DeskScapes 8.5

DeskScapes is intended to change your desktop background and screensaver. If you’re wondering why you should use such an application when you can do that in Windows, let me tell you that it lets you go far beyond changing wallpapers at a given interval. In this regard, besides static pictures, the tool also supports a special type of format that allows you to use videos and animations.

The application has a very nice interface, in which most of the space is devoted to displaying thumbnails of various themes. By selecting one of them, you can easily adjust their position and layout as well as apply effects and change their color before you use it on your desktop. I was really fascinated by the backgrounds included with the application’s installer. There’s even one, called Earth, which presents an animated sequence of our planet with real night and day areas, and lets you choose its spinning speed. However, there’s also the possibility of downloading more themes (called “dreams”) from the developer’s website. Still, you can create your own dreams using an application that comes in the same installer package and it’s called DreamMaker.

All in all, Deskscapes is a nice alternative to Windows standard desktop backgrounds. Its main disadvantage is that the program requires additional system resources, which may cause system slowdown, particularly if your computer isn’t very powerful.