Not-so-subliminal messages on a computer near you?

July 28, 2009 9:26 AM

Can anyone recommend a Windows XP screensaver that is (1) easily deployable across an organization (2) serves pictures or text from a central data store, either a URL or a networked folder, that's preferably free?

We're a non-profit organization with a few hundred PCs running Windows XP on a Novell network. We'd like to have a "status screen" of some type running on all the PCs, so when they go to the screensaver, it displays text from a central source. I've debated Flash and other fancy players, but I think just serving images is good enough ... the slide show transitions will be attention getting, and the screens displaying information can be generated by any number of programs that make BMP or JPGs.

There are a zillion slide-show screensavers. My current best candidate is Endless Slideshow Screensaver .. but I'm game for additional ideas or sources. This seems like it maybe a bit over-kill for our needs.

Surely, this is a problem solved about 10,000 times already. Just not by our local IT department.

posted by cameradv to computers & internet (3 comments total)

It's not free, but in the past I used Screen Paver on about 1500 machines in our New York office. It's relatively easy to deploy and configure.
posted by JaredSeth at 10:46 AM on July 28

Most organisations these days prefer to setup power saving on all the computers and then use the (not insignificant) electricity savings to fund a proper communication tool e.g. a simple intranet.
posted by Lanark at 2:15 PM on July 28

I'm looking for this as well, specifically to download quotes from a central store and then display them in the slide show, either on colored backgrounds or paired up with photos. I've been looking for several months, and am surprised not to have found anything. It looks like this may not be so common after all...
posted by felciano at 3:44 PM on September 5