Susan said:
Susan, maybe you might want to consider creating a seperate category for
screensavers, maybe under "Desktop"? After all, screensavers are
executables and thus are programs. Since they're configured from the
desktop usually and serve to obscure the desktop, it seems to me that
they fit in that category. That people can't find screensavers easily
points out the need for such an arrangement.
On the subject of screensavers, here's a trick that I use on my computer:
1. Do a search for all programs on your drive that end in ".scr",
2. In the resulting window, do "Control-A" to select all the files.
3. Right click on them and select "Send to>"/Desktop (create shortcut).
4. Right click on your "Start" button and select "Explore", make the
window so that it's not full screen. Create a new folder in your start
menu where you like, and then select all the new shortcuts by left
clicking a frame around them on your desktop, then "Control-left
clicking" any non-screensaver shortcuts which are included in the
selection, OR any screensaver shortcuts you want to add and which are
not in the selection frame.
6. Drag all of the new shortcuts into that new "Screen Savers" folder in
your start menu folder (you can also right click and drop to the Start
button and go to that folder, then click on "Move here").
7. Use a program like "Rename
Master"(
http://www.joejoesoft.com/vcms/108/) or else manually remove the
".scr" and "Shortcut to" from all the names. You can also rename the
screensaver shortcuts at this point if you like.
8. Right click on your desktop and turn the default screensaver to "None".
You will be able to easily configure any of the screen savers (those
that are configurable, that is) by right clicking on their shortcut in
the start menu and selecting "Configure".
The advantage to this is that you can still run screen savers from your
start menu (say, to impress people with your graphics card) without
having a default screen saver that automatically comes on when you're
doing something without key activity. Using a mouse to turn on a screen
saver from the start menu can be difficult for some people, so I suggest
this method:
1. Press the Windows key so that the start menu comes up.
2. Press the letter "s" until the "Screen Savers" folder is selected.
3. Press the right arrow key until the listing of screen saver shortcuts
opens.
4. Press the first letter of the screen saver that you want to run. If
there is more than one screen saver starting in that letter, keep
pressing that letter key until the one you want is selected.
5. Press enter and the saver will usually run until you press a key or
move your mouse (depends on the saver and-or how you have it configured
sometimes.)
This sounds more difficult to do than it is in reality. I do this setup
on all computers on which I work (with permission from the owner of
course) and everybody so far vastly prefers this arrangement to having a
screen saver come on unexpectedly. They also like the total control this
gives them over their screensavers.
--
Regards from John Corliss
I don't reply to trolls and other such idiots. No adware, cdware,
commercial software, crippleware, demoware, nagware, PROmotionware,
shareware, spyware, time-limited software, trialware, viruses or warez
please.
