Remember the Flying Windows screen saver? Many would say that the
Windows logo zooming by is creepy enough, but imagine for a moment
how much scarier it would be with a flying skull and crossbones instead.
Sound good? Good. Because it's not only possible, it's easy to do. 

The Windows logo used in the Flying Windows screen saver is nothing
more than a character from the Wingdings TrueType font. If you're using
Windows 3.1, you can use Microsoft Write to replace that logo with any
other Wingdings character. If you're using Windows 95, you'll need to
scare up a copy of Write from your old Windows 3.1 disks. (Microsoft
got wise to this technique in 1994 and made sure that no subsequent
Microsoft word processing tool could be used to edit .exe files.) 

To see which characters you can use, load the Character Map utility
(select Start, Run, then enter charmap and press OK), and select the
Wingdings font. Click a character to view it; at the bottom right corner,
you'll see the keystroke that creates the character. The skull and
crossbones is an uppercase N. Another friendly option is the bomb
symbol, an uppercase M. 

Armed with this knowledge, here's what you do if you use Windows 3.1
or Windows 95. 


Windows 3.1

1. Load Write, select File, Open, then type ssflywin.scr and click OK.
Click the No Conversion button. 

2. Select File, Save As and save the file as ssskulls.scr. 

3. Select Find, then Find, and type Flying Windows in the Find What
box and press Enter. When Write finds a match, press Esc. 

4. Replace the word Windows with Skulls, and put two spaces after the
word Skulls. (The spaces are important because the number of characters
you're replacing must match exactly.) 

5. Select Find, Find, type DISPLAY (in all caps) in the Find What box, and
press Enter. When Write finds a match, press Esc. 

6. Before DISPLAY, you'll see WINGDINGS. Replace the character
before that (an accented y) with an uppercase N. Save the file and exit
Write. 

7. Double-click the Control Panel's Desktop icon, and in the Screen Saver
section of the dialog box, select Flying Skulls, and click OK. 


Windows 95

1. Load Write: Remember, it must be the older version of Write; if you just
type Write from the Run menu on the Start menu, Windows will open
WordPad, which won't do the trick. Select File, Open, type
flying~1.scr, and click OK. Click the No Conversion button. 

2. Select File, Save As and save the file as skulls.scr. 

3. Select Find, Find, type Flying Windows in the Find What box, and
press Enter. When Write finds a match, press Esc. 

4. Replace the word Windows with Skulls, and put two spaces after the
word Skulls. (The spaces are important because the number of characters
you're replacing must match exactly.) 

5. Select Find, Find, type DISPLAY (in caps) in the Find What box, and
press Enter. When Write finds a match, press Esc. 

6. Before DISPLAY, you'll see WINGDINGS. Replace the character
before that (an accented y) with an uppercaseN. Save the file and exit
Write. 

7. Right-click the Desktop and select Properties. Under the Screen Saver
tab, select Flying Skulls and click OK.