I would like to ban moving screen savers (photos and graphics) in my office - from what I understand, they use at least as much energy if not more than when a computer is in use/processing. And when a screen saver is on or the photos are moving, the employee is not generally around to look at it anyway. If an employee is away at lunch or at a long meeting, these screen "savers" are on for hours.

However, my employees have personal photos of friends and family on these computers, or have something meaningful/pretty to look at in general. Is it fair to ask them to take down these screen savers? I personally do not have such items on my monitor because of personal preference (although I have a few photos in frames on my desk). Is the energy waste worth employee morale? I am thinking it is not.

cherman,

 See the attached link. If you (or the company) own the computers, you can make any reasonable demands about the content on the computers. Based upon the information in the article, you should be able to determine the potential energy and cost saving especially if the computer is left on all night.

MikeCJ

http://verdiem.blogspot.com/2008/02/screen-saver-energy-sucker.html

I put the computer into "Hibernate" mode and turn the monitor off whenever I leave for lunch or go on a break.  If I'll be gone for more than two hours or go home, I shut it down entirely.  If they are running Windows Vista, isn't there a little desktop slideshow they could play?  I've only glanced at Vista, so I'm not entirely familiar with all the features.  If not, there may be some desktop slideshow software they could install if all they want to look at is pictures.  However, putting software like that on a company computer should require management approval.

-Justin

The company I work for does not allow any personal screen savers at all.  The company logo is the only screen saver available, and all of the options to add screen savers in our PC's are disabled.  I would imagine if the company wants to ban them altogether, the employees don't have a choice in the matter.  I, too have personal photos on my desk and in my cubicle to brighten my space.