Screen savers started off as a measure to protect your monitor.The technology used in older monitors was subject to having the image burned into the phosphorous permanently if the same image stayed on the screen for too long.The result of walking away to go to lunch and coming back an hour later might be that the spreadsheet data you were working with would be a permanent ghostly image on your monitor.
Companies sprang up for the sole purpose of developing new and creative screen savers to keep this from happening. Basically, the screen saver program monitors computer activity and if there is no activity for a predefined period of time, the screen saver kicks off sending swirling shapes, flying toasters, swimming fish, or justabout anything you can imagine randomly bouncing around the screen so that no single image is left in one place long enough to burn the monitor. Meanwhile, all of your programs and files are kept running in the background just as you left them.
Over time, monitor technology has improved to the point that the screen saver is no longer truly needed to protect the monitor. However, screen savers have taken on a new, arguably more important role. Now when you walk away to go to lunch for an hour the concern is not that your spreadsheet data will be burned into the phosphorous, but that anyone walking by would be able to see your spreadsheet data.
Worse yet, anyone walking by could sit at your computer and access any of your files, or files on other computers you have access to, or send e-mail on your behalf, or any number of other things.The bottom line is that walking away from your computer is a huge security risk.
Thankfully,Windows offers an option to require a password to unlock the computer once the screen saver is started. If the user account being used does not have a password assigned, you will still see a message box stating that the system has been locked and that a password is needed. However, anyone can still get into the system by just hitting Enter if there is no password in place.
To configure your screen saver in Windows, you can right-click anywhere on the desktop and select Properties. Click the Screen Saver tab and check the box that says On resume, password protect.
You can also set the amount of time you want the system to wait before automatically starting the screen saver.You should set it for a short enough time to provide protection for your computer and your data should you leave your computer system, but long enough that the screen saver won’t automatically start while you’re trying to read your e-mail and become more of an annoyance than a benefit
You Can Open the Windows Display Properties by Right-Clicking the Desktop and Selecting Properties
