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When you open the Windows Live Photo Gallery Screensaver settings dialog, theme controls may be missing and the message "This computer’s video card can’t play themes" is displayed. You might be knowing that the themes in Windows Photo Gallery slideshow as well as in Windows Live Photo Gallery screensaver won’t be enabled if the Graphics card score (Windows Experience Index) is less than 3.0.
Interestingly some users reported that this message was displayed in their systems although the Graphics card score was above 5.0. I worked on this issue for an hour or so, and thought I’d write my observations, solution & a workaround here. The problem seems to occur if Windows Live Photo Gallery is unable to query the Graphics card score for some reason.
First step is to update your Windows Experience Index rating.
Update your Windows Experience Index Score
Login as Administrator (or equivalent.)
Open Control Panel, click System and Maintenance, and then click Performance Information and Tools.
Click Update my score. The assessment will run for few minutes.
After assessment is complete, open Windows Live Photo Gallery Screensaver settings page to see if themes are enabled. If not, try the following step:
Registering the WinSATAPI.dll file
Open an elevated Command Prompt. To open an elevated Command Prompt, click Start, click All Programs, click Accessories, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator.
Register the WinSATAPI.dll file by typing the following command and pressing {ENTER}:
You should see the following message:
Never mind about the error code 0×80070716. Restart Windows, and then open Windows Live Photo Gallery Screensaver settings page to see if themes are enabled.
Workaround
If none of the above steps work, you may use the following workaround. Setting the Windows Experience Index manually fixes the problem in most cases. It’s the same old WinSATScore registry value which comes to the rescue. But wait! You’ll have to implement the registry value in a different registry branch.
Creating the "WinSATScore" Registry Value
Click Start, type Regedit.exe and press {ENTER}
Navigate to the following location:
Right-click on the key, and create a new DWORD (32-bit) Value, and name it as WinSATScore
Double-click WinSATScore, select Decimal, and set the value data to 300 (or higher.)
Exit the Registry Editor.
The Windows Live Photo Gallery Screensaver settings page should now show the theme controls.
Here you see all the themes in the dropdown.
If the WinSATScore registry value exists, the Windows Live Photo Gallery screensaver won’t take the strain to query the Graphics card score using Windows Experience Index API.
Good luck, and enjoy the Screensaver themes!
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Update: if you put a higher number instead of 300 in the registry decimal value, I used 700, the resolution is fixed. This solved my own problem previously posted. Hope this helps anyone who has the same problem after running the registry fix.
I get this to work but the resolution is not right. It is squished on the top and bottom. Any ideas on that? Without the registry fix, the normal screensaver plays fullscreen. What informatoin would you need to know about my computer to help? Thanks!
thanks, that worked a treat! very helpful. i upgraded from vista to 7 & was having problems with the screen saver for my photos, this was really easy to follow instructions!
Thanks a lot, when i upgraded my computer from windows xp to windows 7 i noticed the screen saver options for photos was pretty bland. and it bothered me! i even emailed microsoft with feedback about this.
And i know my video card is more than capable of using silly little themes! it runs plenty of video games flawlessly.
Anyways thanks for your labor. the work-around worked like a charm.
Thanks for the work around it worked perfectly. Iactually had it when I upgraded to Windows 7 and when I installed my Facial Recognition it got dumped. I did the first part and got a success message but it didn’t take but the work around worked perfectly,Thanks for your labor.
I tried all those steps and nothing seems to help. I noticed this problem happened after I updated my drivers for my video card. I can’t see to get the system restore to work either. I am using windows 7 wiht a nvidia geforce 6150 se intergrated
Hey thanks for this. I skipped over the registering the DLL step ’cause I wasn’t sure what the point of that was. I might have tried it with more discussion of what it’s doing. The registry value did the trick anyway. Oddly I have two identical laptops, one scores 3.2 the other 2.9 – go figure.
Thank u so much ive been dealing with this problem for over 4 months now!!
do u hav any idea on how i can get my integrated webcam to work pleeeeeeeeeease im using a studio 15 DELL laptop
thanx
Brilliant!