Ultimate team shows off glowing Vista orb DreamScene wallpaper

Alex Kipman, the group manager for Windows Vista Ultimate has posted a short video of an upcoming DreamScene wallpaper featuring an animated version of the back-lit glowing Windows orb wallpaper released weeks ago.

The back-lit Vista orb was one of two Vista Ultimate branded wallpaper released for public download on March 8. A lot of people agreed that these were awesome wallpapers and the download numbers up to the nearly hundred thousands reflect this enthusiasm.

It looks pretty cool, non-intrusive and unbranded. The way wallpapers should be. Hats off to them. Also, it should be noted the increasing transparency from the Ultimate team about their future plans and strategies is a welcoming change after years of national secrecy ever since the beta program.

However, I do hope the future of Ultimate Extras is not going to be years of DreamScene content packs. Cross my fingers.

32 insightful thoughts

  1. why doesn’t the sidebar appear on this video on either side of the screen?
    is there a trick to mask it while still being able to see the gadgets?

  2. “It looks pretty cool, non-intrusive and unbranded.”

    I’d agree with it looks cool, and relatively non-intrusive. However I can’t agree that it’s unbranded – it’s got a giant Windows Logo there! 🙂

    (Yes, I know what you meant)

  3. @link385: You can close the sidebar and still run the gadgets. Just right click on the fade area and click on “Close sidebar”.

  4. Does he also have the sidebar running across the top of his screen? I don’t even know if that’s an option.

    Hey Zheng, as long as I’m writing here, can you answer a question that occured to me recently? If Vista’s applications were written in WPF (I know they aren’t), would that mean they were vulnerable to running on other operating systems using WPF/E? In other words, dangerously easy to pirate without actually using Windows? Or is there something that would prevent that.

  5. Do update us when they release it 🙂

    Also just realised DreamScene is still in “beta/preview” stages….

  6. @RC: If you drag the gadgets on to the desktop, then close the Sidebar, they can appear to run anywhere on the screen you want!

    WPF applications cannot run without the full .NET 3.0 framework which would mean either Windows XP or Windows Vista at the moment. It will not work if you only have WPF/E browser plugins.

    WPF/E applications on the other hand is designed to work cross-platform, so wherever there is a plugin or framework for that platform, it will work.

  7. I find animated wallpapers rather useless. Most of the time I am in maximized views so why bother. Besides, you need a good system to run them.

  8. @ Andy,
    Nobody’s saying Dreamscene wallpapers have any uses beyond looking pretty, it’s just a nice extra feature that you can choose to use or not, it’s up to you.

  9. I agree with Darcy. This is a subjective feature; if you don’t like it that’s your preference, but it doesn’t make dreamscene a bad feature for everyone.

  10. Wow, first good looking DreamScene! Let us hope that the other wallpaper will appear as a DreamScene too! 😉

  11. A great nvidia go 7200 update came last night and, despite a low version # bump, it runs glass much smoother. Im thinking of checking the animated wallpapser again. I just wish those great wallpapers that came with vista were animated… I just can’t part with them.

  12. I would find this sort of thing annoying after a while, the CPU and memory usage costs associated with it wouldn’t be worth it and does anybody actually stare at their desktop for that long. Oh, and how long do you think it will be until Microsoft no longer care about Vista Ultimate Extras, for those people who paid the extra.

  13. i thnk dreamscen is great and I am really looking for to seeing whats going to be available, they are a fab addition for large screen TV’s for when media centre is not in use :o)

  14. Too bad they stole the idea from David Reveman at Novell (re: Xwinwrap). His implementation of it kills anything possible with Dreamscenes too – Use any screensaver or video file of your choice as your wallpaper.

  15. haha yes Mike, it would be great to have screensaver as wallpaper…

    but some creative people have tried to convert screensaver/wallpaper into nice dreamscenes…

    check this site: http://dreamscenevideo.net/

    got lots of video in there

  16. hi, thanx you from my side for that link.

    experiencing dreamscene just right now.. damn THAT was a feature i have waitin for 😉

    itsa dream for a 3d designer like me to use such features.
    at least it doesnt use that much resources, runs nice with 3dsmax, zbrush3, PS, NV sdk .. while i am doin shaderprogramming, engine testing etc.

  17. um so… once upon a time that video was available for download, but now has seemed to have disappeared.

    anyone have the Orb Dreamscene? link, please!?!

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