The last edition is the Plus! SuperPack, which includes an assortment of screensavers, themes, and games, as well as multimedia applications. Seriously, go full-screen and let that thing play while you putz around in the background.Microsoft Plus! is a discontinued commercial operating system enhancement product by Microsoft. It’s still downloadable if you search the web hard enough, but it’s easier to watch a recording on YouTube. (I’m still terrible like that.) The Mystery Screensaver often acted as my bedroom nightlight, turning perfectly ordinary evenings into lightweight horror movies. Neither the door nor Honest Abe liked to do their tricks until you looked away.)īack then, I almost never turned off my computer. (Of course, it was a total “watched pot” scenario. It sounds silly by 2018 standards, but I used to just sit and FIXATE on this screensaver, waiting for those two moments.
WINDOWS 98 THEMES AND SCREEN SAVERS WINDOWS
More dramatically, one of the front windows infrequently illuminated, revealing the mansion’s study, along with a man who bore a suspicious resemblance to Abe Lincoln. I also can’t rule out the possibility that this foyer was flooded with swamp water? You’d only catch the faintest glimpse of what was inside, but it appeared to be a dimly-lit hallway leading to a second door. The Mystery Screensaver had two standout moments, shown above.Įvery now and again, the front door would open and close. The visuals were so open-ended that my brain did it reflexively, desperate to make sense of the senseless. I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who’d sit, stare and dream up stories about that mansion. They say great art leaves you with something to think about, and on that basis, this was a freakin’ masterpiece. That was the thing with the Mystery Screensaver. The numerous windows lit up at odd intervals, suggesting all sorts of activity that we could only guess at the nature of. It was more ominous than outright spooky. Since this was the “Mystery” Screensaver, it made sense that the mansion was less Munsters, more Clue. If you remove the house, I’m pretty sure this was where Jade and Smoke played peekaboo in Mortal Kombat II.
WINDOWS 98 THEMES AND SCREEN SAVERS FULL
The mansion might not have seemed so creepy if it wasn’t situated in the middle of some gothic wooded hell, full of dead trees, fallen leaves, busy bats and pale moonlight. There were enough noises to make listening a part of the fun, but those noises were still scattered enough to make each one hit you like a jump scare.
Upon deeper reflection, it was a world of wonder that let you write whole novels in your head.īeginning with a burst of pipe organs that sounded like the bark of a Jersey shore dark ride, the screensaver would then fall mostly-silent, save for the occasional creaking door or solicitous owl. On its face, this was a simple animated mansion with enough spooky elements to create a haunted ambiance. You guys can keep your Doom mazes and waterpark pipes. I’m not 100% sure that it hadn’t debuted prior to Windows 98, but that’s where I met it, and judging by what I see online, that’s where almost everyone else met it, too. Many were auditioned, but in the end, I always came back to the Mystery Screensaver.Īs I recall, the screensaver was part of a theme set for Windows 98. (I hated how the audio dropped out before the reverberations completed.) I can still hear the Undertaker’s gongs alerting me to new arrivals on my AOL Buddy List. By the time I was through, I don’t think there was a single default sound still in play. It was hardly the first computer that I’d messed around on, but it was the first one that was all mine. Back in the late ‘90s, I bought my first computer.
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