How to invoke the screen saver in Windows in C#?

Question

I\'d like to invoke the user\'s screen saver if such is defined, in a Windows environment.

I know it can be done using pure C++ code (and then the wrapping in C# is

Answer 1

I've an idea, I'm not sure how consistently this would work, so you'd need to research a bit I think, but hopefully it's enough to get you started.

A screen saver is just an executable, and the registry stores the location of this executable in HKCU\Control Panel\Desktop\SCRNSAVE.EXE

On my copy of Vista, this worked for me:

RegistryKey screenSaverKey = Registry.CurrentUser.OpenSubKey(@"Control Panel\Desktop");
if (screenSaverKey != null)
{
    string screenSaverFilePath = screenSaverKey.GetValue("SCRNSAVE.EXE", string.Empty).ToString();
    if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(screenSaverFilePath) && File.Exists(screenSaverFilePath))
    {
        Process screenSaverProcess = Process.Start(new ProcessStartInfo(screenSaverFilePath, "/s"));  // "/s" for full-screen mode
        screenSaverProcess.WaitForExit();  // Wait for the screensaver to be dismissed by the user
    }
}