Windows Vista

For pre-release wallpapers and pictures, see Longhorn.

Windows Vista, codenamed Longhorn, is an operating system released by Microsoft in 2006. It is the successor to Windows XP. Although Vista introduced many technological and visual improvements, it was poorly received due to its poor performance on computers of the time. However, its aesthetic, including the wallpapers, were well received. The wallpaper set is the same across all editions, except Starter which has a unique wallpaper set with no wallpapers shared between the other editions. It was succeeded by Windows 7 in 2009.

Wallpapers
Whereas Windows XP's wallpapers predominantly came from Corbis and Microsoft themselves, most of Vista's wallpapers are licensed stock photos from Getty Images which use a rights-managed license, with a few coming from Corbis, Microsoft employees, amateur photographer Hamad Darwish and one from professional freelancer Michael Haber. They are mostly at 1920x1440, while the widescreen ones are at 1920x1200, which would become the resolution of wallpapers in later Windows versions. It is worth noting that the widescreen wallpapers appear to have been cropped from their 1920x1440 counterparts, as opposed to recropping the original image.

Jenny Lam served as the creative director of Vista. During the selection process she analyzed around 50GB worth of low-resolution images. She brought in Flickr photographer Darwish and sent him on a commissioned photo shoot in Oregon, USA. Although he took around 6000 shots, only two of them made it on Vista. She also art-directed a professional photographer on a shoot in Santa Barbara and NYC, which is most likely Haber, however he only has one wallpaper in Vista. On top of that, she gave Microsoft employees an opportunity to submit their own images, while the Light Auras theme was created by Microsoft's own graphic designers.

The wallpapers are split into six categories: Black and White consisting of monochrome photos, Textures consisting of close-up shots, Paintings, Vistas consisting of travel/landscape photos, Light Auras consisting of subtle designs, and Widescreen which is a selection of 1920x1200 versions of wallpapers in the Textures and Vistas categories.

Ultimate Extras
Windows Vista Ultimate previously allowed you to download a pack named Ultimate Extras, which features additional games, language packs, sound schemes, wallpapers and other extra features not shipped with Vista. It installs five new wallpapers, including an extra Hamad Darwish wallpaper, as well as four branding wallpapers. It also installs DreamScene, a utility that allows users to use GIFs and videos as wallpapers, along with 14 video wallpapers to use with it.

In July 2020, Microsoft discontinued SHA-1 based endpoints for updates, meaning that updates for Vista can no longer be downloaded, including Ultimate Extras. However, it can still be manually installed, although it seems that the CAB the static wallpapers came in has not been archived.

DreamScene
The DreamScene wallpapers were released in four different packs.

Starter
Like with XP Starter Edition, Vista Starter has an entirely different set of wallpapers, split into three categories: Vistas, Nature and Widescreen. Whereas XP Starter Edition features a selection of regional wallpapers for each region, all regions of Vista Starter feature the same wallpaper set. Most of these were licensed from Getty Images, with a few coming from Corbis and one from SuperStock. With the exception of the widescreen wallpapers which are at 1600x1024, they are at 1024x768, as Starter was intended for low spec computers in developing countries.

Sample pictures
Vista has fifteen sample pictures, compared to how XP only has four. Most of them were licensed from Getty Images and use a mixture of royalty free and rights-managed licenses. Like with Starter's wallpapers, they are at 1024x768. The metadata also provides descriptions of each photo and ratings. Dates are also included although most of them are likely inaccurate.

User account pictures
With the exceptions of guest and user, most of Vista's user account pictures come from Getty Images and use a mixture of royalty free and rights-managed licenses. They are at 128x128, compared to XP's 48x48. Some of these feature recolored backgrounds compared to the original stock photos, similar to XP's and 7's.

Logon backgrounds
The logon background in all editions, with the exception of Starter, is a green-blue aurora with a line near the bottom of it. It was most likely created by Robert Stein and his team, who were responsible for the Light Aura wallpapers and other design elements of Vista. It is included at many different resolutions, including vertical ones.

The logon background in Windows Vista Starter simply consists of  color, which is also the case for Server 2008 and for Remote Desktop connections made to both operating systems.

OOBE background
The OOBE background features shared elements with the logon background; it is even possible that it is based on an early or alternate version of it. It appears to use part of said background, although two light beams on the left are slightly different and the flare branding element is missing, while the aurora has a more simplistic color scheme.

Setup backgrounds
Windows Vista is the first version of Windows with a fully graphical setup sequence, thus it features a background in BMP format named background_cli, which is located in. In the RTM release, Windows PE 2.0 uses a background that is based on a portion of the logon background that appears in builds 5270 to 5342. The background used for the installation process and the initial setup window is based on a portion of the logon background used in the RTM release. Service Pack 1, which features PE 2.1 instead of 2.0, uses the OOBE background for both the preinstallation environment and the installation process. The background in the initial setup window remains the same as before.