Screensaver during playback - Media Player 11/Vista Ultimate

Question

Whenever I am playing any audio or video in WMP11 on my Vista Ultimate machine, the screen saver starts running even though the "Allow screen saver during playback" option is disabled in WMP11 Options dialog. I have tried enabling, then disabling the option again to enforce it, but it still is the same.

 

Can anyone shed some light on how I can fix this issue? It is annoying. I have to keep moving the mouse to reset the timeout while watching anything, or to disable the screensaver completely, which I don't really like doing.

 

Cheers

Answer 1

Hello!

I have exactly the same problem..  it only started happening to me today!
I installed the Windows Media Center TV Pack 2008 (might be accidentally, but i doubt it) and i just finished watching a movie that was interrupted by the screensaver every 10 minutes.
I investigated a bit, but apart from a tip to uncheck the "allow screensaver during playback" option in media player, it was hopeless. On other threads you only find idiots telling you to turn the screensaver off because "you don't need it anymore". While that technically is true, I still want to have it fixed because this is something so basic that it shouldn't even occur. I read that when setting other energy options (e.g. hibernate after 30min) it will do that as well during playback. And that's technically a bug.

On my last machine (XP Pro)  I had the exact same issue as well, but not from the beginning either (and in another installation of XP not at all). I couldn't find a fix for it then either.

A temporary workaround would be to disable the screensaver easily with some program (like here) or alternatively tell the machine you're having a "presentation" after hitting Win-X. In these presentation settings you can disable the screensaver.

I hope to find a solution to this annoying problem, but I assume that this is only one of hundreds of problems with Vista that can only be fixed by reinstalling..  If I followed that advice everytime I encounter such a problem I would do nothing but installing.


Jo

Answer 2

Hello,

I find I have the same problem, well that is if I load Windows Media Center to watch TV and then later quit out of Windows Media Center, then load up Windows Media Player, the screensaver will load on its configured value, for example after 10 minutes of watching a movie.

However, if I reboot my PC, watch the same movie using Windows Media Player, the screensaver will NOT load.

So from what I can gather from this is I can easily reproduce this behaviour by simply starting Windows Media Center and then quitting out, this action in turn will then cause Windows Media Player "Allow screen saver during playback" option is disabled to be completely ignored and the screensaver will load on the specified time regardless.

Obviously a bug, I searched almost everywhere I can think of and this behaviour is not documented any where henceforth I am convinced that this is a definite bug...

So come-on Window Media team, please fix this issue, it is annoying, extremely annoying, frustrating - well not really all that bad but should be fixed as many WMP and WMC users are reporting this in many, many forums and at the end of the day is causing a great dissatisfying user experience, (and as we know Vista is supposed to be a huge improvement on end-user experience).

Thanks in Advance
JimT

Answer 3

2 years after the last post, I've just encountered the exact same issue. I used Windows Media Center for the first time on this machine, and since then Media Player lets the screen saver kick in during playback. It's a shame that over 2 years were not enough to get to fixing this simple but extremely annoying issue.

Answer 4

I've been using media centre to watch tv for the past few months without an issue untill just last week when all of a sudden the WMC screensaver started coming on showing album covers while watching TV... I find this very strange since I haven't changed any settings. It is very annoying now I have to keep moving the mouse to watch TV

Answer 5

Although this does not solve the problem completely, you may use it as a hotfix.

Download and install ScreenSaver Commander. Launch it and go to Conditions tab. Specify here title of WMC window and screen-saver will not run while WMC window opened.