Why does my screensaver delay keep resetting, and how do I stop it?

I ran without a screensaver for a long time, but recently I enabled one. I set the delay to 10 minutes, but this setting will not hold. It keeps changing to 1 minute.

I am able to apply the 10 minute setting, and I can close and open the Properties dialog and see that the setting is 10 minutes. However, every day at some point I notice that the screensaver comes on after only a minute of inactivity, and when I check the setting it is back to "Wait 1 minutes."

I have done a virus and malware scan, and found nothing.
I tried a different display driver revision, just in case it might help.

What could be causing this?

Can the screensaver itself change this setting?

Is it possible to "lock" the setting so that programs cannot change it?

I used Process Monitor as recommended, and I found an instance of the setting being changed from 600 to 60 (seconds). The process command was:

"C:\WINDOWS\system32\rundll32.exe" /d C:\WINDOWS\system32\shell32.dll,Control_RunDLL desk.cpl

The only thing I did with desk.cpl during the monitored time was was to turn on and off a second display. This apparently does not happen every time I do this, or it would have happened sooner.

Again, what's causing this, and how do I stop it?

Heptite is also experiencing this problem. He is using Windows 7 (Ultimate, 64-bit) on a laptop.

"Mine was resetting from a value higher than 10 to exactly 10 minutes for a while, but now it's resetting to 1 minute like you're experiencing."

Mr.Wizard

Posted 2011-04-11T04:47:28.573

Reputation: 1 309

1Are you on a domain with a group policy? – ChrisF – 2011-04-11T09:43:39.347

@ChrisF this is on my personal machine. I don't recall setting up something like this but anything is possible. How do I check for what you're thinking of? – Mr.Wizard – 2011-04-11T09:58:21.223

I think you'd remember if you'd set up a domain ;) I'm not on XP at the moment so I can't double check the option you need. – ChrisF – 2011-04-11T10:24:00.967

I'm seeing mine reset to 10 minutes from any value greater than 10 minutes. Have you been able to discover what's happening? – Heptite – 2011-04-24T19:42:20.870

I monitored it for a while and saw several more instances of the change as recorded above, but I have not found a way to stop it from happening. Please let me know if you do! – Mr.Wizard – 2011-04-24T23:59:10.557

Now mine is randomly resetting to 1 minute. This is exceedingly frustrating. – Heptite – 2011-04-30T07:09:02.533

@Heptite, quite. :-S – Mr.Wizard – 2011-04-30T07:27:21.843

@Heptite please consider starting a bounty for this question. I am just getting going here and I don't want to lose my rep/privileges, or I would do it myself. Of course I understand if you don't want to lose yours either. – Mr.Wizard – 2011-05-02T10:54:42.973

Bounty started. – Heptite – 2011-05-02T17:46:09.170

@Heptite thanks :-) Please edit the question to include your information, or comment here, and I'll add what you want. – Mr.Wizard – 2011-05-03T00:31:30.263

I don't really have any more information, except that mine was resetting from a value higher than 10 to exactly 10 minutes for a while, but now it's resetting to 1 minute like you're experiencing. I also believe you experience it with more frequency than I do--I can go for a day or two before it resets. – Heptite – 2011-05-03T02:11:24.513

Oh, I should mention I'm on Windows 7 (Ultimate, 64bit) rather than XP, and my machine is a laptop. – Heptite – 2011-05-03T02:14:31.140

Is it Intel, nVidia or AMD graphics in either/both systems? – Mokubai – 2011-05-03T21:44:16.080

@Mokubai nVidia 7950GT and driver version 266.58 here. I updated drivers (to this) and the problem remains. – Mr.Wizard – 2011-05-03T23:33:21.583

AMD Turion 64x2, nVidia on my machine. (And I didn't see this question until this morning because there was no notification.) – Heptite – 2011-05-08T17:52:33.693

Bounty expired. Oh well. – Heptite – 2011-05-09T22:53:12.987

@Heptite I am sorry it did not solve your problem (an mine), but thank you for giving it. I will continue to seek an explanation and/or solution, and I will update this (and @notify you) with anything useful I find. – Mr.Wizard – 2011-05-10T07:20:24.167

@Mr.Wizard - Are you still experiencing this problem? For me the issue sortof went away on me at some point and I totally forgot about this question here on SU. – Heptite – 2013-12-28T01:08:38.397

@Heptite I stopped using Windows XP two years ago, partly for this reason. I never did figure out what the problem was. I haven't had it happen in Windows 7. – Mr.Wizard – 2013-12-28T01:35:35.977

Answers

Open ProcMon and watch for any Registry operation where Path contains ScreenSaveTimeOut.

You can exclude read operations such as RegOpenKey or RegQueryValue, and only look for writes.

(Edit: fixed value name)

user1686

Posted 2011-04-11T04:47:28.573

Reputation: 283 655

1I wasn't getting the right stuff at first, but it appears the key name is ScreenSaveTimeOut. I shall monitor that and see if I learn anything. – Mr.Wizard – 2011-04-11T07:27:03.460

The next step is to go back to Process Monitor and figure out what's launching that rundll32 command.

Filter for Operation Process Create and Path c:\windows\system32\rundll32.exe. That should tell you what process in your system is kicking off the offending setting change.

Once you know which process is at fault, you can take 'corrective action' against the offending program.

Jason Sherman

Posted 2011-04-11T04:47:28.573

Reputation: 1 071

I have been trying to trace this, but I'm having two problems. First is that I have not been able to properly set up procmon to show me the registry operations for ScreenSaveTimeOut for some reason (probably PEBKAC), which I need to do to verify that my system is getting the setting changed in the same way that @Mr.Wizard's is. The second is that lately I have not been able to reproduce the problem, at all. – Heptite – 2011-05-06T07:03:36.390

-1

I am having the same issue on my iMac. I had screensaver set to come on immediately for years. This was fine. But recently, I wanted to set a longer delay. And no matter what I change it to, each day I find it is reset to "immediately". This means I have to keep putting in PW every time the screen saver comes on! I have tried toggling the checkbox; but that does nothing. I even tried leaving the system prefs open indef. Interestingly, when I came in this morning, I noted that the system prefs still said "5 minutes", just as I had left it. But I noticed that the PW was being requested immediately. So I refreshed the Prefs pane (by switching out and back to the "Security & Privacy" settings and, sure enough, the setting had been reset to "immediately"! Very strange. And, so far, despite NUMEROUS attempts over several days, this seems to be the ONLY post I have been able to find where someone else is reporting the same thing. But seems like all of you guys are Windows users. Also doesn't appear that you guys have found a solution.

user573513

Posted 2011-04-11T04:47:28.573

Reputation: 1

Please don't leave answers stating that you have the same problem as the one described in the question. If you have sufficient reputation, you may upvote the question. Alternatively, "star" it as a favorite and you will be notified of any new answers.

– DavidPostill – 2016-03-21T18:45:55.977