AutoHotkey Community

How can a hotkey be made to run a screensaver (*.scr)? I would have thought something like this would do it:

#x:: Run, %windir%\system32\ssbezier.scr

But this causes the screensaver setup dialog box to pop up instead.

The one in particular you mentioned will launch if you pass /s as a parameter:

#x:: Run, %windir%\system32\ssbezier.scr /s

I think /s might be a standard parameter for all screen savers.

I found a tiny (4k) program that you can put anywhere (eg. C:\Windows) and call it to start your default screensaver. Here's the readme with site address...

Alternatively, I imagine the filename of the default screen saver is somewhere in the registry. If so, you could read it from there and then launch it as discussed above.

Thanks, Mike and Chris. Adding /S activates the screensaver but once the Windows key is released, it's deactivated. If I could flush the keyboard buffer after the program begins, that might do it. Can that be done?

I tested it on XP and it seems that registered hotkeys do not cause that problem. So try to ensure that the hotkey is registered by avoiding the use of the keyboard hook for that particular hotkey (by avoiding the $ prefix and the #UseHook directive).

For example, a script with just this single line in it works okay on my system:

#x::run, %WinDir%\system32\ssbezier.scr /s

But adding a $ before the #x causes the behavior you describe.

If it still doesn't work, maybe try a different hotkey than X. You could also add a Sleep delay in to give yourself time to release the key before the screen saver appears:

#x::
Sleep, 700 ; Prevents user's release of key from dismissing the saver.
run, %WinDir%\system32\ssbezier.scr /s
return

As a side note, it might be interesting to try using SetTimer in conjunction with MouseGetPos to activate the screen saver whenever the mouse is in one of the screen corners.

Your mention of keyhooks got me thinking. Maybe I have some other programs that look for hotkeys that are interferring with AHK. Sure enough, after shutting down WordWeb ([url]http://wordweb.info/[/url]), which looks for Ctrl-Shift-W, the single-line #x code worked. It also works if I start AHK before WordWeb. Thanks, Chris!

See This, I already have a script for running the current screen saver, just run the following script and u can run the current screen saver with

Ctrl+`

Is it possible to use that method without an AHK script? Like, executing the default screensaver from the command line by reading the value from the registry? The reason I ask is because currently we can't do it over at SlickRun and some people have asked for that. SlickRun basically passes commands and parameters to launch stuff, synonymous to typing it in the Run dialog.

Although I couldn't find a way to directly start the user's chosen screensaver, I did find a couple of related things:

From the command prompt, this will show the "screensaver" tab of "Display Properties", which could allow you to press the Preview button to start it:
control desk.cpl,,1

Here is another trick that works in a script:
SendMessage, 0x112, 0xF140, 0,, Program Manager ; 0x112 is WM_SYSCOMMAND -- 0xF140 is SC_SCREENSAVE

What you could do is compile the above into an EXE and execute it from the command line to start the screensaver. If you do that, it's probably best to include #NoTrayIcon at the top of the script to prevent the tray icon from existing briefly.

I think the above script does the same thing , it runs the user selected screen saver. If u want to run a screensaver.scr file just run it as an exe file.

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Can you tell me, how to get the sendmessage-parameters?

Check out Rajat's Tutorial on it:

http://www.autohotkey.com/docs/misc/SendMessage.htm

thanks,
beardboy