Did you know you can still set up a screen saver on Windows 11? While screen savers have taken a backseat to lock screen wallpapers, you can still enable them to add a personal touch to your desktop when you’re away or when the system is idle.
Set Screen Saver on Windows 11
Press the Windows logo key, type change screen saver in the Start menu, and click on the top result to open the Screen Saver settings window. Alternatively, you can open it from Settings > Personalization > Lock Screen > Screen Saver.
Select a screen saver of your choice from the Screen Saver dropdown menu.
To customize your screen saver, click on the Settings button next to the dropdown menu. The customization options vary depending on your selection. For example, if you chose the Photos screen saver, you can pick a custom folder for the screen saver slideshow. If you select 3D Text, you can set custom text or time and adjust its motion, text style, size, speed, etc.
Click on the Preview button to see your customized screen saver in action.
Once satisfied, click OK to set your screen saver on Windows 11. The screen saver will appear when the system is idle.
Screen Saver Settings
You can specify how long Windows 11 should wait before displaying the screen saver. For that, type the number of minutes to wait in the Wait field. For example, I typed 10 minutes for a 10-minute delay.
To show the login screen when the screen saver deactivates, tick the box next to On resume, display logon screen. With this option enabled, you’ll need to enter your password or use another authentication method to unlock your system after the screen saver ends. This option provides an extra layer of security in case you forget to lock your computer.
Get Classic Screen Savers Back
While browsing through available screen savers in Windows 11, you might notice that some classics like 3D Maze, 3D FlowerBox, Flying Windows, Marquee, Starfield, and 3D Pipes are missing. Thankfully, the classic Windows screen savers are archived on the Internet Archive. That means, you can download and add them to Windows. Here’s how:
Start by downloading the archived screen savers as a ZIP file from the Internet Archive. Look for the ZIP file download link under the “Download Options” section on the sidebar.
Once downloaded, locate the zip, right-click on it, and select Extract All. Then click Extract. This will create a folder in the same directory with the extracted files.
Open the extracted folder, select all files by pressing Ctrl + A, and copy them using Ctrl + C.
Next, go to the C:\Windows\System32 folder and press Ctrl + V to paste the copied screen saver files.
When you see the duplicate files prompt, choose the Skip this file option.
When you see the Access Denied prompt, tick the box next to Do this for all current items and click Continue.
Close the File Explorer. Now, when you open the Screen Saver settings window, you’ll find all the classic screen savers in the dropdown menu.
