Many computer users personalise their Windows Desktop by setting a favourite photo as the electronic wallpaper.

The costliest version of the new Windows Vista operating system takes this idea one stage further with a feature called DreamScene, which displays moving video as wallpaper. Vista Ultimate costs several hundred pounds, but fortunately there’s a cheaper way to create video wallpaper.

A free program called VLC plays video either in a window (like the normal Windows Media Player) or as full-screen wallpaper. Best of all, you don’t need Vista to run VLC ­ it will work just as well on Windows XP.

Here’s how to download and use VLC