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I have the following situation:

Due to security reasons the screensaver is activated after 10 minutes, and immediately locks the screen.
There are GPOs preventing the user from changing the screensaver parameters and the background image.

In order to bypass the background policy, some users are using bginfo

The problem is that for some reason now the screensaver doesn't work anymore.
The settings are still the same (10 minutes; locked to the user) and comparing snapshots of the registry before and after executing bginfo doesn't show any significant modification.

Any hints?

EDIT 1:

Ok, i figured whats going on, but now i have another question.
bginfo refreshes the user settings by reading HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop, which has ScreenSaveActive.
If the user set it to 0, disables the screensaver.

Why isnt HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop, which sets ScreenSaveActive to 1, being enforced?

or if it is being enforced, where is bginfo storing the value 0, and how can it bypass the policy?

EDIT 2:

I also discovered that after setting any value to HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop\ScreenSaveActive, it can be deleted and the last value will remain active.

For some reason HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Policies\Microsoft\Windows\Control Panel\Desktop\ScreenSaveActive value is not being enforced to the user.

RASG
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  • Run gpedit.msc on the local machine and see if the local security policy is being changed. Local security policy will take precedence over the policies section of the registry, I believe. – Phillip R. Mar 09 '12 at 01:20
  • nm I am wrong. it is the other way around. – Phillip R. Mar 09 '12 at 01:24
  • In general, user group policy can be bypassed by writing the changes directly to the registry. That may be what is happening here. Usually the group policy will refresh itself after a few hours, though. – Harry Johnston Mar 16 '12 at 04:37

1 Answers1

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Users may also have wireless mouse. Had issue recently with a Microsoft Arc wireless. Without drivers installed, the mouse always send traffic as if it was moving.So the screensaver never start, as it thought the user is active. Also happens with Logitech Mouse.

I use bginfo on many customers at logon, screensaver is working anyway.

Mathieu Chateau
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  • Yeah, we used BGInfo at the last company I worked for, and never had this problem, the user isn't an admin is he? – MDT Guy Dec 09 '13 at 19:58