Put your screensaver to work behind the scenes

I came across this useful tip on the Geeks pirillo blog.  He’s done a great job of creating a video to show off exactly how to do it, and we have blatantly stolen felt that this would add tremendous value to the Windows 7 Help offerings.  Please check out Alpha’s blog as well, to support the great work that he has done.

We will give you the instructions, and you can watch the video to get a good idea of how this can help your computer look more impressive.

Now – just a bit of CYA for the writer – this is not an authorized Microsoft tweak – so please do this only if you are comfortable with making changes to system files.

As we were writing this, we figured this could actually kill a few birds with one stone post.  We are going to help you prevent future security issues, teach you how to create a batch file, and also show you how you can have you screensaver running in the background of whatever you are doing.  No – it’s not a super useful tweak, but it is kinda neat!

Security tweak

Ok, by default your windows doesn’t want you to see the full name of the file.  Every file has an extension, and this is how windows knows which program to use to open the file.  You have probably seen it in your office documents, they end in .doc for word files, or .xls for excel documents, or .ppt for power point (add an x on the end of these extension for the newest version of office)

The problem with windows hiding the extension for known file types comes from malicious coders taking advantage of the fact that you can’t see what the true file name is.  If your computer doesn’t show you that a files name is iloveyou.txt.exe, you might mistakenly open it because all you would see is iloveyou.txt.  There’s a quick change to make these extensions more visible.

1 – Click on the Windows Explorer icon in your taskbar

2 – Click “Organize” and select “Folder and Search options”

3 – Uncheck the box that says “hide extensions for known file types”

This will make your files look a bit different, because now they will show their full name.  This can be helpful for future troubleshooting, as well as for preventing malicious files from being loaded accidently.  And – it makes it easier for us to create a file that you can use to turn your screensaver on in the background.

Creating a Batch File

Ok, after you have completed the steps above,

1. Right click on a blank spot on your desktop, select “New” and then “Text Document.”  A file that looks like a piece of paper will now be on your desktop, and it will be named “New Text Document.txt”.
2. Right click on the file, and choose “rename.”  Change the name of the file to “Ribbonsbackground.bat”
3. Right click on the file again, and choose edit.
4. In the document that opens, type in “ribbons.scr /p65552” without the quotes.  If the ribbons screensaver isn’t the one you are looking for, replace it with one of the following system screensavers:
   1. scrnsave.scr
   2. ssText3d.scr3
   3. Bubbles.scr
   4. Mystify.scr

Now, when you run this file, you will see the screensaver in the background, behind your active windows.  If you can’t see your taskbar, click on your windows button on your keyboard, and you should see the taskbar pop up.  You can continue to have the screensaver running in the background, just make your active window small enough that you can see the screensaver behind it.  When you get tired of the screensaver running, you can right click on the file in your system tray – named ribbonsbackgound.bat” or whatever you called it, and turn it off.

There ya go, not an earth shattering tweak, but it does cover security, novelty, and helps you get a bit more familiar with your system.

Let us know how this works for you, and if you would like to see more tweaks like this in the future.

And here’s the video so you can see what you’re doing:

Geeks Video

-Jason