It’s amazingly easy to set a beautiful picture as wallpaper in Windows operating system. The task can be accomplished by right-clicking on the picture file and then clicking Set as desktop background option.
Even though setting non-animated pictures as wallpaper is a simple task, Windows doesn’t support using animated picture or video as background out of the box. For Vista ultimate edition, Microsoft did release a feature called DreamScene to set a video file as desktop background but the feature isn’t officially available for Windows 7 and later versions of Windows.
Even though it’s pretty much possible to get DreamScene feature in Windows 7 with the help of third-party utilities, the feature doesn’t support animated GIFs out of the box. The DreamScene feature is compatible with only .MPG and .WMV formats.
So if you have a downloaded a cool animated GIF picture and want to set it as desktop background or wallpaper in Windows 7, there are two ways out there to set GIF file as desktop background.
The first method involves enabling DreamScene in Windows 7 and then converting GIF file to DreamScene compatible WMV file. Follow the given below instructions to enable the DreamScene feature, convert GIF to WMV and then set GIF (now WMV) as desktop background.
Use animated GIF file as wallpaper
Step 1: Download DreamScene Activator. Extract the zip file to get the DreamScene Activator.
Step 2: Run DreamScene Activator as administrator by right-clicking on it and then clicking Run as administrator option.
Step 3: Click Enable DreamScene button to enable DreamScene. The tool will automatically restart Windows Explorer to make necessary changes.
Step 4: Next, download the GIF file that you would like to use as wallpaper in Windows 7. If you already have the file, jump to the next step.
Step 5: Visit this GIF to WMV online converter, browse and upload the GIF file, convert the file to WMV format, and then download the same on to your PC. Note that you don’t need to enter anything under Optional settings.
Step 6: Finally, right-click on the downloaded WMV file and then click Set as background to use your GIF (now in WMV format) as your desktop background. You can pause the DreamScene by right-clicking on it and then clicking Pause DreamScene option.
And if you’re looking to set GIF picture file as desktop background without converting the same to WMV, you have very few free tools to choose from. Many of the tools that are available on the web are not clean from toolbars, extensions and other form of viruses. Out of the all the tools we tried and tested, BioniX Wallpaper Lite is the only free tool that doesn’t include browser toolbars and extensions.
BioniX Wallpaper Lite is a free software designed to manage desktop background in Windows. The tool comes with a tool called Wallpaper Animator to set animated GIF as desktop background. After downloading, installing and running BioniX Wallpaper Lite, navigate to Tools menu to access the Wallpaper Animator. Browse the GIF file that you would like to set as desktop background and then click on the GIF file in the added list to use it as wallpaper. The tool lets you adjust the animation speed and set the wallpaper style.
Good luck!
