Getty Images

Getty Images is a stock photo agency owned by Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein. Although Microsoft used Bill Gates-owned Corbis during the time it existed, they also frequently licensed images from Getty, especially for Windows Vista where the majority of images used in it are from Getty. The company has also bought many smaller stock photo agencies, such as PhotoDisc, Digital Vision and Brand X Pictures, all three of which Microsoft have used images from too.

The company offers both editorial and creative images. Creative images on the site are royalty free, while rights-managed licenses were offered until 2020. Ever since, many images that were rights-managed were taken down but subsequently reinstated and converted to royalty free, while some currently remain restrict assets as of February 2020.

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.

Types of Getty Images IDs used in Windows wallpapers
This lists the types of IDs used in stock photos and what they represent (not including generic eight to eleven number IDs). Note that many of these were later moved to different collections for some reason, resulting in some Digital Vision images being placed in the Stockbyte collection for example.


 * general, appears in many collections: 200[six numbers]-00[one number, usually 1] e.g 200134421-001
 * general, appears in many collections: sb100[five numbers][one letter]-001 e.g sb10069818a-001
 * Stone: [six numbers]-00[one number, usually 1] e.g 427930-001, [two letters][four numbers]-00[one number, usually 1] e.g CA2447-002
 * Taxi: [two letters][five numbers] e.g GA01255 (in earlier years the first two letters were lowercase)
 * PhotoDisc: [two letters][six numbers] e.g SP003735 (the first two letters represent the category, in this case SP would be Sports)
 * The Image Bank: 10[six numbers] e.g 10073795, 700[five numbers] e.g 70008317, [five or six numbers] e.g 219269
 * Iconica: a[four numbers]-[six numbers] e.g a0148-00808
 * Digital Vision: dv[six or seven numbers] e.g dv842128
 * National Geographic: ngs[one number]_[four numbers] e.g ngs0_5797
 * Lonely Planet: lpi[three or four numbers]_[two numbers] e.g lpi397_42
 * EyeWire: E0[five numbers] e.g E007831
 * Artville: [three letters][three numbers] e.g fna054
 * MedioImages: medwt[four numbers] e.g medwt4009
 * uncertain: [four numbers]-[six numbers] e.g 6093-001232