Active background - trick

Not sure if this has been posted before but if it has - sorry to repeat

An interesting trick with the built in screensavers that also work in Windows 7

To run a screensaver as a background wallpaper image ...


Open a command prompt by clicking on Start and typing cmd and hit enter.

In command window type the name of the screen saver followed by a space and /p65552
For example to run the ribbons screen saver do the following:


In command window type ribbons.scr /p65552
(Note: The space between ribbons.scr and /p65552)

A couple of other screen saver that can be run are:

aurora.scr /p65552
bubbles.scr /p65552
Photoscreensaver.scr /p65552
ssbranded.scr /p65552

Is this an attempt to substitute dreamscenes Nigel? LOL
Are they moving images or do they turn into static backgrounds? How would you "undo" this?

Hi Arron,
Fully moving images - really

it actually creates an icon on the taskbar for the .SCR which may be closed without a problem, well so far anyway

It's a trick that also worked on Vista - A modern day "Easter Egg" from the MS UI team I think

For younger readers Easter eggs were small pieces of programming code left in the release versions of early MS software for no other reason than the programmers having a little fun - the method to unlock these little gems would mysteriously find there way into the public domain - A bit like Beta builds from eastern europe

Sounds pretty cool, I never knew about it, as you say it works in Vista too.

That's a scary post count you got there.
Attachment 4786

Hi Arron,

I doubt if the count will last

Oh what do you know it seams to have changed

I always thought he had the devil in him

Thanks for the info, Nigel.

I'm sure your right, Joan.

I created a Shortcut and pinned it to the Task Bar-

Target: C:\Windows\System32\cmd.exe cmd /c Ribbons.scr /p65552

Which works well, but I still have to manually close the cmd window.

Does anyone know how I can get the cmd window to automatically close after running the shortcut?


Despite it's limitations, it's still pretty cool. Goes together nicely with the "Full Transparency" option as well.

Transparency - Enable Full Clear Glass Transparency




For further tweaking / extra options of the default screens savers:

How to Customize / Tweak Windows Vista ScreenSavers using Registry? - Tweaking with Vishal