Picture the scene. You are defragging that 160 GB hard DRIVE of yours and, after an eternity you reach 98% through. You watch in anticipation... 99% now... and it's just about finished...

... And then the screensaver kicks in, resetting the whole process. Bummer eh?

Well, to solve this, you could restart in safe mode. Of course, safe mode can be a bit of a nuisance. Or you could just clean boot by running msconfig, but that's a bit tedious if you like to defrag often.

Instead, why not add this to the registry to disable the screensaver whilst defrag runs?

Go to Start > Run and type in 'regedit', and then navigate to 'HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets'. Add a key called 'Defrag' and then another key underneath it called 'Settings', both by right clicking and selecting the appropriate option.

Then, SIMPLY add a new String called 'DisableScreenSaver' and give it a value of 'YES'. No more screensaver... at least when defrag is going.

Remember, this only works if the only interruption is from the screensaver. You'd best disable virus scanners and the like too.

Hope you find this helpful! I find EndItAll a valuable tool for stripping out all unnecessary processes when I do monthly disk maintenance.

I'll first do an offline virus scan (Trend MICRO Housecall), then run my resident virus killer (updated), then update and run Spybot and AdAware. Finally I empty the temp directory manually and run Disk Cleanup, then unplug the LAN cable and run EndItAll.

I run the ScanDisk, then the Defrag, with little or no interference from Systray and Explorer and similar 'necessary' items in the TASK list. I don't use a screen saver, but EndItAll shuts those down too.

Scandisk (Win9x) and Defrag run faster if I use EndItAll on a normal startup vice using safe mode, because the HD ATAPI drivers are still up. Safe mode slows drive access. I unplug the LAN cable because EndItAll shuts off the virus scanner and software firewall, but not the LAN card drivers.

If you are using NT/2K/XP, use the Disk Error Check with Freespace Check on and reboot to run it before you unplug the LAN and run EndItAll and Defrag.

When you have completed ScanDisk and Defrag, reboot and reconnect the network.set the screensaver to none in the display/properties..Why'd you need a screensaver? Quote

Why'd you need a screensaver?

I don't. Many people like them though, hence this tip. Plus I had 99 posts and seeing as I don't like stupid numbers like that I posted this to get it up to the 100. Obsessive-compulsive or something.