Photo screensaver ignoring power settings-will not go into sleep mode

[Tracker]

I've found an issue with the Vista Photos screensaver.  I have set as default
to use images in the pictures folder.  I have roughly 700 images in two
separate directories in the pictures folder.  The photos screensaver
displays all the images just fine but, it won't allow my display to turn off
at time specified in power settings.

I have the screensaver set to turn on at 5 minutes of inactivity.  If I have
the Vista power settings set to "Turn off the display" after say 10 minutes
or longer, it is ignored.  The monitor continues to stay on and display the
screensaver and never turns off.  I tested with the different Photos themes,
shuffle on and off and different speeds for that screensaver and same issue.

I found a couple of forum threads on other sites from a few months ago that
show some other people describing same issue. It appeared it had something to
do with having more than 50 images in the pictures folders.  So, what I did
was test that and I could duplicate that scenario.  I think it really does
have to do with the amount of images in the pictures folder and subfolders:

51 images or more - Display will never turn off at specified amount of time
50 images or less - Display will turn off at specified amount of time

Any of the other Vista screensavers do not prevent the display from turning
off. It's only the Photos screensaver.

There is nothing in the Microsoft support site that mentions this as an
issue.  Anyone run across this or knows how to fix photo screensaver going into sleep mode?

[anuahsit]

I'm also having the same problem here.  Please let me know what you find as the solution ok?

[Rickslick]

Hello thier this is Slickrick. and your problem is very simple. its you trying to do something that you cant do. 1 ascreensaver is a screensaver and is program to do that turn of after a time frame. but your pictures are not unless you could write your owen program for them to do that. I dont mean to sound kind of nastie. but stop trying to do something you cant do. unless your computer programer. I run the same windows and same system. P.S good luck do this try a screensaver and you will see the diffrence.

[Tracker]

Thank you for your brilliant answer. I wil probably enroll to be a computer programer, but in the meantime anybody else have a viable solution to my question.

[frprinterwiz]

Just curious but if you reduce the size of the pictures (in kbs) to something very small, can you do more pictures and have it still go into sleep mode?  The computer can only hold so much in memory and then has to read the hard drive (all dependent on the amount of memory you have installed and the size of the swap file, etc...)  I wonder if 51 pictures just reaches some numerical amount the memory can store, forcing it to read from the drive periodically, therefor preventing sleep mode.  Could even be something as simple as a numerical value in an inf file or registry key that imposes some kind of limitation causing this issue.  Now whether that's from the OS or from the screen saver I don't know.  Have you tried a 3rd party screen saver for your photos (I like gphoto show)?

[Tracker]

Thank you very much!!   I will follow up on your suggestions.

[Melicca27]

We are having the same issue with our computer.  We thought it was an issue straight with Dell b/c our HP laptop did shut down.  But I only put a few pictures on the laptop to try it out.  The desktop was well over 50 pictures. 

We used this screen saver all of the time on Windows XP and it did not matter how many photos there were, the display would shut off.  

If you have found any solution to your problem, please let us know.  We have been on the phone with Dell thinking it was something they had wrong.

If we run the screen saver after 1 minute and then turn off display after 2, everything works fine.  Like you said it is only after longer amounts of time.  I did try turn off display after 5 minutes and that did not work.  

[Melicca27]

Slickrick...

XP was able to do so I think the wonderful people at Microsoft should be able to get it right for Vista... it is what THEY get paid to do.