Animated Desktops and Windows 7

[Dazaster]

OK, so a little while ago I learnt how to make animated gifs for the first time, a few of which I've uploaded in the image share, and being a silly fool, I decided I wanted to use some of them for my desktop. They didn't work. Much Googling later, I found that Microsoft has disabled animated desktops in Windows 7 for security reasons, and there ain't no way to re-enable 'em officially.

 

Much more Googling later, I tried various other programs which claimed to do it, but failed. One in particular stood out, but it seemed a bit dodgy, needing a registry hack and all. After even more Googling, I found a place where it's already been done and downloaded it. Its called DreamScene and allows you to run any avi, wmv etc as animated desktops. But not gifs. Oh no.

 

However it's easy to turn a gif into a movie using Microsofts own Movie Maker. But not the Live one which is for Windows 7! Instead you need ver 2.6 for Vista! So, after getting that I finally have the ability to run my gifs on my Windows 7 desktop. YAY! Er, right???

Erm, no actually. Yes they will run, BUT... it's very processor intensive. As in contant 45% load. Not good in the long run, methinks.

Anyway, there you go, you too can now run an animated gif or a movie on your Windows 7 desktop. Just don't blame me if you hear a very loud bang and the screen goes black.

 

If you do feel like playing, then this is DreamScene for windows 7 and this is MovieMaker 2.6. When installing Dreamscene, follow the instructions properly, as in when it tells you to right click on the file and run as administrator, actually do that or it won't like you.

 

I'm just posting this here for anyone who has the remotest interest and because it took ages to get this far on my own. As for possible overheating issues, for now I have two icons on my desktop. One is an ordinary .bmp, the other a folder of gifs. When I want, I run a gif for a while, then switch back to the .bmp. Well, that's all folks.

 

P.S. I did mention that Microsoft disabled this feature for security reasons, right? Maybe something to think about before you try this and go dashing off to download your favorite dirty movie.

Edited October 21, 2012 by Dazaster

[Dan3345]

Not trying to be high and mighty, but I really don't understand why you would want gif's running on your desktop anyways. Before reading this I thought this was going to be about rainmeter which is or can be CPU intensive.

[AxlRocks]

Dreamscene was introduced in Windows Vista as an extra if you bought the Ultimate edition. It can be enabled on any version of Vista also, but it will actually work correctly there. Windows 7 only has buggy leftover code and will eventually get a corrupt TranscodedWallpaper.jpg and that has to be deleted before regular wallpapers can be re-enabled. As well, there are issues with the text labels of folders and shortcuts on your desktop becoming transparent, except for the glow/shadow around the text itself. That can also be fixed, but it usually ends up coming back as well. Windows 8 from what I understand now has the code fully stripped out of it. I've never heard of Dreamscene being disabled over security, but I've never heard any statement from MS officially on it's removal either. No doubt, the slideshow in 7 is the successor to it though.

 

I actually don't use Dreamscene myself because I'm such a performance freak, no point in running up CPU usage for nothing, but it's an incredibily nice eye candy feature to show off. I wish Microsoft would offer it as an extra only higher end PC's can download and use. Then again, I wish we could easily customize themes and other things in Windows natively.

 

For fun facts, I know for a fact Windows ME allowed you to use animated GIF's directly as wallpaper. I believe XP removed using animated GIF's, but I'm not sure. Some of the default images meant for tiled wallpaper that it came with, however, were GIF I think.

 

For another fun fact, if you want to set your wallpaper as a PNG or BMP in Vista or 7 (and assumably 8), you cannot right click it and use Set as background. That converts it to a jpg, which most people could not care less about, but quality freaks will notice it eventually, especially since it's a relatively low quality jpg. Your best bet is to resave the PNG yourself as a JPG in a program that lets you define the quality level and set it to the maximum. Still a JPG, but much better.