Group Policy Screensaver setting isn't working in Windows

This article helps work around an issue where the Screensaver doesn’t start after a Group Policy is configured to enable it in Windows.

Applies to: Windows 7 Service Pack 1, Windows Server 2012 R2
Original KB number: 2616727

Symptoms

A Group Policy is configured to enable Screensaver:

User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Personalization\Enable screen saver

But there’s no setting defining a ScreenSaverTimeout configured in Screen saver timeout.

The Screensaver won’t start in such a configuration by default.

The default ScreenSaver Timeout is configured in the registry at this location:

Since Windows 7/Windows Server 2008 R2, this key doesn’t exist by default.

Without configuring a default timeout via Group Policy, the system doesn’t have a timeout and therefore doesn’t start the screensaver.

There are two workarounds to solve this issue.

Configure the Screen saver timeout Group Policy under the following path to change the default ScreenSaver timeout:User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Control Panel\Personalization\
Use Group Policy Preferences to configure a new default value for the following registry key in a Group Policy applying to users:
- Registry subkey: HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop
- Type: Reg_SZ
- Name: ScreenSaveTimeOutUser Configuration > Preferences > Windows Settings > RegistryNew > Registry Item
- Action: Create
- Hive: HKEY_CURRENT_USER
- Key Path: Control Panel\Desktop
- Value Name: ScreenSaveTimeOut
- Value Type: REG_SZ
- Value Data: 600Using Item Level Targeting (Common Tab of setting) the appliance of this setting can be restricted to systems running Windows 7 or Windows Server 2008 R2.

Reference: