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.

All editions (except Embedded and Thin PC)
The logon background is similar to the default desktop wallpaper. 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 post-install OOBE

Embedded and Thin PC editions only
As regular Windows 7 logon background, Windows 7 Embedded logon backgroud looks similar to the desktop background as well. It consists of palish dark blue color with radial gradent on it, and a line of rounded squares placed in line all over the wallpaper's width. Like in a regular Windows 7 editions, this wallpaper is also used for post-install OOBE. TODO - add picutre

All editions (except Embedded and Thin PC)
The setup background, usually called background_cli.bmp, background_emb.bmp or background_svr.bmp, can be seen during Windows 7 installation and in the recovery boot menu. It can be found in a various places inside of Windows 7 ISO (i.e. in the  folder). The picture itself looks very similar to the logon background ― it uses a most part of the original image with a little bit darker blue background colour, white clouds added on top of the picture and some lines from the center shortened or made more transparent.

Embedded and Thin PC editions only
The setup background, usually called background_cli.bmp, background_emb.bmp or background_svr.bmp, used in Windows 7 Embedded/Thin PC Setup and in the recovery boot menu. It can be found in a various places inside of Windows 7 Embedded/Thin PC ISO along with regular setup wallpaper (i.e. in the  folder). It's based on logon background, but the squares on the left uses different colors.

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.