Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 Compatibility

iScreensaver 6 is designed for the future: modern operating systems that offer high performance hardware-based support of audio-visual playback with quality driver software. Windows 10 and macOS 10.14 provide this foundation.

However, as of this writing (April 2019), there are still quite a few older computers running older operating systems, and Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 in particular, are of concern.

Please note that Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 are in "End of Life" status. Official Microsoft Mainstream Support for Windows 7 has already been terminated as of January 13, 2015. For more on all of Microsoft's end-of dates, see Windows Lifecycle Fact Sheet.

Because of the complexity of Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 support in terms of both hardware, software, and drivers, we have adopted the following position:

iScreensaver Designer 6 will make screensavers that will launch on Windows 7, 8, and 8.1. Support is on an ad-hoc basis. We do not officially support the use on screensavers built with iScreensaver Designer 6 on the Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 operating system.

However, as a practical matter in our testing, iScreensaver Designer 6 works quite well on most Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 systems, and in many cases gives better results than the older iScreensaver Designer version 5 or 4.5
If you need to support legacy machines (including Windows 7), we recommend you consider purchasing the highest level iScreensaver Designer 6 license, which also comes with free licenses for version 5 and 4.5 (which supports Windows XP to 7). You would then distribute separate screensaver releases for the older versions.

When using iScreensaver Designer 6 to make screensavers for Windows 7, please follow these guidelines:
Make sure the Windows 7 machines are fully up to date:

Run Windows Update and do all available updates.
If Windows Update is stuck or not updating, try the Windows Update Troubleshooter
Make sure you have updated Internet Explorer 11 to the latest version: IE11 must be at patch level 11.0.110 or higher. iScreensaver relies on the HTML5 rendering engine that is present in IE11. If you need help upgrading to IE11, click here: Download IE 11 for Windows 7.
Upgrade your Video Drivers.
Make sure that Aero Glass is enabled.
Test thoroughly: iScreensaver Designer is available as a fully-featured trial download.

Try not to stress system resources:

Large images and video with high frame rates may not work. We recommend keeping images to 2K maximum size (2048x2048) and videos to 720p or lower.
Test the screensavers on actual Windows 7, 8 and 8.1 hardware before distribution.

Test on end-users' machines:

iScreensaver offers fully-featured trial downloads before purchase.
Test the screensavers on end users' Windows 7, 8, and 8.1 hardware before distribution.