It's not just the Earth dream... I have seen the same thing happen, & I don't have that dream...
So it must be Deskscapes (or even Vista itself?)

As far as I know it is not a bug as I see this type of thing happen daily in Windows XP using animated wallpaper or even static wallpaper.

Paul, I'd say that this *is* a bug, whether it's the behavior of XP or not. Whether it's a high-priority bug or not, or if there's an easy fix is a different question. I for one would like to see this minor issue fixed, or at least have it load a blank or default background while it loads the dynamic desktop. This isn't an issue with MS, since they don't have the dynamic ability, so they can't exhibit the problem. An easy fix for Stardock would be to set the windows background to a static BMP (maybe of the Stardock logo) while the content is loading.

Sounds great. Seems like you could even cheat, and tell Windows to set the default background moments before configuring the DeskScape. That way, when the 10 seconds are ticking away, Windows has that in the background.

Hi Kris and everybody else,

I just rebooted my pc from XP into Vista Ultimate. Immediately after the Vista desktop displays there was a static image of the BlissfulSunset dream. A few seconds later the static image smoothly transitioned into the animation of the waving grass on the hill. I really like it working this way.

With all the dreams I've currently have on my system it is only when I switch from Desktop Earth to any other dream that there is not a smooth transition. It first switch to a yellow background.

Should you decide to use a predefined static image at system startup for the first few seconds this transition will be forced and occur every time whereas at the moment on my system it only occurs with Desktop Earth.

It will be appreciated if you make such a change only if a large percentage of users would like that forced static image instead of the current smooth transitions that happen with most dreams between the dream's own static image and its animation at system startup.

Paul

Hi Agrabren,

So it won't affect dreams like BlissfulSunset? That dream is not dynamic but it is in the .dream format and it requires Deskscapes but Desktop Earth on the other hand is dynamic. So will there be differentiated between .dream files that is dynamic and others that is not dynamic when such a change is implemented?

Paul, you hit on my biggest complain about the dream.wincustomize.com site. Currently, there are only three dynamic dreams availables. And I posted that Stardock will probably need to think about doing something in the DeskScape product as a warning, there is currently no way to tell if a DREAM you are downloading is dynamic or video. To understand the difference: a video dream is just a video clip. Say an MPEG or WMV file, packaged in the .DREAM format. A dynamic dream is a program. It has executable code which is run on your machine, and actually renders the dream. For instance, Neil's "Ovals" dream could have the ovals changing color based on CPU load. That is why it is called a "dynamic" dream. What is shown on the screen is calculated in real-time, instead of just the next frame from a video clip. The website should call out the difference, because I, for instance, prefer dynamic dreams. And many people aren't going to be able to tell the difference from a 20 word blurb. Dynamic dreams can also use less CPU and memory than video, since they're not nearly as large. The reason Stardock should *really* warn you about dynamic dreams when you run them (again, after they release the SDK), is because it IS executing custom code on the client PC. And while I'm sure they'll do everything in they can to prevent users from posting mallicious dreams, there is a risk involved. They should also strip away almost all privileges from the process running the dream, but that's getting a bit technical for this blog. If Neil or someone from Stardock wants more info about that (if they don't already know about stripping process privs) they can send me a private message.