Windows 7

For pre-release wallpapers and pictures, see Windows 7 Beta.

Windows 7 is an operating system released by Microsoft in 2009. It is the successor of Windows Vista. Whereas Vista was a critical and commercial failure to a certain extent, 7 was received more positively. It would be followed by Windows 8 in 2012.

Wallpapers
For Windows 7's wallpapers, Microsoft continued to rely on licensing rights managed images from Getty Images and Corbis, as with previous versions. However, they also licensed images from other sources, such as SIME/4Corners Images, Photolibrary, and individual photographers' PhotoShelters. While 7 continues the tradition of using photography, two new themes consisting of illustrations were added, to give it more personality. The illustrators were found through agency 72 and Sunny. They also worked with photographer Will Austin, who assisted Microsoft with selecting six wallpapers from his stock collection, as they wanted a local Seattle flavor in 7's themes.

While Vista included a set of 16:10 widescreen wallpapers, this is also the first Windows version where all of the wallpapers are 1920x1200, as widescreen displays were more widespread by 2009. It is also the first version where the wallpapers are intended as part of themes; while Vista's wallpapers were split into categories, 7 sorts the wallpapers by themes instead, where selecting the theme will have its wallpapers set as a slideshow.

The default wallpaper is img0, created by Chuck Anderson and Erik Attkisson. Whereas XP and Vista Starter editions have unique wallpaper sets, 7 only has one wallpaper for its Starter edition, which is an edited version of its default wallpaper.

Regional
Windows 7 features regional themes for 20 countries, similar to XP Starter Edition featuring 3-6 wallpapers for each country. The team behind these themes licensed images from a wide range of stock photo agencies, including Getty Images, Corbis, SIME/4Corners Images, Masterfile, age fotostock and JupiterImages (which was acquired by Getty during 7's development). Jennifer Shepherd also hosted a worldwide photo contest where Microsoft employees worldwide were able to submit photos that represent their country. Employees of each country voted on the best wallpapers for their theme, including both stock photos and winning images from the contest.

As well as built-in themes for each of the 20 countries, the team also produced downloadable themes of the same countries that were available from Microsoft's site after 7 was released. The team produced a total of 40 themes, two for each country. 20 of these are included in 7, while the other 20 were available for download as soon as 7 was released. From 7 onwards, themes have the wallpapers set as a slideshow, while XP-era themes had one default wallpaper often with a few extra options.

Right now this page will only list the built-in ones, but it is possible that the downloadable ones will be included in the future.

Sample pictures
7 has eight sample pictures. Half of them are royalty free Corbis images; the other half were taken by Microsoft employees. Like with Vista's sample pictures, they are all at a resolution of 1024x768.

User account pictures
Most of 7's user account pictures come from Getty Images and use a mixture of royalty free and rights-managed licenses, with a few coming from Corbis, hired artists that worked on 7's wallpapers, and one Microsoft employee. As with Vista's, they are at 128x128.

Logon backgrounds
The logon background is similar to the default desktop wallpaper, being designed by Chuck Anderson and Erik Attkisson too. The image itself is pretty minimalistic ― it depicts a sky blue background with several stripes and grass blades on it, and a bird near the leaves of one of the plants. This background is also used for the post-install OOBE. Like with Vista's logon background, it is included in a range of resolutions ranging from 1024x768 to 1920x1200.

The Embedded versions feature a completely different logon background, consisting of a dark blue radial gradient, and a line of rounded squares placed in line across the background. It is very similar to the branding wallpapers featured in the Embedded 2009 versions of XP, albeit with duller shades of blue and more opaque squares. Like in regular Windows 7 editions, this background is also used for post-install OOBE and is included in various resolutions.

Setup backgrounds
The setup background is in BMP format and 1024x768, like with Vista. It can be seen during installation and in the recovery boot menu. It can be found in various places on the Windows 7 DVD as background_cli (i.e. in the  folder). It looks very similar to the logon background, although featuring a darker blue background colour, white clouds added on top, and some lines near the center shortened or made more transparent.

The Embedded versions also feature a different setup background. It is very similar to the logon background, although the line of squares is slightly further down and the colors are in a slightly different order. It can be found on the Windows 7 DVD as background_emb.

Trivia

 * Including all of the built in regional wallpapers, 7 has a total of 151 wallpapers. If the downloadable regional ones that were made available upon 7's release are also included, the count goes up to 271.