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Having an animated desktop background seems cool, like making it play some infinite smooth vector animation ...

I have tried doing it by making a HTML page with a full-screen flash animation, but this way, the right-click wont work again on the desktop.

Is there a free software that make it possible ? and maybe a website who offer some high-quality Flash based animations for such purpose ?

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I recall WinAmp could do this, and I think VLC can play videos on the background smoothly, so it's not actually far-fetched. –  Phoshi Sep 4 '09 at 18:09
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4 Answers

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In Windows 7 dream scene was removed. however it looks like you can still install it if you search around google. Windows 7 does have a slide show feature that comes installed. Basically it will rotate wallpaper after a set time goes past.

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You can use VLC to do that.

  1. Download and install VLC Player for Windows.


  6. Press “Save” button when done.

Credit to Bakez.Net for this walkthrough.

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Go online and find some looping videos - if you got a video editor or producer friend, they might have some looping clips you can use as a background. P.S It takes up plenty resources, and the novelty wears off SUPER FAST. –  caliban Sep 4 '09 at 18:10
i get lost in all the options there ... can't fin the wxWigdet plug-in under the interface menu and the directX wallpaper remain disabled even after I activate him, anyway, i have enabled Dreamscene in windows 7, i can play videos now but the icons labels on the desktop doesn't look good.. seams that's why Microsoft has disabled this feature in windows 7. PS: i never used vista before :p –  Revolter Sep 4 '09 at 20:30
... And i was looking for playing SWF files –  Revolter Sep 4 '09 at 20:36
Oh, SWF! Okay 2 options -> convert the SWF into a video file... or use something like SWF Desktop (no longer available, try to find a copy online). –  caliban Sep 4 '09 at 21:45
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Maybe you can do an HTML page with a VML animation (since IE doesn't have canvas element...). There are JavaScript libraries helping with that (in general cross-browser, using canvas or SVG on other browsers).

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If you have Vista Ultimate, you already have Windows DreamScene, which allows fullscreen videos to be played in the background.

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Alas, if you have two (or more) monitors, making something fullscreen on any one monitor pauses the scene for all of them. Which kind of defeats the point. –  Kyralessa Sep 4 '09 at 18:10
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