Create new and exciting screensavers

You may have noticed that when you choose one of the screensavers in the Screen Saver window, clicking the Settings… button normally results in a dialogue window popping up, stating that ‘this screen saver has no options that you can set’.

In previous versions of Windows you could play around with the settings to create your own personalised screensavers. In Windows Vista, you’ll need to change the settings through the Windows registry.

Before editing your registry you should make sure you’ve made a back-up, as any problems with the registry can prevent your computer from working properly. See this article on how to back up and restore your registry.

For any screensaver, you’ll first need to open the Registry Editor by typing ‘regedit’ into Start Search and hitting Enter.

Aurora screensaver

Scroll down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Screensavers\Aurora

Right-click on the right-hand pane and select New then DWORD (32-bit) Value to create the following options:

Amplitude (DWORD (32-bit) Value): Set the value between 500000000 and 2000000000
Brightness (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This setting defines the brightness of the screen saver.
NumLayers (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This set this to between 1 and 20. This defines the number of layers visible in the aurora effect.
Speed (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This can be set between 1000000000 and 2100000000, and determines the speed of the screensaver.

Ribbons screensaver

Scroll down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Screensavers\Ribbons

NumRibbons (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This sets how many ribbons appear on screen. You can set this between 1 and 256.
RibbonWidth (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This sets the width of the ribbons. Can be set between 1000000000 and 1080000000
Blur (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This can be either set as 0 or 1. 0 will prevent the ribbons fading away.

Mystify screensaver

Scroll down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Screensavers\Mystify

NumLines (DWORD (32-bit) Value): Specifies how many lines will appear on screen. The minimum is 1, whilst the highest is 100.
LineWidth (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This sets how think the lines will be, and can be set between 1 and 100.

Bubbles screensaver

Scroll down to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\
Screensavers\Bubbles

ShowShadows (DWORD (32-bit) Value): Can be either 1 (enable shadows) or 0 (disable shadows).
MaterialGlass (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This can be set to 0 for solid non-transparent bubbles, or 1 for transparent bubbles.
ShowBubbles (DWORD (32-bit) Value): 0 to make the bubbles appear on a black background, or 1 to display bubbles on your desktop.
TurbulenceForce (DWORD (32-bit) Value):  Sets how the bubbles move.
TurbulenceSpeed (DWORD (32-bit) Value): Similar to above.
TurbulenceNumOctaves (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This can be set between 1 and 255. The higher the number, the faster the bubbles will change colour.
Radius (DWORD (32-bit) Value): This sets the size of the bubbles, and can be set between 1130000000 for large bubbles and 1090000000 for small bubbles.

If you want to revert back to the default settings of the screensavers, simply delete the new DWORDs you have created.