You can't. If you just want to look at the pretty pictures just create a shortcut to the screensaver and set a hotkey for the shortcut (see help on how to set hotkeys). But this is the screensaver acting as a normal program (that draws pretty things) not as a screensaver.
But how do I set a hotkey for the shortcut to the screensaver. I just want a
shortcut to hide my screen if someone walks in that I don't want seeing
what's on my screen. I can't find the program to even set a hotkey for.....
Help will tell you how to set a hotkey. Basically right click a shortcut, choose Properties and look. The think to note is it MUST be on the desktop or start menu for a hotkey to work.
Screensavers are in C:\windows\system32 with the extension of scr and description of Screen Saver (and for most of them their name's start with SS). Select one, Edit menu - Copy then go to the desktop and right click a blank spot and choose Paste Shortcut.
Winkey + L is the way provided for this purpose (hiding the screen) but it doesn't show pretty pictures (well it does after 10 minutes). The downside of starting a screensaver this way is it won't ask for a password and other programs can interfere with it. Normally windows starts a second desktop and shows the screensaver there so nothing on your desktop can interfere with it (like an error dialog).
Also any program can be made a screensaver. I was using notepad the other day in an experiment. It's not very good.
Want to reply to this thread or ask your own question?
You'll need to choose a username for the site, which only take a couple of moments. After that, you can post your question and our members will help you out.