World Photography Forum - How to make an animated screen background for PC. DIY

For those who know Trena, you know one thing well: "Endless brilliant ideas and creativity".

Inspired by her ScreenSaver for Halloween "Surf the Web" <LINK HERE>
and following the discussion, here is the tutorial to make any animated design for your PC to be used as a BackGround Screen Saver, that is one way to remove the boring current Microsoft's generic one.

Point to notice; Despite very many themes and possibility of personalization the "DeskTop Background" in Win OS, from Right Click > Personalize, there is no generic option in Windows to run an animated background Even on Window 10 (Hope Microsoft can hear our needs) and you are left only with still image, that can in tern be used as slide show theme but not a frank animation.

So you need to download a software that makes Window capable of that.
There are plenty of such programs some free, some at a small fee.
My recommendation is:

Windows 7 DreamScene Activator v 1.1, has been developed for TWC
<LEFT CLICK HERE FOR THE FREE DOWNLOAD>

Or HERE if above link not working

This is one of the most efficient ones, come in full version and it is totally Free.

This works for Windows 7 (That I am using) both 32 or 64bit and also should work on Win 8 and 10. Sorry Mac Users.

Download is free but please if you liked the end result, don't forget to show your generously to these very generous people by returning their favor through "Donation" box.

Download looks Malware/spyware free to me and once running, it did not cause any slowing down or unwanted effect at my laptop, burden on CPU, so I have no reservation against its download and use.

You need to click on "Enable" bottom once running for the first time.
Also when running the software, make sure to run it "As administrator" or it won't work.

Now any short WMV file you have can be used as a Background Screen Saver in animated mode. I ran file upto 25 MB file size or so, without a problem but you can't run a very large file. Also would be good to apply some file that has a merging beginning and end, when played in a loop form, for the needed smooth transition and flow.

There are plenty of already made nice animated screen savers to download for free here:
LINK TO DreamScene.org
use the left side menu under Windows7 Themes.

Also my suggestions:
American or English flag LEFT CLICK HERE:

And you can also contribute your own creature here for others to benefit.

You may as well find some default files under Windows own subdirectory "Videos" Under "Libraries", Sample Videos such as Wildlife or whatever is on that file.

Only one import more point:
The very first time you run your first animation background screen, the titles under your desktop icons will not be seen as the animation works for the first time. Don't worry they are there. To make the annotations under the icon again visible, as usual, you need to follow these simple steps:

Right click anywhere on free area of desktop > Personalize > Left click > in the lower page that will show up next, left click on first item on the left "Desktop Background" then on the next pages that opens, Left click on lower left icon "Picture Position" and choose "Fill".
You need to only do this one time and now you can go on any of the themes or WMV file that you made yourself and right click on the file, then choose "Set as Background" option to make that animation run in under your desktop.

You will have many admirers soon, once they see your very unique screen.

Here is one I just made for my laptop:

View My Video

Now its time to make your own WMV file for very personalized Personalized desktop theme! And I am anticipating one spooky one from someone in this forum!

Have fun.