problems with windows 8.1 screensaver

[ethereal]

hello there

i have a home theatre pc - which had windows 7 on it. i used a eventghost to turn my ps3 blutooth remote control presses in to commands the pc understood, i was able to control windows media center, xbmc(kodi) and powerdvd. i was able to stop the windows 7 screensaver with a button that emulated moving the mouse and double clicking.

i have installed windows 8 and i don't like the screensaver very much - it doesn't matter what i try i cannot get my remote control to stop the screensaver. also when the screensaver is on i can start my three programs - xbmc, wmc and powerdvd they load behind the screensaver and i can start a video and it plays behind the screensaver - this does not seem normal behaviour?

the only way i can turn the screensaver off is using a physical keyboard - but i don't want to do this - we have been using the home theatre pc for years with just the one remote control.

i have a plasma screen and i don't want to leave the screensaver off - i did manage to get windows to turn off the screen and the remote control turned it back on - but does not turn off the screensaver (i don't want to turn off the screen)

does anybody know how to turn off the screensaver in windows 8.1 using eventghost - it seems a small problem but it's driving me mental

thank you

[jonib]

You don't seem to be alone with this problem post(might have a solution) and post.

Hmm, just an idea maybe AutoHotkey could work, it can send more types of keyboard and mouse events. I can't test it as I don't use Windows 8.

jonib

[Sem;colon]

Did you try the "alternate mode" of the latest version of the mouse plugin?
You can find it here: viewtopic.php?f=9&t=5481&p=26729&hilit=mouse#p26729

[ethereal]

thanks.

i'll give it a go

do i need to replace the original __init__.py or do i put it in a seperate folder ?

i'll let you know if it works or not

[Sem;colon]

Just replace it

[ethereal]

i couldn't get the mouse to work like he said

"The action that starts a mouse movement into one direction has now 3 additional paramenters: Initial mouse speed, Maximum mouse speed and Accceleration factor"

there is no additional parameters

"All mouse move/set pointer actions have now a checkbox to use an alternate method"

i couldn't see a checkbox

i downloaded __init__.py and replaced the version in the Mouse folder - there was also __init__.pyc which i left in there - i rebooted the computer the make sure that is not the problem. i thought maybe the __init__.pyc was messing this up so i moved it away and i still couldn't get the mouse to work like he describes.

1. does eventghost automatically read __init__.py in the mouse folder and therefore i should have the "alternate method" automatically ?
2. do i have to load the plugin into my configuration - i tried but i couldn't see a plugin called mouse to add ?
3. do i just need the new __init__.py in the mouse folder or do i also need __init__.pyc

thank you

[Sem;colon]

Hello ethereal,

1. Yes
2. No, it's a core plugin, that means it's always loaded
3. the .py is enought, the .pyc is automatically created when eventghost starts - you could try to delete the .pyc, EG should generate a new one.

Can you please doubble check if the .py file is really the one you downloaded from the secound post? (and not the first post)
The right file has a size of 22.0KB

[ethereal]

okay - i got your plugin working - i think the problem was i had a folder in plugins called Mouse Old with the original plugin, i moved this folder and now i can see the alternate method checkbox.

i haven't had a chance to check if it turns off the screensaver - i'll get back to you

[ethereal]

i got the alternative mouse to work but it didn't turn off the screensaver

i'm thinking out going back to windows 7

thanks for your help

[ideasman69]

hey guys,

I posted a similar thread last year but since went back to windows 7. I'm heading back to Windows 8.1 and thought I'd have a bit more of a look into this. Windows 8 seems to run it's screensaver in protected desktop mode (system account?) so it doesn't appear in eventghosts log. Some more info here: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forum ... mentissues

For example, when a screensaver is started manually using the "Preview" button in the Screen Saver settings, this is what eventghosts log looks like:


Whereas if I leave the system for a minute and let it start automatically, eventghost can't see the screensaver:


While the screensaver is running in this mode, eventghost won't be able to bring the system out of idle. If the screensaver is killed using taskkill, the next action that eventghost performs does bring the system out of idle - but makes it hard to automate.

Ideally, eventghost needs to be able to detect when the screensaver starts

[bbrouwer]

Did anyone find a working solution to this? I've tried all of the approaches listed in this thread and some others as well. I am running windows 10 and can't get the screensaver to shut off.

[ideasman69]

i've had to assign the 'exit' button on our remote to a 'start application' activity that kills the screensaver process via the command line:

executable:

Code: Select all

C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe

command line options:

Code: Select all

/c taskkill /im gphotos.scr /f 2>NUL | findstr SUCCESS >NUL && if errorlevel 1 ( echo photos.scr was not killed ) else ( timeout /t 1 ) > nul

windows options: hidden
wait until application is terminated before proceeding: check

it's not perfect and is not family friendly. any button on the remote should wake up the machine like it does in windows 7. i'm no programmer but have trouble understanding why it hasn't been sorted in the newer releases of eventghost. it's been 3 years since windows 8 launch and the same issue exists in windows 10.

[FonZ]

Hi,
This solution works also with Windows 10. Once I did adapt the command line options to my .scr, it allows me to kill the screensaver with my remote. Very strange that it is the only way...
Thanks anyway ideasman69

[sebdoan]

I've found that adding in the "process watcher" plugin will detect when screensavers in windows 8.1 start and stop. Give it a go.