Change the Default Logon Screen Saver in XP

For whatever reason, seeing the default Windows XP screen saver when nobody is logged on isn’t always the most interesting thing to look at.  Here’s a quick way to change which screensaver gets displayed:

Go to Start > Run and type regedit.

Navigate to HKEY_USERS\.Default\Control Panel\Desktop

Change the SCRNSAVE.EXE value from logon.scr to any other screen saver with an .SCR extension located in the C:\windows\system32 folder.

To disable the logon screen saver all together, in the same place as above, scroll down to “ScreenSaveActive” and change the value to 0.  Change it back to 1 to enable the screen saver again if you so choose.  This will require a reboot.

(Originally published on pcmech.com)