Windows XP Screen Savers

Ron Knapp · 3rd June 2002

I have some screen savers ending with .SCR
When I put them into the "System" or System32
subdirectory, the name dosn't come up in the screen savers selection panel. Why? What else do I have to do?
Ron Knapp

Newt · 4th June 2002

Ron - I just played with this a little on my XP Pro system.

I put a .scr file I had downloaded into system32 where the screen savers want to hang out.

Did a right-click on the desktop~properties~screen savers and my new one was no where to be seen.

Went to the control panel~display and looked at screen savers that way. And darned if it wasn't right there.

Then tried the desktop~properties thing again and now it showed up just like it had been there forever..

Ron Knapp · 4th June 2002

Thanks for your comments. I doubled checked and the file (ending in .scr) is in the system32 subdirectory. I looked at the screen savers via control panel and also right click on the front screen. I still don't see my screen saver in the list.
Maybe there is another file that has to hold the screen savers names or something?
Ron

richmusick · 4th June 2002

As a thought I created a bogus .scr file and placed it in the system32 directory.

I had 12 .scr files and 12 showed in the Screen saver list.

after adding the renamed text file, it showed in the system32 directory but will not show in the Screen saver list.

The file is not recognized as a useable screen saver.

When viewing in a Hex editor, all the .scr files that work on my system has the same start sequence of bytes; Even the ones by 3rd party programs such as Ofoto.

Zephyr · 4th June 2002

XP cannot run 16-bit screensavers so that may be your problem. There are some work around programs that will allow it so do a Google search and you'll no doubt find something.

edit, I found something mentioned here so I'll pass it along without endorsement.