powershell mouse move does not prevent idle mode

Question

Before I start  here is my very first little code I wrote in PowerShell      System Windows Forms Cursor   Position         New-Object System Drawing Point  pos X    pos Y - 1    System Windows Forms Cursor   Position         New-Object System Drawing Point  pos X   pos Y    What do I want to achieve   Well  I want to move the mouse cursor every 4 minutes to prevent the screensaver from appearing  every second in the code above for testing   The code does really move the mouse every time one pixel up and then down immediately  The thing is  the screensaver  or idle mode of windows  is still appearing   Now  I am learning PowerShell and I have little experience with the Windows architecture   Does anybody see my mistake  I would appreciate an answer a lot   D Thanks in advance

User · Accepted Answer

The solution from the blog Prevent desktop lock or screensaver with PowerShell is working for me. Here is the relevant script, which simply sends a single period to the shell:

param($minutes = 60)

$myshell = New-Object -com "Wscript.Shell"

for ($i = 0; $i -lt $minutes; $i++) {
  Start-Sleep -Seconds 60
  $myshell.sendkeys(".")
}

and an alternative from the comments, which moves the mouse a single pixel:

$Pos = [System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position
[System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position = New-Object System.Drawing.Point((($Pos.X) + 1) , $Pos.Y)
$Pos = [System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position
[System.Windows.Forms.Cursor]::Position = New-Object System.Drawing.Point((($Pos.X) - 1) , $Pos.Y)

User · Answer

Try this   source  http   just-another-blog net programming powershell-and-the-net-framework    Add-Type -AssemblyName System Windows Forms    position    System Windows Forms Cursor   Position    position X      System Windows Forms Cursor   Position    position       while 1           position    System Windows Forms Cursor   Position        position X          System Windows Forms Cursor   Position    position         time   Get-Date         shorterTimeString    time ToString  HH mm ss           Write-Host  shorterTimeString  Mouse pointer has been moved 1 pixel to the right         Set your duration between each mouse move     Start-Sleep -Seconds 150

User · Answer

lt   Stay Awake by Frank Poth 2019-04-16   gt    Get-Host  UI RawUI WindowTitle    Stay Awake    System Console   BufferWidth     System Console   WindowWidth    40  System Console   BufferHeight    System Console   WindowHeight   10   shell   New-Object -ComObject WScript Shell   start time   Get-Date -UFormat  s  lt   Get the date in MS   gt   current time    start time  elapsed time   0  Write-Host  I am awake    Start-Sleep -Seconds 5   count   0  while  true        shell sendkeys   NUMLOCK  NUMLOCK     lt   Fake some input    gt     if   count -eq 8          count   0     Clear-Host         if   count -eq 0          current time   Get-Date -UFormat  s      elapsed time    current time -  start time      Write-Host  I ve been awake for    System Math   Round   elapsed time   60   2    minutes        else   Write-Host  Must stay awake           count       Start-Sleep -Seconds 2 5      The part that matters is  shell sendkeys   NUMLOCK  NUMLOCK    This registers two presses on the numlock key and fools the shell into thinking input was entered  I wrote this today after searching through various scripts that didn t work for me  Hope it helps someone

User · Answer

I ve added a notification that you can easily enable   disable just setting its variable to  true or  false  Also the mouse cursor moves 1 px right and then 1 px left so it basically stays in the same place even after several iterations     Lines needed for the notification  System Reflection Assembly   LoadWithPartialName  System Windows Forms   Add-Type -AssemblyName System Windows Forms   isNotificationOn    true   secondsBetweenMouseMoves   6  Pos    System Windows Forms Cursor   Position  PosDelta   1  logFilename    previousMouseMoverAction txt   errorLogFilename    mouseMoverLog txt   if    Test-Path   PSScriptRoot  logFilename         New-Item -path  PSScriptRoot -name  logFilename -type  file  -value  right     Write-Host  Warning  previousMouseMoverAction txt missing  created a new one       previousPositionChangeAction   Get-Content -Path  PSScriptRoot  logFilename  if   previousPositionChangeAction -eq  left          PosDelta   1     Set-Content -Path  PSScriptRoot  logFilename -Value  right    else        PosDelta   -1     Set-Content -Path  PSScriptRoot  logFilename -Value  left     for   i   0   i -lt  secondsBetweenMouseMoves   i           System Windows Forms Cursor   Position   New-Object System Drawing Point    Pos X     PosDelta     Pos Y      if   isNotificationOn              Sending a notification to the user          global balloon   New-Object System Windows Forms NotifyIcon          path    Get-Process -id  pid  Path          balloon Icon    System Drawing Icon   ExtractAssociatedIcon  path            balloon BalloonTipIcon    System Windows Forms ToolTipIcon   Warning           balloon BalloonTipText    I have just moved your cheese              balloon BalloonTipTitle    Attention   Env USERNAME            balloon Visible    true           balloon ShowBalloonTip 3000

User · Answer

I had a similar situation where a download needed to stay active overnight and required a key press that refreshed my connection  I also found that the mouse move does not work   However  using notepad and a send key function appears to have done the trick   I send a space instead of a     because if there is a  yes no  popup  it will automatically click the default response using the spacebar   Here is the code used   param  minutes   120    myShell   New-Object -com  Wscript Shell   for   i   0   i -lt  minutes   i        Start-Sleep -Seconds 30    myShell sendkeys          This function will work for the designated 120 minutes  2 Hours   but can be modified for the timing desired by increasing or decreasing the seconds of the input  or increasing or decreasing the assigned value of the minutes parameter   Just run the script in powershell ISE  or powershell  and open notepad   A space will be input at the specified interval for the desired length of time   minutes    Good Luck

User · Answer

I created a PS script to check idle time and jiggle the mouse to prevent the screensaver   There are two parameters you can control how it works    checkIntervalInSeconds   the interval in seconds to check if the idle time exceeds the limit   preventIdleLimitInSeconds   the idle time limit in seconds  If the idle time exceeds the idle time limit  jiggle the mouse to prevent the screensaver  Here we go  Save the script in preventIdle ps1  For preventing the 4-min screensaver  I  set  checkIntervalInSeconds   30 and  preventIdleLimitInSeconds   180   Add-Type    using System  using System Diagnostics  using System Runtime InteropServices   namespace PInvoke Win32        public static class UserInput             DllImport  user32 dll   SetLastError false           private static extern bool GetLastInputInfo ref LASTINPUTINFO plii             StructLayout LayoutKind Sequential           private struct LASTINPUTINFO               public uint cbSize              public int dwTime                     public static DateTime LastInput               get                   DateTime bootTime   DateTime UtcNow AddMilliseconds -Environment TickCount                   DateTime lastInput   bootTime AddMilliseconds LastInputTicks                   return lastInput                                   public static TimeSpan IdleTime               get                   return DateTime UtcNow Subtract LastInput                                    public static double IdleSeconds               get                   return IdleTime TotalSeconds                                   public static int LastInputTicks               get                   LASTINPUTINFO lii   new LASTINPUTINFO                    lii cbSize    uint Marshal SizeOf typeof LASTINPUTINFO                    GetLastInputInfo ref lii                   return lii dwTime                                      Add-Type    using System  using System Runtime InteropServices   namespace MouseMover       public class MouseSimulator                DllImport  user32 dll   SetLastError   true           static extern uint SendInput uint nInputs  ref INPUT pInputs  int cbSize            DllImport  user32 dll             return  MarshalAs UnmanagedType Bool           public static extern bool GetCursorPos out POINT lpPoint             StructLayout LayoutKind Sequential           struct INPUT                       public SendInputEventType type              public MouseKeybdhardwareInputUnion mkhi                     StructLayout LayoutKind Explicit           struct MouseKeybdhardwareInputUnion                        FieldOffset 0               public MouseInputData mi                FieldOffset 0               public KEYBDINPUT ki                FieldOffset 0               public HARDWAREINPUT hi                     StructLayout LayoutKind Sequential           struct KEYBDINPUT                       public ushort wVk              public ushort wScan              public uint dwFlags              public uint time              public IntPtr dwExtraInfo                     StructLayout LayoutKind Sequential           struct HARDWAREINPUT                       public int uMsg              public short wParamL              public short wParamH                     StructLayout LayoutKind Sequential           public struct POINT                       public int X              public int Y               public POINT int x  int y                                this X   x                  this Y   y                                  struct MouseInputData                       public int dx              public int dy              public uint mouseData              public MouseEventFlags dwFlags              public uint time              public IntPtr dwExtraInfo                      Flags          enum MouseEventFlags   uint                       MOUSEEVENTF MOVE   0x0001                   enum SendInputEventType   int                       InputMouse                   public static void MoveMouseBy int x  int y                INPUT mouseInput   new INPUT                mouseInput type   SendInputEventType InputMouse              mouseInput mkhi mi dwFlags   MouseEventFlags MOUSEEVENTF MOVE              mouseInput mkhi mi dx   x              mouseInput mkhi mi dy   y              SendInput 1  ref mouseInput  Marshal SizeOf mouseInput                           checkIntervalInSeconds   30  preventIdleLimitInSeconds   180  while  True        if    PInvoke Win32 UserInput   IdleSeconds -ge  preventIdleLimitInSeconds              MouseMover MouseSimulator   MoveMouseBy 10 0           MouseMover MouseSimulator   MoveMouseBy -10 0            Start-Sleep -Seconds  checkIntervalInSeconds     Then  open Windows PowerShell and run  powershell -ExecutionPolicy ByPass -File C  SCRIPT-DIRECTORY-PATH preventIdle ps1

User · Answer

I tried a mouse move solution too  and it likewise didn t work  This was my solution  to quickly toggle Scroll Lock every 4 minutes   Clear-Host Echo  Keep-alive with Scroll Lock       WShell   New-Object -com  Wscript Shell   while   true       WShell sendkeys   SCROLLLOCK      Start-Sleep -Milliseconds 100    WShell sendkeys   SCROLLLOCK      Start-Sleep -Seconds 240     I used Scroll Lock because that s one of the most useless keys on the keyboard  Also could be nice to see it briefly blink every now and then  This solution should work for just about everyone  I think   See also    https   ss64 com vb sendkeys html http   devguru com content technologies wsh wshshell-sendkeys html

User · Answer

There is an analog solution to this also  There s an android app called  Timeout Blocker  that vibrates at a set interval and you put your mouse on it  https   play google com store apps details id com isomerprogramming application timeoutblocker amp hl en

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