CODEWITHSUNDEEP
c++windows-7sleep
naor
naor

Reputation: 341

how do i prevent screen-savers and sleeps during my program execution?

In a c++ program run on Win7, is there a way to fake a mouse movement or something like that, just to keep the screen saver from starting and the system from going to sleep? I'm looking for the minimal approach and I prefer not to use .NET. Thanks, -nuun

Upvotes: 16

Views: 12862

Answers (3)

Oleg Karavan
Oleg Karavan

Reputation: 9

Before Windows starts screen-saver, it sends SC_SCREENSAVE notification in WM_SYSCOMMAND message to applications. If application wants to prevent screen-saver from starting, it should set "handled" flag to true and return zero during message processing. There is also SC_MONITORPOWER to prevent display from going to low power state.

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/menurc/wm-syscommand

Upvotes: 1

Damien_The_Unbeliever
Damien_The_Unbeliever

Reputation: 239664

Don't mess with the screensaver settings, use SetThreadExecutionState. This is the API for informing windows on the fact that your application is active:

Enables an application to inform the system that it is in use, thereby preventing the system from entering sleep or turning off the display while the application is running.

, and

Multimedia applications, such as video players and presentation applications, must use ES_DISPLAY_REQUIRED when they display video for long periods of time without user input

Upvotes: 39

alxx
alxx

Reputation: 9897

That's not a bad idea, any decent media player does it... Look for SystemParametersInfo(SPI_SETSCREENSAVEACTIVE ...) function in Win32 api, it should do the trick.

Upvotes: 1

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