As you likely know, screen savers were introduced to save Cathode Ray Tube (popularly known as CRT) monitors from burn-in effect, and now that most PCs are using LCD or LED screens, screen savers are no longer as relevant and popular as they were a decade ago.

Screen savers are turned off by default in Windows 10. That is, when you leave your Windows 10 PC idle for a couple of minutes, you don’t see a screen saver on your PC’s screen. As said before, screen savers are not essential on modern computers, but most users are accustomed to seeing a screen saver when the computer is in an idle state for some time.

All screen savers that were part of Windows 8/8.1 are available in Windows 10 as well, meaning you get 3D Text, blank, bubbles, mystify, photos, and ribbons screen savers in Windows 10. It’s just that they are turned off by default.

You may have observed that the Screen Saver Settings dialog is not easily reachable in Windows 10, unlike previous Windows versions. The classic Personalization window from where we could easily open Screen Saver Settings has been removed as well.

Method 1 – enable screen saver via Screen Saver Setting

Method 2 – enable screen saver via Registry, if disabled

Method 3 – install a third-party screen saver and activate it

Method 1

Enable screen saver in Windows 10

Step 1: Type Change screen saver in Start menu or taskbar search box and then hit Enter key to open Screen Saver Settings.

If you are unable to launch Screen Saver Settings via search, please go through our how to open Screen Saver Settings in Windows 10 guide to know all the way to open Screen Saver Settings.

Step 2: Once Screen Saver Settings dialog is launched, select a screen saver from the drop-down box, customize the selected screen saver by clicking Settings, and then click Apply button.

As you can see in the above image, the default wait or idle time before the screen saver is activated is 1 minute. You can change to 2, 5, or 10 minutes by clicking the up arrow. After making changes, click the Apply button.

That’s it!

Method 2

Enable screen saver via Registry

And if you want to enable or disable the screen saver feature via Registry, here is how to make it happen.

Step 1: Open Registry Editor. To do so, type Regedit in the Start menu or taskbar search box and then press Enter key.

Registry Editor can also be launched by typing Regedit in Run command box and pressing Enter key.

Step 2: In the Registry Editor, navigate to the following key:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Control Panel\Desktop

Step 3: On the right-side, look for the entry named ScreenSaveActive, double-click on it, and set the value to 1 (one) to enable screen saver and make it 0 (zero) to disable.

Note that if the ScreenSaveActive string value doesn’t exist, right-click on the empty area, click New, click String Value and name it ScreenSaveActive.

Method 3

Install and activate third-party screen saver in Windows 10

If you’re not satisfied with the default set of screen savers, you can download cool looking screen savers from the web. However, be sure to download screen savers only from the places you trust.

And if you’re not sure from where to download, DeviantArt is one such place from where you can download screen savers safely. Our 7 best looking screen savers for Windows article covers the best of the best screen savers out there for Windows.

To install a third-party screen saver:

Step 1: Copy the screen saver file that you want to install to a safe location to make sure that it won’t be accidentally deleted while dealing with other files.

Step 2: Right-click on the screen saver file and then click the Install button.

Step 3: Clicking Install button will automatically open Screen Saver Settings dialog with the new screen saver selected. Click the Apply button to apply the newly installed screen saver.

I hope this guide helps you!