Skip to content
Browser Screensaver

Windows 98 Screensavers

The screensavers that came with Windows 98, rebuilt to run in a browser tab. Nothing to download, no .scr file, no emulator and no virtual machine — open one, press F, and it fills the screen on whatever you are using now.

The ones that shipped with Windows

Four of the screensavers on the Windows 98 Display Properties list, rebuilt as web pages. They are reimplementations rather than the original binaries, and two of them are drawn flat where Microsoft drew in 3D — the behaviour is faithful, the artwork is ours.

The same machines, different disks

None of these came with Windows. They are what was running on the computers next to it: a commercial screensaver pack that sold in boxes, a film that opened in 1999, and two things demosceners had been drawing since the 8-bit era.

What Windows 98 actually shipped with

Open Display Properties, click the Screen Saver tab, and the drop-down held a fixed list. It changed a little depending on whether you had installed Plus! or Internet Explorer 4, but the standard set was consistent enough that most people who used the machine can still name half of it from memory.

Of that list, the ones worth rebuilding are the ones that were genuinely nice to look at rather than merely present. 3D Pipes and Mystify are the two everybody remembers; Starfield is the one people ran because it was fastest on a slow machine; 3D Maze is the one that made a Pentium sound like it was taking off.

  • 3D Flower Box
  • 3D Flying Objects
  • 3D Maze
  • 3D Pipes
  • 3D Text
  • Blank
  • Flying Windows
  • Mystify Your Mind
  • Scrolling Marquee
  • Starfield Simulation
  • Channel Screen Saver (with Internet Explorer 4 and Active Desktop)

Why you cannot just download and run the originals

The files still exist. Search hard enough and you will find someone offering the original .scr files from a Windows 98 disc, and they will not work in any way you want them to. A .scr is a Windows executable with a different extension, compiled for a 32-bit era, and the ones with 3D in the name were written against a version of OpenGL that modern drivers no longer present in the same shape.

Even where they launch, the screensaver list they were built for has gone. Windows 11 keeps a Screen Saver Settings panel for compatibility, but the interesting entries were removed years ago and the operating system now handles idle displays by turning them off. On macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, a phone or a TV, the question does not arise at all.

The other reason is the obvious one: an executable downloaded from a nostalgia site is an executable downloaded from a nostalgia site. A web page cannot install anything, cannot survive a tab being closed, and cannot ask for administrator rights. That is the whole argument for rebuilding them rather than hosting them.

What these are, exactly

Each one is drawn from scratch in the browser, in code, to behave like the original. Pipes grows and turns and resets the way it did; Mystify bounces four-cornered polygons off the screen edges with a colour-cycling trail; Starfield accelerates outward from a vanishing point. Where the original was rendered in 3D and this one is flat, the page for it says so rather than implying otherwise.

Nothing here is copied artwork. The After Dark toasters in particular are trademarked, so the toasters on this site are original shapes that fly the same way — the homage is the motion, not the pixels. The behaviour is the part that was worth preserving, and the behaviour is the part that is free to preserve.

How to run a Windows 98 screensaver full screen

Open any of them and press F, or use the fullscreen button on the player. F11 does the same job on a desktop browser and hides the browser toolbars as well, which is what you want on a display that will be left running. Escape brings the page back.

For a screen you intend to leave alone — a second monitor, a TV, a projector at the front of a room — turn off the sleep timer in the operating system first. A browser tab cannot stop the OS from blanking the display, and any page claiming it can is guessing. Anything you change in the settings is written into the address bar as you change it, so the version you set up is a link you can bookmark or send on.

Questions

What screensavers came with Windows 98?

The standard list was 3D Flower Box, 3D Flying Objects, 3D Maze, 3D Pipes, 3D Text, Blank, Flying Windows, Mystify Your Mind, Scrolling Marquee and Starfield Simulation, with the Channel Screen Saver added if you had Internet Explorer 4 and Active Desktop installed. Plus! packs added a few more.

Are these the real Windows 98 screensavers?

No, and nothing here pretends to be. They are reimplementations written for the browser that follow the original behaviour — the growth pattern, the bounce, the colour cycling, the reset. The original files are 32-bit Windows executables and cannot run on a web page at all, so this is the only form in which they can be handed to someone on a Mac or a phone.

Can I download the original .scr files instead?

You can find them, but they will not do what you want. They are compiled Windows executables from a 32-bit era, the 3D ones target an OpenGL that current drivers no longer expose the same way, and modern Windows has removed the screensaver list they plug into. They also cannot run on macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, a phone or a TV. Running an unknown executable from a nostalgia archive is its own separate problem.

Does Windows 11 still have screensavers?

There is still a Screen Saver Settings panel, and it still works, but the list is a shadow of the Windows 98 one — the 3D entries were dropped years ago. Modern displays do not burn in the way a phosphor CRT did, so the operating system now turns the screen off instead of drawing on it, which is better for the panel and for the electricity bill.

What was the flying toaster screensaver called?

Flying Toasters, from After Dark — a commercial screensaver pack from Berkeley Systems that sold in a box and was on an enormous number of machines through the late eighties and nineties. It never shipped with Windows. The artwork is trademarked, so the version here is drawn from scratch with the same motion.

Do these work on a Mac, a Chromebook or a phone?

Yes. They are web pages, so the operating system is irrelevant — anything with a current browser will run them, including a TV with a browser built in. This is the part the original .scr files could never do.

Are they free, and is there anything to install?

Free, with no account, no signup and no time limit, and there is nothing to install. Closing the tab is the uninstall.

Why did screensavers exist in the first place?

Early phosphor CRT monitors could have a static image burned permanently into the tube if it was left on screen for long enough — a menu bar or a spreadsheet grid would ghost into everything you displayed afterwards. Moving something around the screen prevented that. LCD and OLED panels do not have the same failure mode, which is why the operating system now just switches the display off, and why what survives of the idea is the part people liked rather than the part that was necessary.