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Microsoft first added Active Desktop to the Windows environment as the most obvious browser-integration feature of Internet Explorer 4. The basic idea behind Active Desktop is that it allows you to do all kinds of great stuff with your Windows desktop: You can embed live Web links, still or moving graphics, Web page windows, and even Java applets for quick and easy access.

When Active Desktop first appeared, many users disparaged it. At the time there were some good reasons to do so--the feature used too much CPU time and slowed down Windows performance. Active graphics embedded in the desktop taxed 1997-era graphics boards to their capacity, and since most Internet connections were slow and worked intermittently, modem users hated it.

But times have changed. Active Desktop now works quite well if you have a newer PC equipped with a modern, much faster processor. Broadband Internet connections don't hurt, either. Nowadays, embedding a Webcam window or live links is no less convenient than adding a family picture to the desktop wallpaper. Here's what you'll need to know to start using Active Desktop yourself.

Active Desktop Setup Requirements

You will have a much more positive experience getting Active Desktop going if you have a PC that is less than two years old. If you still run IE 4 or 5 under Windows 95 or 98, you should consider the upgrade to Windows 98 SE or Millennium Edition, as the newer operating systems fix major browser bugs and run Active Desktop faster. In addition, Windows 95 and 98 require you to install a component called Desktop Update, of which Active Desktop is a part; this code is part of the standard Windows 98 SE and Me installation.

The base PC should have at least a 450-MHz Pentium II/III or Celeron CPU. You will want the PC to have at least 64MB of RAM (128MB would be even better), and it should have a relatively current graphics board with at least 8MB of video RAM. If you intend to embed a Webcam window (or more than one live Web page), you'll want a 17-inch or larger monitor set to 1024 by 768 screen resolution.

Just for reference, we ran all of the Active Desktop objects mentioned in this story on a 1997 Pentium-166 laptop with 64MB of RAM. Everything worked fine, though slowly--we sometimes had to wait a few seconds for a reaction when we clicked the Start button or switched windows while a camera image was refreshing.