I have a W7 PC and when the bubbles screensaver starts, the bubbles fly all over the screen at a dizzy rate instead of neatly sliding and bouncing round. Any ideas a) why and b) how to sort it?
Windows 7 Desktop Screensaver (bubbles) going very fast
screensaverwindows 7
Related Solutions
I'm not 100% sure if these steps will work if someone isn't logged on though!
To enable the screensaver, first choose the screensaver you want. Look in C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32 for files with the .SCR extension - typically there are the following (at least on my Enterprise Installation)...
- SSTEXT3D - 3D Text
- BUBBLES.SCR - Bubbles
- MYSTIFY.SCR - Mystify
- PHOTOSCREENSAVER.SCR - Photos
- RIBBONS.SCR - Ribbons
One of the things to be aware of is that you don't appear to have Direct3D support at the logon screen so the builtin screensavers above won't work. Unless you have another file you might want to grab the LOGON.SCR file from an earlier operating system.
Once you have your screensaver (in my case LOGON.SCR), open your registry editor and navigate to the following key -
HKEY_USERS \ .Default \ Control Panel \ Desktop
Below this key create the following REG_SZ values...
SCRNSAVE.EXE = C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\LOGON.SCR ScreenSaveActive = 1 ScreenSaveIsSecure = 0 ScreenSaveTimeOut = 60 (or whatever timeout you want in seconds)That's it - you'll have your screensaver at the logon screen then.
Found a great light-weight program that allows this, but I haven't tested if videos are continued from previous sessions.
Here's the sorceforge link, and here's a direct link to the VideoScreensaver.zip file
Video Screensaver
A Windows screensaver that plays videos, with or without sound.
Brought to you by: metasquares
A basic video player screensaver for Windows, written in C#. Requires .NET 4.5 runtimes. Compatible with most video formats. Hard to find good alternatives out there, so I wrote my own.
Link: http://svn.barnathan.name/opensource/VideoScreensaver/VideoScreensaver.zip
It's Open Source, and only 133 kb in size!
Best Answer
This is a problem with this screensaver. Aparently the faster your computer is, the faster these bubbles will move. I compared the bubbles from a windows 7 in a VM and the native one on my desktop, and the speed changes are dramatically. In the VM it is slightly slower than I expect, but on my Windows 7 host, its pretty fast. Not dizzling fast, but definitely faster than a soothing set of bubbles.
This also happens with the other screensavers that do not have any settings.
EDIT: It seems you can edit these screensavers through the registry, and there's a program from sysinternals that allow you to edit the settings using a nice interface. See here: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/15088/customize-the-default-screensavers-in-windows-7-and-vista/