How to Deploy a New Screen Saver Using ConfigMgr 2007
Many enterprise customers today rely on a consistent company screen saver, and while that's usually something that's rolled out with the standard corporate desktop image, what if you need to change it later? You can use Group Policy for that, but the problem is that it can disable screen saver settings for users and they will not be able to change them. Fortunately with System Center Configuration Manager 2007 or SMS 2003, changing that screen saver is just a few clicks away:
To deploy your new screen saver you will need 3 files:
- The screensaver file (e.g. screensaver.scr)
- A registry file that will configure the screensaver settings (e.g. screenscr.reg)
- A batch file that will copy the screensaver and apply the settings (e.g. screenscr.bat)
The basic settings for screenscr.reg should look something like this:
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00
[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop]
“ScreenSaverIsSecure”=”1"
“ScreenSaveTimeOut”=”900"
“ScreenSaveActive”=”1"
“SCRNSAVE.EXE”=”C:\WINDOWS\screensaver.scr”
Exactly what you use here will depend on the name of your SCR file as well as the specific settings you wish to deploy. Most of these settings should be self explanatory but note that ScreenSaverTimeOut is the time out in seconds.
Next create a batch file (screenscr.bat) and add the following lines:
@echo off
regedit /s screenscr.reg
copy screensaver.scr %windir%
Then put all three files in one folder and create a package pointing to it. Create a program and select screenscr.bat as your program. Also check "Suppress program notifications" so that the users don't get notifications.
Note: When creating the advertisement it is important that in the Advanced client tab you select to Download the program because if you don’t do that it will fail. If this happens, when the program runs on client PC the user will probably just see a command prompt popping up and then quickly disappearing.
Note: This also applies to SMS 2003
Also remember that this may not work with every screen saver so be sure to test yours fully before rolling it out.
Note: This information was originally contributed by Rajsekhar Banerjee, System Center Technical Lead, on the Configuration Manager Support Team blog: