Screen-saver does not activate in Windows MCE 2005

On a Windows Media Center Edition system and sometimes on Windows XP Home edition computers, when the user is logged into the computer, the screen-saver never activates and neither do the power management functions.

This issue has has been reported on a number of forums and technical support boards. The exact software involved in causing this issue is not quite clear, however, using the following steps will usually help to resolve it.

The components most likely involved in causing this issue are as follows:

Microsoft Comfort Wireless Keyboard/Mouse 1.0A
PowerDVD or other DVD software which starts on boot
dhtray.exe - Microsoft Windows MCE component (not required)
DSAgnt.exe - Dell support agent

In order to fix this problem, a combination of the dhtray.exe, dsagnt.exe and the DVD software need to be stopped. The best solution is to try using task manager to kill these processes one at a time and then wait to see if your screen saver comes on. Once it begins working again, you have found your problem application. You can also edit the registry (or use msconfig) to stop these applications from starting up and then reboot the system.

If you narrow down the problem on your computer, please state which of these components you are using and what you found the cause to be. Also please state the model of computer you are using where this problem was found. You can report all of this using the comment system below.

The system we found this to be a problem on was a Dell Dimension 9150 with a Wireless Laser Desktop 6000 (Microsoft Comfort 1.0A Wireless keyboard and Microsoft Wireless Laser Mouse 6000).

Author: DPAK
Created: May 1 2006
Categories: Windows XP MCE
TechByte #137

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