheck the box, but will enable or disable the box instead.

This way you can check the box, then enable or disable it as you like to effectively turn it on and off. Think of it like leaving a lamp turned on, and then unplugging an plugging it to turn it on and off instead for a workaround.

 

Sorry I didn't make it clear what I was after. I have saved screensaver properties dialog on my desktop as a link and can open it and place a checkmark or not all I want. What I really want is to cause a checkmark to appear or disappear, thus either requiring a password to be entered or not to be entered without opening any dialogs or running any msc's. I'd like a registry tweak to place a checkmark there and thus to require a password on wake, or to remove the checkmark, thus not requiring a password on wake. Can this be easily accomplished?

 

That's basically what I posted will do for you, but enable/disable instead of on/off. I'm not aware of any other way.

 

I tried what you suggested and it didn't have any effect at all. The unchecked on resume, display logon screen opened up to the desktop after I applied the fix you suggested. And the checkmarked on resume, display logon screen opened to the logon screen after I applied the fix you suggested. Are you sure that is the right registry key for windows 10 64bit? I mean when I place a checkmark there, does the value change from 0 to one? and when I remove the checkmark does the value of that key change from one to 0? Thanks for all your quick replies.