No matter whether it was their intention or an accident, your system administrator or person who configured your PC could use this feature to your disadvantage. Now you'll have to use it once again and regain control over screensavers.

Here's what you should do:

1) Click Start and then click Run...

2) Type "gpedit.msc" and press Enter.

3) A window will open with a tree on its left. Expand User Configuration node, then expand Control Panel and click Display.

4) Now look at policies in list to right. Make sure that policies starting from Hide Screen Saver Tab and ending with Screen Saver Timeout all have their state set to Not Configured.

5) If any of them has a different state, double click line with policy, select Not Configured and click OK.

6) Now close Group Policy window.

Now you can open Display Properties and see whether screensavers are back. If they aren't, step back and check if you carefully followed all steps described above.

Note that you can see a window saying you don't have permission to access Group Policy window when doing step 2. That will happen if you are working under a restricted user account. You will have to log under an account with Administrator's rights or contact your system administrator.

With a little creativity, you can use information in this article to prevent your kids and other unauthorized users from messing with your screensavers. The procedure is basically same. The only difference is that you should specify meaningful values for screensaver related items instead of Not Configured.

The important tools that don’t require much technical knowledge are ones you may already of used in DOS such as diskpart, format and chkdsk. Chkdsk searches a disk or file for errors and repairs them. Diskpart is a partition tool for creating / deleting partitions and format is exactly that, a format disk tool.

If you are having problems getting past boot up then try fixboot command. The other common problem is a virus infecting you master boot record or MBR and solution is to type in fixmbr although it is important to get it scanned with an antivirus program if you can as this can lead to partitions you might not be able to access.

Another Useful command is listsvc command which lists all services and drivers so if you have an idea where your problem may lie you can simply type disable / followed by which service you want to stop and same with enable / command.

You should be able to save yourself having to re-install windows so it’s worth having , even if you never use it.

More help is available at Microsoft site. Support.Microsoft.com/?kbid=314058

As with all tools which enable you to change registry please exercise caution, take it to a professional if at all unsure. Mark white http://www.sunspeks.com http://www.phone-bits.com