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raddevus2-Apr-20 10:05

2-Apr-20 10:05

Oy!
Dilbert Comic Strip on 2005-08-02 | Dilbert by Scott Adams[^]

raddevus2-Apr-20 10:11

2-Apr-20 10:11

I've been put out to pasture...
Dilbert Comic Strip on 2008-12-24 | Dilbert by Scott Adams[^] Laugh | :laugh:

Eddy Vluggen2-Apr-20 13:13

Eddy Vluggen

2-Apr-20 13:13

How is that relevant to the topic?

Bastard Programmer from Hell Suspicious | :suss:

If you can't read my code, try converting it here[^]
"If you just follow the bacon Eddy, wherever it leads you, then you won't have to think about politics." -- Some Bell.

Rick York2-Apr-20 6:00

Rick York

2-Apr-20 6:00

This had been recurring problem where I work so I wrote my own screen save controller and disabling the screen saver is one of its options. This was really easy to write - there are only a few API functions that are used to control the screen saver. There is bound to be something similar available at this site already.

"They have a consciousness, they have a life, they have a soul! Damn you! Let the rabbits wear glasses! Save our brothers! Can I get an amen?"

Storm-blade2-Apr-20 6:13

Storm-blade

2-Apr-20 6:13

There's an app call Caffeine that will keep your computer awake...
(If you're allowed to install apps that is.).

Nelek2-Apr-20 7:37

2-Apr-20 7:37

If you have power point installed, an empty presentation should do the trick.

M.D.V.

If something has a solution... Why do we have to worry about?. If it has no solution... For what reason do we have to worry about?
Help me to understand what I'm saying, and I'll explain it better to you
Rating helpful answers is nice, but saying thanks can be even nicer.

k50542-Apr-20 7:42

k5054

2-Apr-20 7:42

I think You-Tube turns disables screen saver too. Does that work if you pause the playback, too?

Keep Calm and Carry On

Nelek2-Apr-20 7:50

2-Apr-20 7:50

I don't know... I use the ppt at work and is good for me. Empty document in desktop, double click, F5, Win+D, start normal work.

M.D.V.

raddevus2-Apr-20 10:31

2-Apr-20 10:31

Just tried those steps, and they are great. Thanks again. Thumbs Up | :thumbsup:

Nelek2-Apr-20 10:34

2-Apr-20 10:34

You are welcome

M.D.V.

raddevus2-Apr-20 10:20

2-Apr-20 10:20

This does seem to work. Very nice. I just have to alt-tab away and then things are normal.
Thanks!

Nelek2-Apr-20 10:35

2-Apr-20 10:35

I use Win+D to minimize to tray, so it doesn't stay in background

M.D.V.

RossMW2-Apr-20 8:48

RossMW

2-Apr-20 8:48

We had a group policy set on our pc as well but they have relaxed that rule since everyone working from home.

To get round the group policy when we were in the office years ago I wrote my own app that run on a timer few minutes to do something. Worked well on the old windows version but not very well on Win10 and I have not bothered to investigate further.

A small technical challenge for you...

A Fine is a Tax for doing something wrong
A Tax is a Fine for doing something good.

Sander Rossel2-Apr-20 23:25

Sander Rossel

2-Apr-20 23:25

Can't you just turn it off?

Anyway, the real reason people use screen savers is not because of security issues, but because the image may burn into your screen, (once) true story Poke tongue | ;-P

Best,
Sander

sanderrossel.com
Migrating Applications to the Cloud with Azure
arrgh.js - Bringing LINQ to JavaScript
Object-Oriented Programming in C# Succinctly

kalberts3-Apr-20 1:01

kalberts

3-Apr-20 1:01

Burn-in was a problem with CRTs, and to some degree with plasma. Those few cases I have seen reported with plasma was done deliberately, cranking up the brightness and contrast to maximum and leave a static picture on the screen for two weeks.

With LCD, it is practically non-exisistent - and I wish someone could give a good explanation why it would at all be possible. Yet, some people do insist that there is a slight bur-in effect even on LCDs. But
the light source knows nothing about the pattern displayed; it provides an even, white background light. The LCDs are "light valves" letting more or less of the white light through. I just cannot understand how these valves can have a memory of how much light they have let through the last two weeks (or years) and sort of "got stuck" in exactly that position, that degree of opening.

A valve does not produce any light itself (like plasma or phosphorus; it cannot "burn out" the same way. Certainly you can see materials fade from long time exposure to light, but that cannot be the case with LCD burn-in: They are all exposed to the same intensity white backlight, independent of how much the valve is opened.

milo-xml3-Apr-20 2:07

milo-xml

3-Apr-20 2:07

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.

kalberts3-Apr-20 2:28

kalberts

3-Apr-20 2:28

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.

darktrick5443-Apr-20 2:25

darktrick544

3-Apr-20 2:25

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.

jonmbutler3-Apr-20 3:43

jonmbutler

3-Apr-20 3:43

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.

obermd3-Apr-20 4:13

obermd

3-Apr-20 4:13

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 Wolowitz3-Apr-20 5:36

Howard Wolowitz

3-Apr-20 5:36

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 McColl3-Apr-20 6:31

Davyd McColl

3-Apr-20 6:31

Try 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

matblue253-Apr-20 9:04

matblue25

3-Apr-20 9:04

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[^]

MSBassSinger3-Apr-20 10:48

MSBassSinger

3-Apr-20 10:48

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.