Windows 95

Windows 95 is an operating system released by Microsoft in 1995. It is the successor to Windows 3.1. It features a new set of tiles, as well as one full screen wallpaper, Clouds. It was succeeded by Windows 98 in 1998.

Wallpapers
Windows 95 has a set of tiles in Bitmap format, as well as one full screen wallpaper, Clouds. No information is available on who produced any of the wallpapers, but the pixel art tiles were likely either designed in-house or outsourced to an external graphic designer. Some of the high color ones featuring photos may have utilized licensed stock photos, but no origins have been found. All of these were reused in Windows 98 and Me.

The filenames on the disc generally differ from the names given after installation; these names are listed here too.

Fun stuff folder
The "funstuff" folder on the CD includes a folder named pictures, which features Clouds as well as another branding wallpaper called win95, featuring the Windows 95 logo over the same clouds. This wallpaper greatly resembles the bootscreen, although the Windows flag is larger here. None of the contents of the funstuff folder are installed during setup, so these can only be found by browsing the CD.

Pre-release
The first leaked build of Windows 95 is build 58s. While the tiles here are the same as in 3.1, two new wallpapers are introduced: Chicago and Warning. Build 73f adds Constrct and renames Warning to Work, while adding a new Warning wallpaper. Build 116 replaces the previous work wallpaper with a new full screen wallpaper of the same name. All of these were replaced with the final wallpaper set by build 310.

Patterns
Windows 95 also includes a set of 8x8 patterns, which are tiled across the desktop. These are not in Bitmap format and are instead rendered through binary values. They can be applied in conjunction with a wallpaper; if the wallpaper is set to be centered, the pattern will be visible on the space surrounding the wallpaper. Due to their simplistic nature, they do not use as much memory and are thus a good option on computers with low RAM.

Setup background
The setup background features a collage of tech-related images with a 2 color blue-black gradient map applied over it, including a keyboard, mouse, cables and CDs. It is known to have been produced in-house (along with the photos), but it is unknown who designed it. The keyboard was owned by Kevin Kennedy, who lent it to the designer. A higher quality version is also used on the first time run startup screen, although like the bootscreen it is squashed to 320x400, stretches out to 640x400, and when ran on real hardware it further stretches out to the resolution of the monitor.

Unlike setup backgrounds in Windows NT releases, this is also included as a wallpaper in C:/WINDOWS along with the other wallpapers. Windows NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 feature a very similar setup background (which previously appeared as the setup finalization background in 95 build 189), although it uses different cable and CD images, while the mouse image is in a slightly different position.

Pre-release
The first leaked build of Windows 95 (codenamed Chicago at the time), build 58s, uses the same blue-black gradient used for 3.1's setup background. By build 73f, this is replaced with a new monochrome background showing a desk with a CD player, a desk phone, and a computer. Although the file (embedded within SUWIN.EXE) is black and white, it is displayed as black and blue while being used in the setup.

Build 189, the first build to call itself Windows 95, introduces the final setup background, and also includes the setup background as one of the selectable wallpapers (which is used in the finalization of the setup), although the latter is the version used in NT 3.51 and NT 4.0 but with a darker shade of blue. Build 216 replaces this file with the final 95 version. Interestingly, the German localization of build 222 features a completely different background for the setup finalization process, which consists of space, accompanied by Earth and a galaxy, as well as the wordmark.