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Windows Dreamscene Activator Fixes Desktop Text Bug

Martin Brinkmann — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 09:25:53 +0000

Remember Windows Vista Ultimate? The version of Vista where you paid more to get a handful of extras? Dreamscene was one of the extras. It basically allowed the user to use videos as wallpapers on the operating system. Microsoft has dropped the feature in Windows 7, or at least made it inactive so that it cannot be configured in any version of Windows 7 by default.

Dreamscene Activator changes that. It works under Vista and Windows 7, and will enable Dreamscene on all operating system editions.

The program has been out for quite some time. Up until recently a bug was giving users a hard time to read the text of icons on the desktop as it was turning the text into a blurry transparent mess that was barely readable.

A new version of Dreamscene Activator has been published by the developer over at Door2Windows recently which fixes that bug. The program itself has stayed as user friendly as before. Windows Vista and Windows 7 users need to run the application as administrators. The application displays the current Dreamscene status which can be either On or Off.

A click on the slider changes the status. Dreamscene is turned on if it has been off before. From then on it is possible to set video wallpapers. This is done with a right-click on a compatible video (wmv or mpg) and the selection of Set as DreamScene in the context menu.

Users who run the app for the first time need to restart the PC once before the video will be set as the wallpaper. Video wallpapers compatible with DreamScene can be found at DeviantArt and other Internet sites. (via)

Video Wallpapers for all Vista Editions

Martin Brinkmann — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 12:22:48 +0000

Dreamscene is one of those few applications that are exclusive to Windows Vista Ultimate users giving them the opportunity to use Video Wallpapers as the desktop background. Workarounds to enable Dreamscene on other Vista editions have been circulating the Internet for a while. This is however not wanted by Microsoft and only possible by using cracked versions of Dreamscene.

Enter SSDream. SSDream is a software that is way more powerful than Dreamscene and available for all Vista editions. The video wallpaper functionality supports more than just wmv and mpeg-2 compatible video formats; Basically any video that plays in Windows Media Player should work with SSDream as well.

It’s difficulty to mention all the features of SSDream in this short article which is why I concentrate on the most important ones only.

Supports all Vista versions
Desktop icons remain visible
Multi-monitor support
Videos, Images and Screensavers are supported
Cpu priority settings

The developer is currently trying to bring his application to Windows XP as well which would be really nice.

Run Dreamscene in any version of Windows Vista

Martin Brinkmann — Wed, 09 May 2007 19:56:47 +0000

It seems that someone finally found a way to make Dreamscene, the video wallpaper utility that is an Windows Vista Ultimate exclusive, available on all other versions of Windows Vista. This is reported by the tech blog My Digital life which is linking to a modified version of Dreamscene and describing on how to install and use this version on your operating system. You only need to download the modified version, unpack it to your system and run a bat file that handles the installation as an administrator.

Dreamscene will then be available after the next restart. There is also a way to install the package without using the bat file. Probably a safer way for users who mistrust those files. This step requires lots of manual work though, you copy files around, rename files and change permissions for some of them. It seems a lot more complicated than using the bat file.

Video Wallpapers for all Vista versions

Martin Brinkmann — Sat, 17 Mar 2007 11:10:39 +0000

Vista Ultimate has a feature called Dreamscene that can be downloaded as a preview version including a Dreamscene content package which was released just a few days ago. Dreamscene makes it possible to use Videos as wallpapers in Windows Vista. The Dreamscene content package added four new videos that could be used as wallpapers in Windows Vista but you can also use other videos to use as a wallpaper.

It is nice that Microsoft added the functionality to Windows Vista Ultimate but all other versions miss the program because it is only available to Windows Vista Ultimate. I really don’t like the way Microsoft added and removed features in various Windows Vista versions, this is just confusing for the customers. Let me show you a free way to add video wallpapers to all versions of Windows Vista. All you need is the free VLC media player.

Just open a video file in VLC, right-click it and choose wallpaper from the menu. That’s it basically, we could finetune it further by doing the following. Go to Settings > Preferences > Interface > Main Interfaces > wxWidgets; disable taskbar and enable systray to remove the VLC windows from the taskbar. Go to Playlist and select Repeat current item to loop it. If the wallpaper option is not available in first place go to Settings > Preferences > Video > Output Modules > Direct X, select Advanced and check Enable Wallpaper Mode.

found: Vista Wired