Corbis

Corbis was a stock photo agency owned by Bill Gates, who also founded Microsoft. During the time it existed Microsoft licensed images from them for use on their operating systems, along with for other software. Their main competitor was Getty Images, who Microsoft also heavily relied on for purchasing stock photos. In 2000, Microsoft purchased all rights to Bliss, then known as Bucolic Green Hills, from Corbis and Charles O'Rear; funnily enough, the image came from Westlight, whom Corbis had bought two years prior to this.

In 2016 Corbis' image licensing business was sold to Unity Glory, an affliate of Getty partner Visual China Group. During this time many, although not all Corbis images, were transferred over to VCG. Getty have been given distribution rights to distribute their images in all countries outside of China. The buyout seemingly resulted in some photos that were used as Windows wallpapers no longer being available, with Purple flower from XP being a prime example.

Products featuring Corbis images

 * Microsoft Plus! 98 (wallpapers, screensaver images)
 * Windows 2000 and ME (wallpapers)
 * Windows Whistler (wallpapers, sample pictures, user account pictures)
 * Windows XP (wallpapers, sample pictures, user account pictures)
 * Windows XP Starter Edition (wallpapers, tutorial images)
 * Windows XP Media Center Edition (sample pictures)
 * Windows Longhorn (wallpapers)
 * Windows Vista (wallpapers)
 * Windows 7 Beta (wallpapers)
 * Windows 7 (wallpapers, sample pictures, user account pictures)