Harmony

Harmony, also internally referred to as img0, is the default wallpaper for all available Windows 7 editions. It is a colorful Windows flag with flat trees, butterflies and grass surrounding it, on a blue background with some flat plants. It was created by Chuck Anderson and Erik Attkisson, who also created the logon background. The wallpaper has seven leaves, seven branches, and seven flower petals in the Windows logo. The version featured in Starter is different, but retains the overall concept of it being a Windows logo on a blue background.

History
Rather than creating default and logon wallpapers themselves or buying all of the rights to a stock image, Microsoft contacted young artist Chuck Anderson about creating the default and logon wallpapers for Windows 7 in December 2008. The design team showed him wallpapers by other artists involved with Windows 7's wallpapers, and were open to his ideas for the wallpapers. Art direction was handled by Ayo Seligman of brand consulting firm Landor, along with Microsoft employees Denise Trabona and Britt Hansing. Both works took four months to create; he collaborated with Erik Attkisson. Both works were started using pencil and paper, before being shifted to Photoshop. Anderson also used a Wacom tablet for drawing the individual threads, helping to give them a sketchy feel.

The bird and butterfly in the Windows logo were intended to be accepted by global audiences, as well as being universal and inspiring - according to Denise Trabona, "not even a coffee cup or a car" were meaningful or culturally on-point everywhere, from a geopolitical standpoint. The butterfly has been mistakenly assumed to represent MSN.

Early versions
There are four earlier versions of img0, along with four earlier versions of the logon background. The first one features a flatter, simpler appearance. The second one introduces an early version of the same backdrop that appears in the final version, although the logo does not feature the iconic four colors and is instead blurry and transparent, similar to the Aero Glass visual style. The third one re-adds the colors while moving some elements around, while the fourth one is much closer to the final version, featuring many of the same elements.

Legacy
Microsoft would later hire Anderson to create a theme titled Surreal Territory in 2010.

Due to the popularity of Windows 7, the wallpaper has become iconic, although not to the same extent as Bliss. This wallpaper has also been seen by hundreds of millions of people across the world, as a result of 7's popularity. Much like Bliss, it has also received several meme edits, such as one where Doge is edited onto the logo.

In 2021, Anderson described it as "one of the most insane files I ever had to work on"; the original file has a very high resolution of 10800x6750 px and 450 DPI, as well as a file size of 556 MB. As a result, the source file is known to cause massive performance drops on Anderson's machine at the time of writing, who also stated his desire in minting the PSD as a non-fungible token but expressed concerns over legal disputes with Microsoft. The original source files for the wallpaper would also not be released for the same reason.

Starter version
The version featured in Starter was also made by Chuck Anderson and Erik Attkisson, but features a heavily simplified appearance compared to the original; it features fewer blades of grass and lines, while the Windows logo is simply a white-light blue radial gradient as opposed to being colorful.

It also served as Starter's only wallpaper, and unlike previous starter SKUs of Windows, it cannot be changed without registry editing. This decision led to criticism from users. As a result, Oceanis created a piece of software titled Oceanis Change Background W7, that allows the user to change the wallpaper to one of their choice. There is also a more simplistic program titled Starter Wallpaper Changer, which simply allows the user to enter the file path of the wallpaper they intend to use.