Seting screen saver exeuctable name in GPO has side effects

Setting the Group Policy item "Screen Saver executable name" to
"SomeFilename.scr" whilst leaving the "Password protect the screen saver" not
configured does not work as documented.

According to both common sense and the documentation it should leave the
"Password protect the screen saver" choice to the user but the actual effect
is that the "Password protect the screen saver" checkbox is cleared and
greyed out. (And the screen saver is not actually enabled).

The reason for this is that half the system thinks "SomeFilename.scr" is not
a valid screen saver whilst the other half thinks it is.

The work-round is to specify the screen saver as
"%SystemRoot%\system32\SOMEFI~1.SCR" and then it all works as it should.

Brian McCauley wrote:
> Setting the Group Policy item "Screen Saver executable name" to
> "SomeFilename.scr" whilst leaving the "Password protect the screen
> saver" not configured does not work as documented.
>
> According to both common sense and the documentation it should
> leave the "Password protect the screen saver" choice to the user
> but the actual effect is that the "Password protect the screen
> saver" checkbox is cleared and greyed out. (And the screen saver is
> not actually enabled).
>
> The reason for this is that half the system thinks
> "SomeFilename.scr" is not a valid screen saver whilst the other
> half thinks it is.
>
> The work-round is to specify the screen saver as
> "%SystemRoot%\system32\SOMEFI~1.SCR" and then it all works as it
> should.

What are you referring to? What specific 'documentation'?

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

"Shenan Stanley" wrote:

> Brian McCauley wrote:
> > Setting the Group Policy item "Screen Saver executable name" to
> > "SomeFilename.scr" whilst leaving the "Password protect the screen
> > saver" not configured does not work as documented.
> >
> > According to both common sense and the documentation it should
> > leave the "Password protect the screen saver" choice to the user
> > but the actual effect is that the "Password protect the screen
> > saver" checkbox is cleared and greyed out. (And the screen saver is
> > not actually enabled).
> >
> > The reason for this is that half the system thinks
> > "SomeFilename.scr" is not a valid screen saver whilst the other
> > half thinks it is.
> >
> > The work-round is to specify the screen saver as
> > "%SystemRoot%\system32\SOMEFI~1.SCR" and then it all works as it
> > should.
>
> What are you referring to? What specific 'documentation'?

Well, primarily the "explaination" tabs on the desktop settings in GPO
editor. The same information is repeated in many places.

But let's face it that's not really relevant. The fact that the 8.3 name
works as one would intuatively expect and the long name does something else
means this is a bug plain and simple.

Brian McCauley wrote:
> "Shenan Stanley" wrote:
>
>> Brian McCauley wrote:
>>> Setting the Group Policy item "Screen Saver executable name" to
>>> "SomeFilename.scr" whilst leaving the "Password protect the screen
>>> saver" not configured does not work as documented.
>>>
>>> According to both common sense and the documentation it should
>>> leave the "Password protect the screen saver" choice to the user
>>> but the actual effect is that the "Password protect the screen
>>> saver" checkbox is cleared and greyed out. (And the screen saver
>>> is not actually enabled).
>>>
>>> The reason for this is that half the system thinks
>>> "SomeFilename.scr" is not a valid screen saver whilst the other
>>> half thinks it is.
>>>
>>> The work-round is to specify the screen saver as
>>> "%SystemRoot%\system32\SOMEFI~1.SCR" and then it all works as it
>>> should.
>>
>> What are you referring to? What specific 'documentation'?
>
> Well, primarily the "explaination" tabs on the desktop settings in
> GPO editor. The same information is repeated in many places.
>
> But let's face it that's not really relevant. The fact that the 8.3
> name works as one would intuatively expect and the long name does
> something else means this is a bug plain and simple.

Not necessarily.

Did you try putting the long path name in quotes? Traditionally, long
filenames/paths - especially those containing spaces, etc - are put in
quotes.

--
Shenan Stanley
MS-MVP
--
How To Ask Questions The Smart Way
http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html