This is a text-only version of the following page on https://raymii.org: --- Title : ScreensaverStopper, stop activating the screensaver by sending F24 often Author : Remy van Elst Date : 21-12-2019 URL : https://raymii.org/s/software/ScreenSaverStopper.html Format : Markdown/HTML --- ### Screensaver Stopper ScreensaverStopper sends the F24 keystroke every 40 seconds. This way, Windows should not activate the screensaver. Useful if you do not have rights to disable the screensaver, but can run executables. I've written it to solve a personal annoyance. At work I have a Windows 10 virtual machine (for Visual Studio, network file share access and the Microsoft Office Suite). I cannot disable the screensaver, due to GPO policy. I can however, compile and run software.

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There is no window, no output, no settings, just a keystroke every 40 seconds. If you need to stop the application, use the task manager. [Test the keyboard input here][6]: ![screenshot 2][5] Resource usage: ![screenshot][2] ### Download It's written in C++, compiled with GCC 8.1 via MinGW. Filesize is around 14 KB, memory usage after a day of running around 600KB. License is GNU GPLv3. * Download [here][1] or on [GitHub][4]. ### Source Code `main.cpp`: /** * Stop system from going to screensaver by sending F24 keystroke every 40 seconds. * License: GNU GPLv3 * Source: https://raymii.org * Author: Remy van Elst, 2019 */ #define WINVER 0x0500 #include int main() { // 40 seconds DWORD sleeptime = 40000; INPUT ip; ip.type = INPUT_KEYBOARD; ip.ki.wScan = 0; // hardware scan code for key ip.ki.time = 0; ip.ki.dwExtraInfo = 0; // list of keycodes: // http://web.archive.org/web/20191221104344/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/win32/inputdev/virtual-key-codes ip.ki.wVk = 0x87; // virtual-key code for the "F24" key while (true) { ip.ki.dwFlags = 0; // 0 for key press SendInput(1, &ip, sizeof(INPUT)); ip.ki.dwFlags = KEYEVENTF_KEYUP; // KEYEVENTF_KEYUP for key release SendInput(1, &ip, sizeof(INPUT)); Sleep(sleeptime); } return 0; } `CMakeLists.txt`: cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.15) project(ScreenSaverStopper) set(CMAKE_CXX_STANDARD 14) set(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS "${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS} -Wall -O2 -s") set(CMAKE_EXE_LINKER_FLAGS "-static-libgcc -static-libstdc++") message(CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS: ${CMAKE_CXX_FLAGS}) add_executable(ScreenSaverStopper WIN32 main.cpp) [6]: https://w3c.github.io/uievents/tools/key-event-viewer.html [5]: /s/inc/img/screensaverstopper-2.png [4]: https://github.com/RaymiiOrg/ScreenSaverStopper [3]: /s/inc/downloads/ScreenSaverStopper.cpp [2]: /s/inc/img/screensaverstopper.png [1]: /s/inc/downloads/ScreenSaverStopper.exe --- License: All the text on this website is free as in freedom unless stated otherwise. This means you can use it in any way you want, you can copy it, change it the way you like and republish it, as long as you release the (modified) content under the same license to give others the same freedoms you've got and place my name and a link to this site with the article as source. This site uses Google Analytics for statistics and Google Adwords for advertisements. You are tracked and Google knows everything about you. Use an adblocker like ublock-origin if you don't want it. All the code on this website is licensed under the GNU GPL v3 license unless already licensed under a license which does not allows this form of licensing or if another license is stated on that page / in that software: This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version. This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details. You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with this program. If not, see . Just to be clear, the information on this website is for meant for educational purposes and you use it at your own risk. I do not take responsibility if you screw something up. Use common sense, do not 'rm -rf /' as root for example. If you have any questions then do not hesitate to contact me. See https://raymii.org/s/static/About.html for details.