Screensaver does start with a wireless mouse plugged in

Very strange one today

I took a call a few days ago from a client who “wasn’t asked for her password anymore when she’d been away from her desk”

My initial thought was that her screensaver had been disabled or the password option had been turned off

I logged in and everything was as I’d expected it be

I asked her when it had started happening and if anything had changed and she said she wasn’t sure but thinks it was about the time she got her new wireless mouse

I initially dismissed it and tried one or two other things with little success

I was on site today for another reason so thought I’d take another look

Turns out the screensaver wasn’t starting at all. Hence the reason why it wasn’t asking for a password

It did a quick search and I found this knowledge base article

The screen saver does not start after you install a wireless pointing device

Basically if your using a wireless mouse AND CyberLink PowerDVD or CyberLink PowerCinema it will stop the screensaver from starting

From what I can figure out it’s a piece of software that can used with a remote control so you can pause, rewind DVD’s

The software think the wireless mouse is the remote control so tries to communicate with it (the KB article itself is very vague as to WHY?)

Anyway there are two workarounds and a fix

Workaround 1: Stop the service from running

Workaround 2: Remove PowerDVD (drastic!)

Fix: Use windows update to install the latest “Microsoft HID Non-User Input Data Filter”

To to make sure this was the problem I used MSConfig to figure out which program is was (it was different to the one reported in the article) and I shut it down using Task Manager

After I’d done this the screensaver started ok..WHOOP!

Never seen anything like this before

Was also a spooky coincidence that the mouse she purchased was the exact same one I’ve just picked up to replace the ailing HP mouse that came with my PC