AVS Shader Screensaver

A portable OpenGL screensaver for Windows that randomly picks from 23 curated GLSL fragment shaders embedded directly in the executable. No external files needed — a single .exe (or .scr) contains everything.

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Usage

shader.exe                    # Run with a random embedded shader
shader.exe terrain.glsl       # Run a specific shader from disk

As a screensaver

1. Build the project (see below) — build.bat produces both shader.exe and shader.scr
2. Run install.bat (as Administrator) to copy shader.scr into System32 and register it as the active screensaver for both the desktop session and the lock screen
3. Run uninstall.bat to remove it

Or do it manually: right-click shader.scr → Install, or copy to C:\Windows\System32 and pick it from Screen Saver Settings.

Build

Requirements

• MSVC (Visual Studio Build Tools or full Visual Studio)
• Windows SDK (for rc.exe resource compiler)
• No external libraries — uses only user32, gdi32, opengl32, kernel32

Build command

build.bat

Code signing (optional)

sign.bat

Creates a self-signed certificate (first run) and signs both shader.exe and shader.scr using Windows SDK tools (makecert, pvk2pfx, signtool).

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psychip.net May 2026