I simply cannot understand how this has not attracted more attention. What a wonderful set up for a computer to be used while idle. This makes me think more of projects like the @home screen savers for grid work. Bravo.

It works fine on 64-bit systems. You may try to use this reg-file:

I don't understand what to put into any of the blank spaces for these screen savers.

What do I put into these fields?  If I leave them empty, is it going to see my bitcoin app, and send bitcoins it manages to generate to my virtual wallet?

URL ?
User Name ?
Password ?
Status URL ?
Threads (CPU) ?

What if I only want it to use very few threads, so as not to overload my poor old computer?  How many threads does it absolutely need to work?

Uhm, I didn't see a setting for aggression.

Ok, I've joined a pool, I put in the user name and password, and the URL.  But when I run the screen saver I see lots of little coins, but the info in the corner looks like it is doing absolutely nothing.  Why?

I think it isn't working because I still haven't figured out how to register a worker in the pool at http://mining.bitcoin.cz:8332.  Until I figure that part out, I don't think it's going to even grab anything to work on.

Ok, I've finally figured it out.  There needs to be better instructions for how to get all this working, I shouldn't have had such a hard time.

So, I'm going to explain what I did to get my screensaver to finally start working on something.

I logged into http://mining.bitcoin.cz after successfully creating an account there and verifying my email.  Then I told it my bitcoin address for my wallet, send threshold, etc.  Then clicked on register worker.  This is the part that really screwed me up!  I did not understand what it wanted from me.  I put in Gateway, because my computer is a gateway computer, so, why not.  Right?  Then put in a password, and saved it.  Now I have a registered worker.  Back at the screensaver I put in, for the URL http://mining.bitcoin.cz:8332, then for the username I put <username>.<workername>, remember I called my worker Gateway, put in the password, clicked OK, and ran the screensaver.  Now it is actually getting something to work on and working on it.  Yay!

Updated source to bitcoin SVN rev 241.  Download available in the first post.

Update first post with latest release.  The connection to the RPC server will now be kept open if the server supports it instead of opening a new connection for each request.

puddinpop, can you make a hybrid mode (e.g. 4way+CUDA)? It would be very convenient.

I really like the idea of running a miner as a screensaver (read: when computer is idle), but unfortunately these RPC miners aren't the ones I'd like to run. To solve this. I've created a C# program that can start any application after X amount of inactivity and end the application when the computer becomes active. With this you automatically start mining when a computer is idle and stop mining when someone wants to use the computer. The started application (miner) can also be made invisible (it doesn't create a window in the taskbar or systray), if wanted.

I use this for running miners on computers belonging to my relatives without their computers becoming sluggish when they want to use them for something computationally intensive.

I can post the application and source here if anyone is still interested.