Windows 2008 Enterprise - Screensaver/User problems

I figure I'd try and make a post here, since I can't find any relevant info, hopefully someone somewhere has some idea's on how to solve this problem.

I'm currently working on a college project in which we are using Windows 2008Enterprise and a 12x user network (this network is the one we have to build)

Now the basics of this operation are fine and most of the specific policies we have to add work aswell, it's just the screensaver policy that's annoying the crap outta me.

The idea is this. You have a ss (ssTex3d.scr) and using the GPO policies for the 12x users we send the screensaver to them. So far it seems simple, you can enter the ss name (assuming it's in System32) or add the path where it's stored (\\servername\shared\screensavername). You can also modify if a User can edit it yes/no, timer, etc etc. Pretty straightforward stuff so far.

The problem is this: It refuses to transfer the modified text. Standard is 'Microsoft Windows'. Using the configure option on the screensaver you can pretty much fill in what you like, but the server does not pass this information along. We've tried some regedit modification (which I didn't think would work anyhow), but this seems like something so simple...

If anyone has any idea's on this I'd appreciate it. We're also the first college in Holland to be using 2008 so we're all in new territory here, even the resident Microsoft expert doesn't have a clue (which doesn't exactly inspire me with confidence, heh).

Did you edit the text through display properties or did you right click the .scr file and click configure?

medo145 said:

Did you edit the text through display properties or did you right click the .scr file and click configure?

Click to expand...

I've tried both ways, but it doesn't seem to want to send the text information through to each user. Very strange. Or I'm just overlooking something.

it appears that the config is stored on the local machine, if you go to the registry @ this location HKCU\software\microsoft\screensavers\text3d and then on the right side there is a key that says display string. That seems to hold the information related to the text in the ss. now you only need to figure out how to appy that change to all the users from the server (i'm guessing that that is the objective)

The ADM file used to apply the GPO is going to have to be edited in order to pass on text settings. I ran into this a year or more ago when trying to get that same screensaver to pass with time set instead of text...it wouldn't save that either. That may be resolved now with 2008, I don't know. I did it in a mixed 2K/2K3 environment.

If I find my ADM, I'll post it, but it would still need to be reworked to set the text mode with the text you want. I suppose that the text could be set directly in HKCU somewhere, but it would have to occur separately from the screensaver GPO (vbs or bat that adds the relevant registry entry which sets the text for the screen saver.

EDIT

I'm at work, so I decided to see if the ADM I used was still on our server and it was. I've tweaked it just a little and it should work how you want. Copy and past the code into notepad and save it as giveitsomenameyoucanremember.adm.


Place this ADM in your inf folder and import into the GPO you created (if this is a standalone GPO you can remove all other templates, unless it default domain policy, of course). Enable the settings you want, change the settings, save and gpupdate your clients. You should be good to go.

If not, I found the registry key you need to edit, so you can apply the generic GPO and run a logon script to apply the personalized text.

I've not played with 2008 much, but I can't imagine things would change from 2003 (which this was made for). If it doesn't work, let me know and I'll fire it up on my test box and fix it.

EDIT2

Some things that I forgot to mention:

Edit the entries in the GPO properties - not the ADM (I may have been unclear there - the ADM needs no further adjustments).

You may need to go to View > Filtering and uncheck "Only show policy settings that can be full managed" in order for this policy's settings to appear in GPEdit (I did).

If I come across anything else, I'll edit again

Thank you ! That worked like a charm