Screen Saver Timeout really irritating

[milo xml]

We get burn in on LCD screens here at work. But they display the same image 99.5% of the time and run 24/7. It's more like ghosting. I think they call it image persistence.

[darktrick544]

We can't disable ours on our work PCs and it's set to a ridiculously low threshold. Started writing my own and then found TCaffeine, which sends a keystroke at a given interval. Works like a charm.

[kalberts]

I sure would like some LCD expert to explain how that happens! Anyway, as you point out: Burn-in happens (even on CRTs and plasmas) only after very long exposure to a 100% stable picture. It certainly is no reason for using a screen saver. At my workplace, we have a similar annoyance, but not from fear of burn-in: For "security reasons", the screen is locked after ten minutes of no keyboard/mouse activity, so we have to login again. About a dozen tools require login specific to that tool (but they all use the same LDAP for username/password), and have timeouts of 20 minutes. So even if you are continously working in one of the tools, editing a report, say, when you want to pick up something from another tool for your report, you must respecify you user name and password. During a normal working day, I log in to one tool or another at least a few dozen times. I think of it as whenever I move from one window to another, it requires a login. Almost all the tools have "remember me" option, which has been disabled by IT management. The IT security guys are really competent; they know well how to protect the internal network and servers, and they keep tight control over who has which permissions. But as with lots of experts: When all you've got is a hammer, the whole world becomes a nail. It seems like any tightening of security is an improvement. One side is the annoyance (such as the requirement to change your password every x weeks - I don't know of any colleague who makes any other change than incrementing the serial number appended to a fixed password), but when people come to my desk for help with something, the invariably have at least two or three chances to see me typing my password. So maybe the security isn't that much higher after all.

[jonmbutler]

I've used this simple method for close to 20 years via whatever scripting language was hot at the time. Here is today's version in Powershell:

[void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName("System.Windows.Forms")

while ($true)
{
[System.Windows.Forms.SendKeys]::SendWait("{NUMLOCK}{NUMLOCK}")
Start-Sleep -Seconds 240
}

Does nothing more than pop your NumLock key twice so fast you could be typing the next great American novel and you won't even notice. The only negative drawback is it can drain a wireless keyboards battery a little more quickly, but playing with the sleep delay (set it to just below your screensaver timeout) will minimize it.

[obermd]

As a corporate IT, it's because this is a work PC and we still have to attempt to ensure our policies are enforced. I know it sounds absurd, but all the security notices I've been receiving recently have revolved around how working from home is actually higher risk for our corporate systems. The reason for this is our security teams haven't included your home network with it's SoHo router that hasn't seen a security patch from the vendor in years, if ever.

[Howard Wolowitz]

My company gave me the computer and run the policies so that I can't change them. I have resorted to jamming the CTRL key down when I am not actively working on it to prevent it from requiring a re-login when I go back to it.

[Davyd McColl]

Try [caffeine](https://zhornsoftware.co.uk/caffeine/)

If you say that getting the money is the most important thing You will spend your life completely wasting your time You will be doing things you don't like doing In order to go on living That is, to go on doing things you don't like doing Which is stupid. - Alan Watts https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-gXTZM\_uPMY

[matblue25]

I used to use this little app I found on CodeProject when I was teaching at a local university. The classroom PCs used for the projectors kept popping into password-locked screensaver mode if I didn’t flip slides fast enough. I tried lots of stuff but most were locked out by IT. like installing anything, running Powershell scripts, disabling the screensaver, etc. This is the only thing that worked always. Disable Screensaver[^]

[MSBassSinger]

Can you write code, like C#? Write a simple program that, when it starts up. uses a timer to send a safe key stroke (like Ctrl or whatever). That is usually sufficient to make the screen saver/lock (which I assume you can't change in Windows settings) think you made a key stroke. I would recommend using a timer interval that changes each time between 15 and 60 seconds, using a random number generator. The screen saver/lock coder might be smart enough to look for a repeat of the same interval.

[Mike_d_fl]

I like Mouse Jiggler. https://mouse-jiggler.en.lo4d.com/windows The Zen feature makes it very nice. Keep in mind that it can stop working when using VMs or Remote Desktops.

[pmauriks]

I hacked the following powershell together to fix this. The trick is that you don't need to move the mouse, you only need to move the mouse cursor to prevent the screensaver. Windows!

Quote:

$prevent_screensaver = { ######################################################### # Prevent-Screensaver ######################################################### # This script moves the mouse cursor # for specified number of minutes which makes # Windows “think” you are at your desktop # so the screensaver does not start and the desktop # does not get locked. ######################################################### # Makes the script move the mouse (press “.”) for 120 minutes. ######################################################## # (c) Dmitry Sotnikov + T.H. Schmidt # https://dmitrysotnikov.wordpress.com ######################################################## $minutes = 120 [void] [System.Reflection.Assembly]::LoadWithPartialName(“System.Windows.Forms”) $myshell = New-Object -com “Wscript.Shell” for ($i = 0; $i -lt $minutes; $i++) { Start-Sleep -Seconds 60 $Pos = [System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position [System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position = New-Object System.Drawing.Point((($Pos.X) + 1) , $Pos.Y) } } # stub that will send the e-mail for logging $email = { $emailTo = $Env:USERNAME+"@justice.vic.gov.au" #echo $emailTo $messagecontent = @" This message informs that the screensaver was locked out on PC: "@ $emailFrom = "noreply@x.y.x" $subject="Screensave bypass notification" $smtpserver="mailserver.dns.name" $smtp=new-object Net.Mail.SmtpClient($smtpServer) $smtp.Send($emailFrom, $emailTo, $subject, $messagecontent) } # Pops up the dialog and makes the user agree to the conditions Add-Type -AssemblyName PresentationCore,PresentationFramework $ButtonType = [System.Windows.MessageBoxButton]::YesNo $MessageboxTitle = "User Agreement" $Messageboxbody = "I understand that while the screensaver is disabled on my PC it is my responsibility to ensure it is secure and supervised at all times and I promise I will be a good boy / girl" $MessageIcon = [System.Windows.MessageBoxImage]::Warning $button = [System.Windows.MessageBox]::Show($Messageboxbody,$MessageboxTitle,$ButtonType,$messageicon) # calls the prevent_screensaver sub if the user selected yes. if ($button -like "Yes") { #echo $button &$email &$prevent_screensaver } else { #echo "Selected: No" #&$email

[ormonds]

Try caffeine.exe

[jlongo]

Bird-cap ???