Help needed to change Win 7 default screensaver settings

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

I'd like to change some of the default settings of screensavers but I can't find the option. Atm when showing images in screensaver windoze is scaling small images to fill the screen (eg 640 x 480 Jupiter images). This really sucks! Normally the option in XP would be found under the settings option in the screensaver dialogue box but the only option there is whether to shuffle or not and the speed of the SS.

Could one of you puter gurus point me in the right direction please.

[Tandum (Robin)]

Might depend on the version of win7 but it should be : right click on the desktop and select personalize. Then down the bottom is a desktop background option. Or: control panel/Appearance and Personalization/Personalize/Desktop Background.

[supernova1965 (Warren)]

Robin is correct both ways will work. OOPS I didnt see where you said screensaver I just checked on mine and it appears you cant change this but you could set your desktop background to change at intervals of your choosing and then you can set them at your desired resolution

[Barrykgerdes]

I use (sometimes if it won't work on XP) Win 7 ultimate 64 bit.

I have always accessed the personalized screen via the control panel but right click on the desktop does the same.

You basically have the options of two themes "Aero Themes" and "Basic and High Contrast Themes" There is a third "My Themes" where you save your own screen/s when it is set up.

I can only use the Aero Themes on my computer as When I select a "Basic and High Contrast Theme" Stellarium gets a transparent window that is a screen dump of the desk top, very wierd!

Down in the bottom right corner you will see a screen saver icon. clicking on this will bring up the screen saver window where you can select the screen saver source.

If you click on settings you will get another window that will allow you to select your own source of screen saver.

Play with these settings til your get what you want and then save it as "My Themes"

Barry

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Thanks Guys. Yep been through all these. There doesn't seem to be an option anywhere to prevent small images being upscaled during screensaver. Oh well, maybe in Win 8

[Tandum (Robin)]

Look down the bottom of desktop background. There is a drop down box for picture position. Change that from fill to center.

[Barrykgerdes]

Hi Paul

What do you actually want to do.
I think you need to do some more playing with all those options.

By selecting desk top background I can open folder full of my astronomy pictures of all sizes (various) and make a changing desktop background that fills the screen with a picture at the best resolution.

By selecting screen saver I get the window that allows me to select the screen saver.
I selected photos then settings. This allowed me again to select a folder of astronomy pictures. This time when the screen saver runs it changes the pictures using the vertical size as the reference but gives maximum resolution (in a box). If I re-size the pictures in a graphics program to the default size of the screen the screen saver fills the screen nicely. If the picture is much smaller than your screen size, Windows will stretch it to fill the vertical screen resolution.

Each time I make a new arrangement I then get the opportunity to save it under my themes so I can get a selection of possible arrangements that can be changed at will.

Barry

[xstream (John)]

Paul just do what I did, buy a Mac!

[RB (Andrew)]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

... Atm when showing images in screensaver windoze is scaling small images to fill the screen (eg 640 x 480 Jupiter images). This really sucks!
...Could one of you puter gurus point me in the right direction please.

Originally Posted by xstream

Paul just do what I did, buy a Mac!

Or you could buy a DMK 41AF02.AS and re-image everything @ 1280 x 960

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Barry i don't have a problem with the background options or selecting which images I want for a screensaver, its the screensaver one for resizing. I'm trying to prevent the resizing of small images in SS if possible. I'm assuming your settings dialogue is the same as the screen dump I uploaded.

[[1ponders] (Paul)]

Nah thanks John, I have enough problems working in Windoze.

RB I'd do that if you could get me a tracking Newt that will fill a 41 chip with an image of Jupiter. Would solve my problem for me. I'll send you my address.

[Barrykgerdes]

Originally Posted by [1ponders]

Barry i don't have a problem with the background options or selecting which images I want for a screensaver, its the screensaver one for resizing. I'm trying to prevent the resizing of small images in SS if possible. I'm assuming your settings dialogue is the same as the screen dump I uploaded.

Yes Paul that's the screen.
I gather you have a library of small images.

The images options provided are all quite low resolution so I can see your problem. I also have not been able to display them as a screen saver in the default size so it looks like they will always be stretched. I will need to delve into it further. Like you I would have expected an option to allow small images to "float" around the screen like a screen saver display. That "box" option does not seem to apply to the screen saver.

I found like you that the small images were always stretched to fill the screen vertically. So I Just selected pictures that had at least 900 pixels vertical (my default monitor size)

I selected photos and browse. This allowed me to select my own library of images which were all larger than 900 pixels in the vertical direction. so I did not see any stretching. The only thing I found was that to fill the screen the images needed to be resized to the screen aspect ratio.

This method of course just gave a "slide show" as the screen saver.

Barry

PS My image of jupiter looks awful when stretched to even 1/4 of the screen. If you can find a good hi res like you mentioned save me a copy too.

BG