Question Trying to convert an old Flash Player animation (exe) into a Screen Saver. Help.

Mugsy

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A friend of mine had a beloved old Flash-based screen saver for years but lost it in a computer crash years ago.

I managed to rescue a Flash Player EXE copy off his harddrive, but that's it. No FLA or SWF file. Just the exe. It plays just fine on my Win11 computer, but I can't extract the SWF within it to convert it to another format (I've tried every old utility. They too no longer work.)

Any ideas on how to either extract the animation from from a Flash Player exe in the Windows11-era (or perhaps how to simply get Windows to play the exe as a screensaver?)

TIA
 

Mugsy

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That might end up being my only option.

I found some "ideas" that came close to working, but don't.

I found a utility called "RunSaver" that includes a "RunSaver.scr" that runs any exe. Easy to configure, but once you put "RunSaver.scr" in the System32 folder, it no longer works (a Security issue I presume.)

Another great idea was to use the Task Scheduler to run the exe "on idle". And despite setting it to run on idle for just 1 minute, it never does. I tried setting all kinds of Task options but never could get it to launch anything on idle.

So, I'll try doing a video capture of the animation. Can anyone recommend a "MP4 screen saver" app that works with Win10/11?

TIA
 

Mugsy

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FOLLOW-UP:

Every attempt to rescue my friends old screensaver has failed with Win11:

I captured video of it running, but I could not find a single "Video Screensaver" app that works with Win11 (even ones that supposedly work with Win10.)

Can't extract the SWF from the EXE because Flash support was yanked long ago and every utility I've found needs a working copy of Flash installed (a known "hack" of the Flash libraries to circumvent this was subject to a "forced takedown" by Adobe.)

Tried to use the Task Scheduler to launch the exe "on idle", but it never ran (the "On idle" task option hasn't worked right since Win7.)

Incredibly frustrating.

(Odd addendum: I CAN turn the captured/edited video into wallpaper using an app called "Lively", but that's as close as I've come.)
 

Ralston18

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Mugsy

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Likely doable if you can work out the starting "extension" and then convert to the necessary file extension needed for the desired screen saver.

When you capture that video and turn it into wallpaper what file extension is used?

E.g. = .png or .jpg

You mentioned .swf

The captured/edited video is in MPG format.

The original screensaver only exists as a "Flash Player" exe video file. There is (no longer) any way to extract the SWF or FLA file from the exe.
 

Mugsy

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Thx for the reply, but I'm not sure what you want a screenshot of?

Unless you know of a "Video Screensaver" app that works with Win11, or a way to extract a SWF from a Flash Player EXE without Flash, or how to get "On idle" to work properly from the Task Scheduler, there's nothing more that can be done.