To run SereneScreen Marine Aquarium, you will need:

No.

Marine Aquarium will not work on Windows NT 4.0. Marine Aquarium requires DirectX 6 or better to run and Windows NT 4.0 does not support DirectX.

Only notebooks with a GeForce2Go, Rage Mobility or S3 Savage chip will run the Marine Aquarium. The NeoMagic chip will not work.

Not yet.

We are working on built-in support for dual-monitor setups. Currently, running Marine Aquarium on a dual monitor system will either blacken one monitor or not affect it at all. Dual monitor support is a feature that we are working on for our next upgrade, which should be available soon.

Thank you for your patience.

Yes.

The 3 fish demo in the XP Plus! Pack and our full 7 fish version are two separate programs. Jim Sachs, the creator of the Marine Aquarium screen saver is not affiliated with Microsoft and does not receive a dime from sales of the XP Plus! Pack. Some time ago, Microsoft spotted our Marine Aquarium and was so impressed at the way the program utilizes Microsoft's Direct 3D technology they contacted Jim who agreed to create a 3 fish version as a show piece for the XP Plus! Pack. In return, Jim's product is exposed to millions of XP users who can purchase the full Deluxe Marine Aquarium if they are so inclined.

We apologize for the inconvenience.

In order to prevent piracy of our product, we have included a way of disabling Keycodes that we see posted on the Internet. You are urged to NEVER give out your Keycode to anyone. If you do, they might post YOUR Keycode to a website or forum. At that point we will be forced to disable the Keycode in the next version of the software. We ONLY disable Keycodes that are posted to the Internet, or from customers that could not get the product to work on their computer. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES CAN WE "RE-ACTIVATE" A KEYCODE. We apologize for any inconvenience.

On a computer with multiple user profiles, only profiles that have administrator access can effect changes to the computer's registry, where our Keycode is stored. Not having Administrator access to the computer means that Marine Aquarium cannot register itself correctly. You will have to change each user profile to accept registry changes and then enter the Keycode into each profile.

To change the user profile in Win 2000/XP:
1. Click on the START button and select "Control Panel".
2. Double-click "User Accounts".
3. Select the task "Change an Account" and then click on the account to be changed.
4. Click on "Change my account type" and read the instructions for changing each profile to "Administrator" status.

To copy and paste the Keycode, do the following:

1. Hold down the left mouse button and pass the cursor over the Keycode. This will highlight the code in black.
2. Let go of the mouse button and move the cursor to the center of the highlight without pressing any buttons.
3. Press the right-most mouse button and select "Copy" from the pop-up menu. 4. Start Marine Aquarium.
5. After the program starts up, press the space bar. This will bring up the registration window.
6. Put the cursor in the registration window, press the right-most mouse button again and select "Paste" from the pop-up menu. The Keycode should appear in the registration box. Be sure to eliminate any spaces before or after the code so you can have a clean paste.
7. Press the Enter key. The program should start right up.

To use the CD version of the program, the computer you are installing to needs to have a CD-ROM drive. (Link: See the System Requirements) When Marine Aquarium is first run the program looks for the CD to register the program. Using a network CD-ROM will not work for this purpose, but a portable CD-ROM drive will suffice.

To set Marine Aquarium as your screensaver follow the instructions below:

1. Right-click on your desktop. This will bring up a small menu window.
2. Select "Properties" from the menu. This will open the "Display Properties" window.
3. Click on the tab along the top marked "Screen Saver"
4. Using the scrolling menu, select Marine Aquarium. A Fish should appear in the small computer monitor at the top of this window.
5. The length of time until the screen saver activates can be adjusted at the right.

Some computers do not read the automatic start function on CD-ROMs. If you placed the CD in your CD-ROM drive and nothing happens, you may have to run the auto-installer manually.

1. Place the CD in the CD-ROM drive.
2. Double click on the "My Computer" icon. This will bring up a window with all of the computer's drives in it.
3. Find the CD-ROM drive and right click on it. From the small menu select "Explore". This will bring up another window that shows the contents of the CD.
4. Find the icon that looks like a little computer called "Setup.exe" and double click on it. This will start the auto-installer.

Hotkeys for the Marine Aquarium:

ESC - Exit program.
A or HELP - Help window.
B - Bubble sound on/off.
F - Full screen/windowed mode.
M - Enable/disable Exit on Mouse Move.
S - Show frame rate information.
W - Wireframe/normal mode.
'Space' - Settings menu.
Up/Down Arrow - Main Lights up/down.
Right/Left Arrow - Background lights up/down.
L - Automatic light changes on/off.
R - Restore default settings.

The current version allows you to save your settings once you have activated the full version of the program with your keycode.

The Marine Aquarium can display up to seven fish at a time, from a library of colorful exotic breeds. To access and use this library, please follow the instructions below:

1. Start the program, by clicking on the desktop icon, or from the Start Menu.
2. While the program is running press the space bar. This will bring up the Settings window where you will find seven slots for fish, in the upper left-hand corner, under the heading Livestock.
3. To access the library, click on the small black triangle to the right of each slot and scroll up and down through the drop down menu. Here there are over twenty Fish to choose from. Select a Fish by left clicking on the name you would like.
4. Selecting OFF will leave that slot blank and the Marine Aquarium will have one less fish on the screen. Select RANDOM and the Marine Aquarium will pick a fish for you at random, every time you open the program. Checking the option "Don't Duplicate Random Choices" will make sure that no random choices are the same.

If you have recently downloaded the newest version and do not see the Lionfish, be sure that you are not accessing an old version of the program. To remove these old versions from your system, please follow the instructions below:

1. Click on the Start button then "Find" or "Search".
2. Search for and delete all copies of "fish.scr" and "fishdemo.scr" from your system.
3. When the list of files displays in the Find window, right click on each of our fish icons and choose delete.

We are sorry, but without knowing the exact specifications of both computers, this is impossible to answer. You may fill out a troubleshooting form found HERE, to help us solve your problem.

There are a few things that can cause this problem so let's try a couple of basic fixes. Any combination of the below may get your Fish moving again.

1. First, be sure you have your desktop color resolution set to 16bit (This is called High Color on WIN98, but Medium Color on WINXP).

2. Some systems do not have sufficient resources to support all seven fish, resulting in periodic lock ups. Try turning one or two of the fish, or the bubble column off to see if it helps.

3. If you are running the full version, hit the space bar and go to the Settings menu. De-select the "Desktop resolution" option and choose another resolution like 800x600. Also de-select the "Exit on mouse move" if it is enabled.

4. Sometimes a program (Some Internet connections, communication/chat programs and media players) will access the system periodically and terminate or disrupt Marine Aquarium. Try disabling these types of programs to see if it makes a difference.

If you go through all of the basic fixes and your Aquarium is still slow or freezing, the problem may be your video card driver. Click HERE for information on how to check and update your video card driver.

This is a problem that only occurs with ATI video cards. You need to change your setting for Overlay Brightness as outlined below:

1. Right click on your Desktop.
2. Click Properties.
3. Click the "Settings" tab.
4. Click the "Advanced..." button in the bottom right corner.
5. Click the "ATI Color" tab.
6. Along with the setting for Desktop Brightness is a setting for Overlay Brightness. Set the Overlay brightness to the minimum.

The CD you received was one of a very few that was incorrectly manufactured at the factory. It is considered defective and can be returned to the vendor for a full refund.

The geometry on your monitor for the screen mode the Aquarium is using may not be edge-to-edge. Try adjusting your monitor settings. These are usually located on the front of your monitor. Your monitor should save these changes and they should only be in effect when the Marine Aquarium is running.

If you still cannot get the display to fill the screen you may have to override the refresh setting in DirectX. Check your monitor manufacturer's web site and see what the optimal refresh rate is for the resolution you want to run.

1. Click on the "Start" button and select "Run".
2. Type dxdiag and click "OK".
3. Click the "More Help" tab.
4. Click the "Override" button.
5. Enter the optimal refresh rate for your monitor. DirectX limits some programs to 60hz by default.

Try to remove and reinstall your Audio Compression software.

1. In Windows98 or ME click on the Start button then select Settings/Control Panel/Add-Remove Programs.

2. Click Windows Setup, scroll to and select Multimedia then click the "Details" button.

3. Uncheck "Audio Compression" and click "Apply".

4. Re-check "Audio Compression" to re-install (at this point you might be asked to insert your Windows disk) and click OK.

If you are running another operating system or the Aquarium sound still does not work, we suggest you uninstall and reinstall your sound card driver. The latest version should be available on your computer manufactures web and/or your sound card/chip manufacturer's site.

Check there also for specific instructions on how to uninstall and reinstall.

To check which sound card you have click on the "Start" button, select "Run" and type in "dxdiag" then click OK. This will open the DirectX Diagnostic Tool. Click the Sound tab. Your sound card will be listed under the Device heading.

To use the ABOUT and HELP buttons the program must be running. While the program is active press the space bar to bring up the settings window. From here you can access the ABOUT and HELP options.

AutoCAD or some other program has changed the association of the .scr file type. Here is a way to work around that:

1. Open your My Documents folder and select "View" from the Menu Bar then click on "Folder Options..."

2. Click the "View" tab, uncheck "Hide file extensions for known file types" and click the "Apply" button. This will allow you to view the file extensions for all files.

3. Close your My Documents window.

4. Delete the SereneScreen Aquarium icon from your Desktop.

5. Copy and Paste the Aquarium.scr file to your Desktop from your C:\Windows\System folder.

6. Right-click on the new Aquarium icon and select "Rename" from the menu. Change the Icon's name to Aquarium.exe. You can now run the Aquarium manually by double-clicking this Icon.

This is a known issue with version 1.1.6 that will be corrected in the next full release version. Thank you for your patience.