An advanced registry hack for Vista screensavers

Posted on May 6, 2009 at 5:00 am

Screensavers are usually configurable using the screensaver menu. But sometimes there are options in the screensavers that are only accessible via the registry editor. If you have not used regedit before, this could be a good way to practice your first registry editing task.

Remember that registries are advanced Windows and program parameters so make sure to change only the registry values we will discuss below. Be sure to backup the Windows registry just in case.

Let’s try to edit the Bubbles Screen Saver registry parameters first.

· Click Start and type REGEDIT on the search box to launch the Registry Editor window.

· In the Registry Editor window navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Screensavers\Bubbles.

· Right click on the Bubbles key then select New and click on DWORD (32-bit) Value

· Rename the new DWORD (32-bit) value to MaterialGlass. Double click on the MaterialGlass key and type 1 in the Value Data to make the bubbles transparent and type 0 to make the bubbles Metallic.

The Figure below shows the metallic texture of the bubbles screen saver.

The Figure below shows the transparent texture of the bubbles screen saver

· If you want to display a shadow below the bubbles create a new DWORD (32-bit) value and rename it to ShowShadows and type 1 in the Value data.

· Here is another example but now on the Ribbons Screen Saver. To do this go to the Registry Editor window and navigate to

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\ Screensavers\Ribbons.

· Create a new DWORD (32-bit) value and rename it to NumRibbons and type the number of ribbons you want to be displayed, the maximum number is 256.

Test the screensaver to see your updates at work:

Enjoy tweaking the Vista screensaver registry entries! Just remember this always: don’t touch registry values if you don’t what they are for, they could break your system.