Looks like you might try uninstalling that

https://forums.wincustomize.com/440714/page/1/#3326986

No joy.  In fact, no change at all.  WU says it's an optional update but I'm putting it back because there seems to be a noticeable slowdown and tenancy to pause with the browser.  I'll restart to complete the process now, then run the registry cleanup in Norton 360.  Other ideas?

Only what's in that thread-

Reply 4 says IE10 installs the same things the KB update installs, so if you've got IE10 installed you might try rolling that back to IE9 as well as uninstalling the KB.

Reply 12 says someone also had luck uninstalling and reinstalling Silverlight.

There's always video card drivers.  If you can install the same version you had working before that might be good, or else the current ones.  I do remember seeing someone had a problem with a particular NVidia version relatively recently with deskscapes and went back to a prior version, but I don't know which version that was and didn't mark the thread.

I'm also wondering if you have any mpg codecs installed yet.  Perhaps previously you had a dvd player etc software installed which was providing them and you don't have it installed yet.

Well, it seems to have something to do with Silverlight.  I un-installed Silverlight and DeskScapes 8 did effect a change:  to all deep black.  I waited, but no image, still or moving, ever loaded.  I booted, and got the same black desktop.

I didn't have IE 10, at least in the last couple of boots, because WU installed IE 10 when I used it to re-install Silverlight.  It's possible that IE 10 was uprooted when I uninstalled Silverlight.

Re-installing Silverlight didn't change anything.  The Windows theme manager shows the desktop as black, but the location is the DeskScapes 8 folder.  I used the Windows theme manager to go back to the Landscapes slide show.  Then, I tried DeskScpaes 8 again and got the same twitch but no change in desktop.

That's it for tonight, folks.  I have an early start tomorrow.  Perhaps some thinking on my end will help, and you experts have a lot of data from tonight's fun.  I'll check in late tomorrow afternoon.

I hope you like my avatar.  It's an old picture of a lop-eared Chihuahua that I always liked.  I'll change it to something more interesting when I get a chance.

Silverlight won't un-install with IE 10 installed.  I'm un-installing IE 10 and KB2670838 first.

There is a security update for Silverlight, KB2847559, that must be un-installed to allow un-installation of Silverlight.  I'm also going to un-install DeskScapes 8 and re-install it before I try again.

It turns out that the Silverlight security update, KB2847669, appears on the WU list of updates, but on the screen of "Uniinstall an update" it does NOT appear, and Silverlight will not un-install with it in place.  So, I un-installed DeskScapes 8 and re-installed it and tried again.

Desktop Earth, my target dream, goes instantly to the black screen but there is no Earth, rotating or not.  EarthligtsV2 by stephenvw installs and works for a second or two, but then I get the Windows Explorer double-crash and the animation goes away.  Likewise, Planktonic by ChaNinja installs with animation for a second or two, then the double crash and the image stays but the animation stops.  If you do this two or thee times, the double crash goes away but you can't get anything except the black screen until you reboot.  Rebooting with the Rotating Earth dream in place has no effect.

It appears that DeskScapes 8 is operating properly and that there is nothing wrong with the dream files, but that the animation is crashing.  I suspect that some maintenance operation left it without enough stack/heap/whatever space to deal with the size of a full-screen animation, no matter how slowly and carefully planned to avoid consuming computer resources.

I'm out of ideas.  I'll go back to a simple slide show desktop until this sorts itself out.  I'll try again about once a week to watch for progress.  Anyone with ideas pleas post here; I'll get an e-mail when anyone posts to this Topic.

Probably best at this point for you to follow the instructions in Reply 1 here:

https://forums.wincustomize.com/446186/page/1/#3377501

Include a link to this thread.  Sorry this didn't work for you.

After submitting an amazing set of system logs from http://sd.stardock.com/SDSupportTool.exe to support@stardock.com last night as instructed by DaveRI, I got a reply by email this morning from Customer Care to install an update to DirectX from Microsoft at

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35

which solved the problem.  Interestingly enough, it threw a copy of Microsoft-s Malicious Software Removal Tool at me which didn't install because it was the 32-bit version first, but since I run WU every night I'm sure I have it up-to-date anyway.

I have my DeskScapes 8 desktops back.  Thank you for your support.  I actually enjoyed the forensics before we went to the gurus, too.

OO

The problem was the fresh OS installation that didn't have the current DirectX installed.  I find this puzzling because I would have thought that Microsoft considered DirectX an optional but critical support technology on the order of Silverlight, perhaps more so because it integrates with firmware in most graphics cards these days.  And, I'm quite diligent about running MS Update whenever I have a new installation and I want WU to check for old Microsoft distributable modules, and, hey, I have an NVIDIA GEFORCE 6800 which uses hardware DirectX support.  It was there is suppose but it was too old.

Apparently they passed it to a Stardock guru that knew all the modules involved with displaying dreams and he went right to my vast selection of logs to check versions, he saw it, and put it on his checklist for this morning.