Windows Media Player disables Screen Saver timeout by default when active

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Date:         Wed, 2 Mar 2005 17:28:07 -0500
To: NTBUGTRAQ@LISTSERV.NTBUGTRAQ.COM

In the process of locking down our Windows environment, my clever users
quickly learned that having Windows Media Player play an audio or video
stream counts as 'activity' and will never invoke the screen saver,
rendering a password protected screen saver useless. Upon further
investigation, I discovered the default behavior of Windows Media Player
is to disable screen savers.
 
Setting the following Group Policy Object to 'enabled' allows the screen
saver to invoke as normal when Windows Media Player is active:
 
    User Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Media
Player\Playback\Allow Screen Saver
 
While this may not be a true bug, it is yet another example of poorly
chosen default behavior in an application. I'm posting this here since
I had to do a small amount of digging to find the solution, and wouldn't
have known I had an issue except for a user bragging they had already
figured out a workaround to the screensaver lock.
 
I've tested the above GPO setting on XP SP2 with Media Player 10. The
GPO setting claims to also work on Media Player 9.
 
Jeff Steward
IT Director
PLC Medical Systems, Inc
jsteward@plcmed.com
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