Make screensaver fire whenever computer locks?

Question

Is it possible to force the screensaver to appear whenever a computer becomes locked? Specifically on XP, 7 if possible.

Answer 1

Windows has several desktops. You're familiar with the one you are looking at right now. There's another one for the login screen. And there's one for the screen saver. Locking the workstation switches the desktop to the login screen. You cannot switch back to another desktop (like the screen saver one) until you login.

You can however get the screen saver started, that selects the screen saver desktop. Which automatically switches to the login desktop if you configure the screen saver that way.

Answer 2

I believe that the SS is only triggered when the timeout is reached, regardless if the PC is locked or not.

The other way to think of this is to lock the PC whenever the screensaver fired.

Windows 2000 and above has an option to enable lock the PC when the screensaver is active, just enable this, and set the timeout and you are ready to go.