Convert Flash exe saver to scr?

A friend of mine had a flash-based screensaver he used for years. When Flash went belly-up, so did his screen saver. I "rescued" it by converting it to an .exe years ago, but it was an screen saver no more.

The .exe is (I assume) an embedded flash player. Renaming the .exe to ".scr" (as others suggested) doesn't work (I get an error message: "An error occurred attempting to open the URL http://s") and the original .scr file is long gone.

Is there any way to get Windows to play the exe as a screen saver?

TIA

Mugsy7 months agoWindows 10 x64, Firefox

4 replies

• If you had the original Flash animation, which would probably have been an .swf file, then it's possible that you converted that to a standalone .exe file at the time. That would then indeed have an embedded flash player, allowing it to run even today.

  Since a .scr screensaver file is functionally much the same as a .exe file, the only conversion you can do to a screensaver is to rename the file extension from .scr to .exe.

  So it depends on how the screensaver was converted at the time.

  If it works as a .exe, does it behave as a screensaver? In other words, does it open full-screen and exit automatically when you move the mouse or press a key?

  If so, then you could use the the Screen Launcher screensaver that we also use in the Johnny Castaway tutorial (step 5). You install the Screen Launcher as a screensaver, then go into its settings and point it to a .exe file that you want it to run. Then when it's time for the screensaver to come on, Screen Launcher will launch that program file.

  Failing that, it may be possible to extract the original .swf Flash file from the .exe you have, and use that to convert it back into a standalone screensaver. We have some proprietary tools for that. You can submit the file here if you like.

  Hope that helps! Let me know if you have any further questions.

  A moderator edited this post 7 months ago.

  Rob (Screensavers Planet)7 months ago

• Thx for the reply.

  I now suspect I never had an .swf file. The folder with the exe contains an old ".fla" (flash source) file.

  When I run the exe, it plays full screen, but moving the mouse does not end/exit the animation.

  Mugsy7 months ago

• Then you should be able to get it running using Screen Launcher. But when it runs you may need to use Alt+F4, Esc or a similar key or key combination to exit.

  Rob (Screensavers Planet)7 months ago

• Thx, but the screensaver isn't for me, it's for a client.

  And while I'd be willing to just hit Esc to exit the screen saver, he probably wouldn't.

  Mugsy7 months ago

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