A Screensaver is a computer software program that blanks the screen with moving images or patterns when the computer is not in use. The original purpose of screensavers was to prevent phosphor burn-in on CRT. Though modern monitors are not susceptible to this issue, Screensavers are still used for other decorative/entertainment purposes. In this guide, I will be showing you how to prevent Windows users from changing the screen saver of a windows computer. This sometimes is very necessary for some corporate environments where employees are restricted from setting some inappropriate images as their screen savers.
No matter the windows edition you are using just have it at the back of your mind that the process of preventing screen saver is very easy and not a herculean task. By default, Windows comes with six built-in screen savers that you can select from. If you want to read more on the Windows system you can read these: How to Upgrade Windows 11 Pro to Enterprise and vice Versa, How to install Windows 11 on HyperV, and How to Install Windows Admin Center on Windows 10 & 11.
In this guide, I will be using windows 10 to demonstrate the best way to achieve this.
After logging on with the appropriate account, open the Registry Editor by hitting Start and typing “regedit.” Press Enter to open Registry Editor and give it permission to make changes to your PC.
In the Registry Editor, use the left sidebar to navigate to the following key if you want to disable screen saver settings for the currently logged in user:
But note that the following locations is perform the same action and the steps are the same except that HKEY_CURRENT_USER apply only to the currently logged in user, while HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE apply to all users.
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It is very possible that you might not see a key named “System” under the Policies key, all you need to do is to create one.
Right-click the Policies key and select New > Key and give it the name “System”. But if the System is already there then skip to the next step.
Next, let’s create a new value inside the System key. Right-click the System key and choose New > DWORD (32-bit) Value. You can name the new value “NoDispScrSavPage” and then double-click the new value to open its properties window. In the Value data box change the value to 1 and click ok.
After configuring all this when you try to open the screen saver setting you should get the below message.
Kindly refer to the YouTube video on how to prevent users from changing the screensaver through the Windows Registry Settings.
I hope you found this blog post on How to Prevent Windows Users from Changing the Screen Saver interesting and helpful. In case you have any questions do not hesitate to ask in the comment section.