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group policy on xp that we could modify to change the screensaver all accounts on the pc,all users, default users, and existing users, for each pc

would love to automate this using landedsk and my learn how to do this automatically but not sure landesk can/will do it. boss wants to run a ppt as the screen saver for educational purposes. first, not sure in registry where we need to change this policy - yes, familiar with gpedit.msc and have made changes there but stuck on his onel it only affects current user logged in. we have a landesk guru who can help automate this process for all our workstations/and hopefull all users, if we can tell him EXACTLY which registry key and item needs to be modified. Beats having to visit 160 pc's, especially since this ppt file wiill continue to be updated. We can get the ppt file to run as a ssaver for the current user logged in, but we have many multiuser pc's as well. Hope this makes sense. Thanks in advance for any help!

louisreeves

Sorry there's ads in the link. However, the gpo settings are there. This is for win 7 but you just pick a policy for clients xp in gpmc.msc.
http://4sysops.com/archives/set-the-default-forced-screen-
saver-in-group-policy-logon-scr-in-windows-7/

http://4sysops.com/archives/set-the-default-forced-screen-saver-in-group-policy-logon-scr-in-windows-7/

If you are not in a domain then you can't do it centrally. If you are in a domain .the keys are in the link just right click the xp client policy and go edit. Follow the article from there

L

stateofmind

ASKER

louisreeves, thank you for the quick response. We are back in the dark ages and don't have Active Directory. Is there a solution for this that doesn't rely on Active Directory? All the workstations are in the same Workgroup, but that's old school. If we are sure of the registry locations that would affect any current users and any newly created users (off of default user profile), we can probably push it out with Landesk. Just not sure where in the registry that is. We found we could do what we wanted to with the current user, but not the others. Hope that makes sense. Thank you in advance.

MarkieS

Your registry settings for Screensaver are in

HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop - An export shows what I have set

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
"ScreenSaveActive"="1"
"ScreenSaverIsSecure"="1"
"ScreenSaveTimeOut"="894"
"SCRNSAVE.EXE"="c:\\Screensaver.scr"

stateofmind

ASKER

Do these settings, once applied to the pc, affect every user, whether they are new, using the default user profile, or an already established user on that pc, or can these settings be put into an allusers profile? Would that overwrite or negate any previous existing settings in a user's account that has already been established on that pc? If so, we might be able to effect this change during their login script since we are running novell 6.5 and not AD. Let me know what you think please. Thanks.

MarkieS

This is in the HK Current user Hive. It will only affect the current user when changed.

If you are running a login script that each user runs at login then you can change each existing user's screensaver behaviour and any new users that login..

If you make the change in the HK_USERS/.Default this will affect all NEW users profiles that login. But it wont affect the existing users profile.

In your login script put a reference to run this registry "push" - this will then ensure all current users and any new users get the same settings.

There isn't such a thing as the AllUsersProfile - A new profile is created for each user when they login. This is based on the HK_Users/.default profile.

Hope this helps...

stateofmind

ASKER

Thanks. Will try to figure out how to push it from the default login script ... none of our users have admin rights so I need something that will get around that and modify the registry when they login as a power user instead of an admin user. That's the trick.

MarkieS

If you have a LANDESK Guru he should be able to deploy registry changes...

I would set up a test PC.
Make the necessary Registry changes and files to get the screensave working as you want.

Using regedt32 - Export the Registry settings HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop to a xxxxx.reg file

Edit the xxxxx.reg file and remove any lines you dont need

Give the Reg file to your LANDESK Guru and ask him to deploy it, along with the ppt file

stateofmind

ASKER

We're not sure which reg key affects all users, new and old, on every pc. We're don't know Landesk well enough yet to push registry changes, and need to make sure that can happen whether the user is on the pc or not, since none of our users are admins, just power users. Does HKCU cover both a new and old user as well? Thanks.

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MarkieS

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stateofmind

ASKER

A huge help!