I figured out how to do this in response to another thread (we got off topic).I thought this was neat enough that it deserved its own thread, so I am posting it here for everyone's attention.
So, here is a way to auto-dim your monitor after just a few seconds of inactivity, and have it restore to normal brightness after touching the screen (or moving the mouse).
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1) First, you need to set timeout of Windows screensavers in 'seconds' rather than 'minutes'. This is the tricky part, because Windows control panel does not allow you to do it directly.
Here is how to do it in Windows XP Pro SP2:
Start-> RUN
Type: gpedit.msc <enter>
Go to: User Configuration>Administrative Templates>Control Panel>Display
Open Screensaver Timeout, and ENABLE it.
Set value to something like 1 or 2 seconds.
2) Now, combine this with
Power Dimmer and you have one heck of a neat solution for night driving!
3) (optional) See
Post #32 of this thread for a solution that will enable this for you ONLY at night....
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Oh, make sure you DISABLE 'password on resume feature' from your screensaver control panel. Otherwise it will fade to black instead of keeping the screen contents...
Hope this helps. I think this is useful for night driving.