Windows 7 screensaver options greyed out

Question

Possible Duplicate:
Disable GPO in windows 7

I'm working on a Win 7 Enterprise x64 box that had its screensaver disabled by sys admins. However, using this technique, I was able to at least enable the Screen Saver Settings dialog box to pop up.

Now, in that dialog box, the choice of screensavers is only "Blank" and the dropdown box is greyed out. Any way around this using a registry hack? I'm a full admin on my machine which is part of a domain. Thanks.

Solution

Group policy is normally set to refresh workstations between 90-120 minutes, this means any change you make to the system will only be available for that specified period of time. As you are looking to change the screensaver this may be possible.

You can create a local policy that overwrites the domain policy, but it will only work until the domain GPO is refreshed.

If you really want to change it from blank try renaming your desired screensaver to scrnsave.scr

If you don't know where it is search for it:

dir /s | findstr "scrnsave.scr"

Comments

[Iszi]

I know it's "just a screensaver" but maybe you should stop trying to circumvent the sysadmins' configurations in your work environment?

[Ilnyr]

I know, I know, but the geek in me says to find an answer :)

[Ƭᴇcʜιᴇ007]

Then the geek in you should learn about how group policies work instead of coming here asking how to circumvent security on things you don't own. ;) Check out allcomputers.us/windows_server/…

[Mason Bryant]

Maybe the sysadmins should stop messing with my work environment? ;)

[Ilnyr]

Thanks, Dan M. I found this article that's somewhat helpful: blogs.technet.com/b/markrussinovich/archive/2005/04/30/… However, it doesn't address the greyed out dropdown box in the Screen Saver Settings dialog. I'm trying to find a list of all registry keys that have to do with screen savers. Thanks.