Windows 11 will apparently pick up native video wallpapers, bringing back a sort of customization option long held by third-party tools and not seen since the Vista days. The feature was spotted in recent Insider preview builds, and if it makes it to the finish line, you’ll be able to use a looping video as your desktop background.
The feature was originally discovered by popular Windows feature hunter PhantomOfEarth on X and later confirmed through a report by Windows Central.
It’s currently behind a feature flag and has appeared in Dev and Beta Channel builds since the 26xxx.6690 range, which suggests Microsoft is actively experimenting with it but isn’t ready to ship it widely.
Early tests suggest that common formats—MP4, MOV, AVI, WMV, M4V, and MKV files—are supported, but playback is currently possible on the desktop only (the lock screen doesn’t seem to support it yet). The execution isn’t there yet, but even this hazy preview suggests that Microsoft may have plans for an OS-level official dynamic background experience.
What Insider testers are experiencing so far
Insiders have said the feature is showing up as part of a 57645315 feature flag. When enabled, the background picker will show a browse button where you can select a local video file to loop on the desktop. Like all unfinished Windows features, it is disabled by default and gated to specific preview builds as Microsoft judges stability and UX.
Right now, the feature is limited to managing background playback. There are no indications for lock screen or audio support, and Microsoft doesn’t document limits when it comes to resolution, frame rate, max length, etc. The behavior with more than one display is also up in the air, according to testers, and that can change a bunch as the company finishes refinement of the experience.
Since this is in-flight code, please expect a lot of changes. Microsoft is shoving features down the streams to a portion of Insiders, collecting telemetry and feedback, and iterating. Some experiments never ship; others come a month later as part of a Moment update, or a Windows Configuration Update, or the Windows Feature Experience Pack.
A tip of the hat to Windows Vista’s DreamScene feature
If this comes to fruition, it would be the first native Microsoft implementation of video wallpaper since DreamScene, a Vista Ultimate Extra that debuted in 2007. With DreamScene, high-bitrate WMV and MPEG videos are played as desktop backgrounds—an animated wallpaper—but the feature was discontinued after performance concerns were addressed, and it was no longer supported in Windows 7 due to the removal of the Aero stack.
In the years since then, third-party apps that riff on the idea, such as Wallpaper Engine and Lively Wallpaper, have helped keep it popular among the PC enthusiast set, especially for those with ultrawide or multi-monitor setups. Those tools include rich controls—per-display playback, pause-on-battery, performance caps—that set a high bar for Microsoft’s native approach.
The timing also has to do with an industry-wide taste for motion-first personalization. macOS features cinematic screensavers that become wallpapers, and phones have popularized live wallpapers. Adding a first-party choice to Windows 11 would also ease setup and remove the need for background processes in external apps.
Performance and battery impact of video wallpapers
Continuous video playback isn’t free. Even with HW acceleration decoding on most modern Intel/AMD/Nvidia GPUs, a moving background provides solid GPU and memory activity compared with a static image. On desktops, that’s largely a matter of thermals and idle power draw; on laptops it can chip away at battery life.
There are tools available to Microsoft that might blunt the impact, should it deploy them. Battery Saver and Power do their best already to slow down background processes, and Game Mode is all about foreground performance. A really good implementation could even automatically pause or dial down wallpaper frame rate when on battery, when an external display is disconnected, or in the presence of a full-screen app.
Control will matter for enterprises, too. Expect administrators to seek out Group Policy or Intune settings to disable video wallpapers on managed machines, both standardizing users’ experience and avoiding unnecessary power draw in fleet deployment.
When might Microsoft release the video wallpaper feature?
There is no official announcement or release timeframe. Historically, things found behind feature flags can take weeks or months to hatch, and don’t always graduate out of the Insider program. The fact that it appears in both the Dev and Beta channels, however, suggests it’s more than just a throwaway experiment.
For now, the takeaway is straightforward: video wallpapers are back in the Windows story. If Microsoft can achieve that balance between visual pizzazz and power conservation—and around reasonable controls for gamers, creators, and IT—Windows 11’s dynamic desktops could soon be first-class features again.
