How to Deploy ScreenSaver with SMS2003/SCCM

by Andrius on Mar.19, 2008, under Microsoft, SCCM/SMS2003

There are times when you need to deploy new company screensaver to all PCs. You can use Group Policy for that, but the problem is that it will disable screensaver settings for users and they will not be able to change them. If you have SMS or SCCM you can use it to deploy screensaver. The whole process is very simple.

You will need 3 files:
   screensaver file (screensaver.scr)
   registry file which will configure screensaver settings (screenscr.reg)
   batch file which will copy the screensaver and apply the settings (screenscr.bat)

The basic settings for screenscr.reg should look 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”

Create a batch(screenscr.bat) file and put the following lines:

@echo off
regedit /s screenscr.reg
copy screensaver.scr %windir%\

It might look strange that it applies the settings before copying the file but this is the only way it worked for me.

Put all three file in one folder and create a package pointing to it. Create a program and select screenscr.bat as your program. Also I’ve ticked Suppress program notifications because I don’t want them to be notified.
When creating advertising it is important in Advanced client tab select to Download program as shown below. If you don’t do that it will fail.

When the program runs on Client PC the user might see a command prompt popping up and disappearing. It does that very quickly so they might not even notice that.

:configure, copy, deploy, SCCM, screensaver, sms2003

6 Comments for this entry

dc
March 20th, 2008 on 13:12
Good stuff Andy!

Reply
Thomas
October 2nd, 2008 on 08:41
Thanks for the guide!
I adapted it to install applications that require preference files copied afterwards.
Works like a charm

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steve dowripple
October 22nd, 2008 on 11:51
Very nice! If I may ask, how did you set the package to run? When I try to use “administrator rights” it doesn’t set screensaver at all.

Reply
Andrius
October 22nd, 2008 on 12:19
Hi Steve,
don’t set it to run as administrator. Because screensaver is set individually for each user and as you can see the registry changes HKEY_CURRENT_USER which means that it will change the screensaver for the user who is currently logged on.

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Tong How
December 5th, 2008 on 00:25
Hi Andy,

I have not tried yet, but if a screensaver of the same name but different content is running on the computer. There should be a access denied error when replacing the scr file. How can the screensaver be stop before copying the file without user intervention? Thanks

Reply
- Andrius
  June 15th, 2009 on 20:39
  I have not tried to replace the existing file.
  First the script will stop because the file already exists and user will be prompted for confirmation. You’ll need to add /Y switch to COPY command to supress that. If you want to stop running screensaver you can add TASKKILL command into batch file before the COPY command.
  
  Reply