(Apologies: I know this is a Win7 rather than Win10 group, but the only
Win10 group I can find is an Italian one)

My mum's Windows 10 PC (Win 10 Home) has stopped blanking the screen
and/or starting the screensaver if the PC is left idle for long enough.
It used to work.

I've checked Settings | System | Power & Sleep: the "Screen | When
plugged in, turn off after n minutes" field is set to a finite value (eg
10 minutes) as opposed to "Never". (The PC is mains-only, so there's no
equivalent "On battery power...")

If the PC is left idle for the relevant time, the screensaver should
kick in or the screen should go blank, but it doesn't. I even got her to
unplug her USB mouse in case that was sending small "keepalive" mouse
movements that prevented the 10-minute timer completing.

I can only access her PC via TeamServer (I live a couple of hundred
miles away) and I wondered whether the fact that the connection was
remote prevented timeout working for me when I artificially set the
timeout to 1 minute (so I don't have to wait as long). But even when I'm
not connected to investigate the problem, the screen doesn't time out.

I'm trying to work out what could have changed, because it used to work
fine until she reported the problem to me today.

Is there any other setting which affects whether
screen-blanking/screensaver kicks in?

On 1/4/2023 3:08 PM, NY wrote:
> (Apologies: I know this is a Win7 rather than Win10 group, but the only
> Win10 group I can find is an Italian one)
>
>
> My mum's Windows 10 PC (Win 10 Home) has stopped blanking the screen
> and/or starting the screensaver if the PC is left idle for long enough.
> It used to work.
>
> I've checked Settings | System | Power & Sleep: the "Screen | When
> plugged in, turn off after n minutes" field is set to a finite value (eg
> 10 minutes) as opposed to "Never". (The PC is mains-only, so there's no
> equivalent "On battery power...")
>
> If the PC is left idle for the relevant time, the screensaver should
> kick in or the screen should go blank, but it doesn't. I even got her to
> unplug her USB mouse in case that was sending small "keepalive" mouse
> movements that prevented the 10-minute timer completing.
>
> I can only access her PC via TeamServer (I live a couple of hundred
> miles away) and I wondered whether the fact that the connection was
> remote prevented timeout working for me when I artificially set the
> timeout to 1 minute (so I don't have to wait as long). But even when I'm
> not connected to investigate the problem, the screen doesn't time out.
>
> I'm trying to work out what could have changed, because it used to work
> fine until she reported the problem to me today.
>
> Is there any other setting which affects whether
> screen-blanking/screensaver kicks in?
maybe no screen saver is set,ie , is is set to (None)
enter following in a CMD window and check settings:
CONTROL DESK.CPL,SCREENSAVER,@SCREENSAVER

On 1/4/2023 4:30 PM, Zaidy036 wrote:
> On 1/4/2023 3:08 PM, NY wrote:
>> (Apologies: I know this is a Win7 rather than Win10 group, but the
>> only Win10 group I can find is an Italian one)
>>
>>
>> My mum's Windows 10 PC (Win 10 Home) has stopped blanking the screen
>> and/or starting the screensaver if the PC is left idle for long
>> enough. It used to work.
>>
>> I've checked Settings | System | Power & Sleep: the "Screen | When
>> plugged in, turn off after n minutes" field is set to a finite value
>> (eg 10 minutes) as opposed to "Never". (The PC is mains-only, so
>> there's no equivalent "On battery power...")
>>
>> If the PC is left idle for the relevant time, the screensaver should
>> kick in or the screen should go blank, but it doesn't. I even got her
>> to unplug her USB mouse in case that was sending small "keepalive"
>> mouse movements that prevented the 10-minute timer completing.
>>
>> I can only access her PC via TeamServer (I live a couple of hundred
>> miles away) and I wondered whether the fact that the connection was
>> remote prevented timeout working for me when I artificially set the
>> timeout to 1 minute (so I don't have to wait as long). But even when
>> I'm not connected to investigate the problem, the screen doesn't time
>> out.
>>
>> I'm trying to work out what could have changed, because it used to
>> work fine until she reported the problem to me today.
>>
>> Is there any other setting which affects whether
>> screen-blanking/screensaver kicks in?
> maybe no screen saver is set,ie , is is set to (None)
> enter following in a CMD window and check settings:
> CONTROL DESK.CPL,SCREENSAVER,@SCREENSAVER
also news group you want is alt.comp.os.windows-10

On 1/4/2023 4:35 PM, Zaidy036 wrote:
> On 1/4/2023 4:30 PM, Zaidy036 wrote:
>> On 1/4/2023 3:08 PM, NY wrote:
>>> (Apologies: I know this is a Win7 rather than Win10 group, but the only Win10 group I can find is an Italian one)
>>>
>>>
>>> My mum's Windows 10 PC (Win 10 Home) has stopped blanking the screen and/or starting the screensaver if the PC is left idle for long enough. It used to work.
>>>
>>> I've checked Settings | System | Power & Sleep: the "Screen | When plugged in, turn off after n minutes" field is set to a finite value (eg 10 minutes) as opposed to "Never". (The PC is mains-only, so there's no equivalent "On battery power...")
>>>
>>> If the PC is left idle for the relevant time, the screensaver should kick in or the screen should go blank, but it doesn't. I even got her to unplug her USB mouse in case that was sending small "keepalive" mouse movements that prevented the 10-minute timer completing.
>>>
>>> I can only access her PC via TeamServer (I live a couple of hundred miles away) and I wondered whether the fact that the connection was remote prevented timeout working for me when I artificially set the timeout to 1 minute (so I don't have to wait as long). But even when I'm not connected to investigate the problem, the screen doesn't time out.
>>>
>>> I'm trying to work out what could have changed, because it used to work fine until she reported the problem to me today.
>>>
>>> Is there any other setting which affects whether screen-blanking/screensaver kicks in?
>> maybe no screen saver is set,ie , is is set to (None)
>> enter following in a CMD window and check settings:
>> CONTROL DESK.CPL,SCREENSAVER,@SCREENSAVER
>
> also news group you want is alt.comp.os.windows-10

The OPs news client is modern enough, every time you visit
the groups list, it downloads the current list from the server.
The older ones did not do that, and that's why the Win10 group
would be missing. (And that group is on E-S.)

If you're not logged into E-S, you would also get a short
newsgroup list, but then the OP would not have found the Win7 group.

*******

One reason for the screensaver to go missing, is the multimedia capability.
If you play a two hour movie on a PC and sit back on the couch, then after
ten minutes, the screensaver would obscure the movie.

There is a setting, whereby a movie player application can
use a feature to disable the screen saver. This allows the entire
two hour movie to play unmolested by the screen saver.

https://windowsreport.com/pc-sleep-streaming-video/

https://cdn.windowsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/prevent-idling-to-sleep.png

Now, that by itself, is not enough to keep the screen open.

You need an application that is asserting a certain Powercfg setting,
to keep the screen open that way.

Windows Media Player has two functions. It can play a movie
(during which it will keep the screen open). But, it can also
work as a streaming media server, and serve video files to a second computer.
It could be that the machine in question is serving media, and is
prevented from going to sleep while acting as a server.

Look for:

Task Manager : "wmplayer.exe" <=== Legacy media player

There used to be a more direct way of controlling this, in the past,
but I can't find it now. The monetization of Google is more important
than me getting an answer. The power portion of the registry,
has a couple hundred numeric strings, and one of those controls
this function, and is what Windows Media Player or VLC would use
programmatically, to defeat the screen saver.

The Registry section of this article, shows an example of doing it with numeric strings.

https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/72143-add-allow-sleep-remote-opens-power-options-windows.html

OK, this is what we need.

https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/142812-win10-pc-wont-sleep-anymore-2.html

As Administrator (Administrator command prompt):

powercfg /requests

That should name and shame the guilty party. Be it "wmplayer.exe" or whatever.

Paul

"Zaidy036" <Zaidy036@air.isp.spam> wrote in message
news:tp4re7$2f7m7$1@dont-email.me...
> also news group you want is alt.comp.os.windows-10

Thanks. I downloaded an up-to-date set of newsgroup names and searched it
for "windows10" and "win10". I didn't think to look for "windows-10" :-(
And a search for "10" brought up so many ireelevant matches that it wasn't
worth trawling through the list.

I'll subscribe to that group for future use.

"Paul" <nospam@needed.invalid> wrote in message
news:tp51fr$2ji75$1@dont-email.me...
> On 1/4/2023 4:35 PM, Zaidy036 wrote:
>>> On 1/4/2023 3:08 PM, NY wrote:

>>>> Is there any other setting which affects whether
>>>> screen-blanking/screensaver kicks in?

>>> maybe no screen saver is set,ie , is is set to (None)
>>> enter following in a CMD window and check settings:
>>> CONTROL DESK.CPL,SCREENSAVER,@SCREENSAVER
>>
> One reason for the screensaver to go missing, is the multimedia
> capability.
> If you play a two hour movie on a PC and sit back on the couch, then after
> ten minutes, the screensaver would obscure the movie.
>
> There is a setting, whereby a movie player application can
> use a feature to disable the screen saver. This allows the entire
> two hour movie to play unmolested by the screen saver.
>
> https://windowsreport.com/pc-sleep-streaming-video/
>
>
> https://cdn.windowsreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/prevent-idling-to-sleep.png
>
> Now, that by itself, is not enough to keep the screen open.
>
> You need an application that is asserting a certain Powercfg setting,
> to keep the screen open that way.
>
> Windows Media Player has two functions. It can play a movie
> (during which it will keep the screen open). But, it can also
> work as a streaming media server, and serve video files to a second
> computer.
> It could be that the machine in question is serving media, and is
> prevented from going to sleep while acting as a server.
>
> Look for:
>
> Task Manager : "wmplayer.exe" <=== Legacy media player
>
> There used to be a more direct way of controlling this, in the past,
> but I can't find it now. The monetization of Google is more important
> than me getting an answer. The power portion of the registry,
> has a couple hundred numeric strings, and one of those controls
> this function, and is what Windows Media Player or VLC would use
> programmatically, to defeat the screen saver.
>
> The Registry section of this article, shows an example of doing it with
> numeric strings.
>
> https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/72143-add-allow-sleep-remote-opens-power-options-windows.html
>
> OK, this is what we need.
>
> https://www.tenforums.com/general-support/142812-win10-pc-wont-sleep-anymore-2.html
>
> As Administrator (Administrator command prompt):
>
> powercfg /requests
>
> That should name and shame the guilty party. Be it "wmplayer.exe" or
> whatever.

Thanks. I'll investigate all this. It's given me some pointers.

On Thu, 05 Jan 2023 07:08:01 +1100, NY <me@privacy.net> wrote:

> (Apologies: I know this is a Win7 rather than Win10 group, but the only
> Win10 group I can find is an Italian one)

alt.comp.os.windows-10
lots of traffic