Set Your Scanned Photos and other Pictures as Your Screensaver

Moving Your Photos into My Pictures

If you haven't already moved your files, the first thing you'll want to do is move your scanned photos to your My Pictures folder. You can do this by inserting your Data DVD into your computer's drive, and opening it as a folder when prompted. Right click on one of the folders (or an individual picture, as in the example to the right) on the DVD and select, Send To, and select My Documents. Repeat this process for each folder you want moved to your computer.

It may take a while to copy the files (since the resolution is quite high), but once they are on your computer, your scanned photos will load and display much faster, since you take the DVD drive out of the equation.

Once your scanned photo folders are in My Documents, drag and drop them into your My Pictures folder (click and hold on a folder, and you can drag it to any folder you want to place it in).

Next, click on the Start menu, and go to Control Panel. It is easier if you are in Category View (the other option is Classic View) so that you can click on Appearance and Themes.

This will open a window called Display Properties, which will have a tab at the top called Screen Saver. Click on this tab and it will display your screen saver options. You will see a drop down menu with your current slideshow select. Click on this menu and select My Pictures Slideshow.

This will default to play all the pictures in this directory, including the folders from your scanned photos folders.

Screensaver Options

You can click on the Settings button to display the Options menu (right), which will allow you to specify which folder you want to display, as well as tweak how often the pictures should change, how large they should appear, whether small pictures should be stretched, if file names will appear, etc. You can also decide if you want transition effects between pictures (photos will slide in, fade in, etc.) or if you want to be able to advance through your photos by using the keyboard.

You will need to click the Apply button at the bottom before any changes will take place.

Here are a few other things you can customize from the Screen Saver tab.

The Screen Saver tab will also allow you to determine how quickly the screen saver comes on (so it won't start when you're surfing the net or thinking carefully considering your next move in Solitare).

Another adjustment you'll find on this screen is the Power Settings, where you can tell your computer how quickly it should hibernate, shut down the hard drive, monitor, and other activities that require extra power.