Windows DreamScene, or animated desktop background feature, is no longer supported in Windows 7. However, there is hack to install DreamScene in Windows 7 by copying over the program files and registry keys from Windows Vista.

However, after enabling DreamScene and set a video clip to be the motion desktop background, the text of desktop icons will vanish, or become transparent and invisible, leaving only the text’s shadow visible. To fix and resolve the desktop icons’ text not visible, hidden or transparent issue, follow these steps:

  1. Right click on Desktop, and select Personalize.
  2. Switch back to default Windows 7 Aero Theme. The desktop background will be reset to default wallpaper.
  3. Set the video clip as DreamScene motion desktop background again. The desktop icons’ text will remain visible in white color font.

An alternative method:

  1. Right click on Desktop, and select Personalize.
  2. Go to Desktop Background section at the bottom.
  3. Under Picture Position drop down menu, select Fill.
  4. Click on Save changes button. The desktop background will be reset to default wallpaper.
  5. Set the video clip as DreamScene motion desktop background again. The desktop icons’ text will remain visible in white color font.

Above fixes work until the next computer reboot, after which user will need to redo the steps to fix lost text to only shadow on desktop icons. For people who wants some kind of permanent fix, and don’t mind flickering of a black screen appears for a short moment at shutdown and startup, then try the following .vbs script which provides permanent solution to the issue with desktop icon text.

DreamScene-Fix.zip
DreamScene-Continuous-Fix.zip

The difference between the two downloads is that DreamScene-Continuous-Fix.zip package has added in additional code to restart DreamScene automatically when explorer crashed or stopped and restarted unexpectedly. What the scripts do is replacing “DreamScene.jpg” and “Img001.jpg” files created by DreamScene in “%SystemDrive%:\Users\User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows DreamScene” folder with sub-folders of same name (tip: If you don’t want to delete original images, manually make the image files read-only should also work), and then copy the two image files provided in the ZIP package, namely “Image1.jpg” and “Image2.jpg” (can be changed to any images) to the “%SystemDrive%:\Users\User Name\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows DreamScene” folder. The images will be displayed for a brief moment during startup and shutdown. The script open up option for user to set both “Image1.jpg” and “Image2.jpg” as desktop background in slideshow mode.

To apply the fix in DreamScene-Fix.zip, extract and run Install_Fix.bat, and set both “Image1.jpg” and “Image2.jpg” as desktop background as slideshow.

To apply the fix in DreamScene-Continuous-Fix.zip, extract and run ActivateDreamscene&FixTransparentIconText.vbs. To automatically restore Windows DreamScene whenever it deactivated due to explorer crash or restart, just put a shortcut of StartUp.vbs into StartUp folder.

With the hack, user can choose any DreamScene video as dekstop background without losing or unable to see the transparent desktop icon text with shadow only. However, sometimes the fix may be reset, such as when user changes desktop background or perform other personalization. In this case, just re-apply the fix.