For pre-release wallpapers and pictures, see Windows 11 Previews.

Windows 11
Year of release2021
Default wallpaperimg0 (light)
img19 (dark)
Included image typesWallpapers
Preceded byWindows 10 (2015)

Windows 11 is an operating system that was released by Microsoft on October 5, 2021. It is the successor to Windows 10, although it was originally intended as a UI refresh codenamed Sun Valley, while staying branded as 10.

Desktop wallpapers

On June 15, 2021, nine days before the operating system was unveiled to the general public, an internal build of the operating system (namely build 21996, before build 21380 has came out) was shared onto the Internet. It introduced an entirely new wallpaper set consisting of CGI wallpapers, all of which are in 3840x2400 (or similar) as opposed to the 1920x1200 used in earlier versions, as 4K displays are more widespread now. Along with having default wallpapers for both light and dark modes, there are four themes with four wallpapers in each of them. Six N. Five have confirmed themselves as the creators of the two default wallpapers, as well as theme wallpapers, although it is uncertain if they created all of those. XK studio are also known to have created the wallpapers of the Captured Motion theme.

Unlike Windows 10, the Team edition shares the same wallpaper set as other editions, although the previous wallpapers are still present albeit unused.

Name Category Originates from Photographer/artist Notes
 
Bloom
img0
Windows (light) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five Default wallpaper; light theme
 
Bloom
img0
Windows (light) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five Default wallpaper for Windows 365 VMs running on Windows 11; light theme
 
Bloom
img19
Windows (dark) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five Default wallpaper; dark theme
 
Bloom
img19
Windows (dark) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five Default wallpaper for Windows 365 VMs running on Windows 11; dark theme
 
img20 Glow commissioned by Microsoft unknown
 
img21 Glow commissioned by Microsoft unknown
 
img22 Glow commissioned by Microsoft unknown
 
img23 Glow commissioned by Microsoft unknown
 
img24 Captured Motion commissioned by Microsoft XK studio At 3840x2401
 
img25 Captured Motion commissioned by Microsoft XK studio
 
img26 Captured Motion commissioned by Microsoft XK studio At 3841x2400
 
img27 Captured Motion commissioned by Microsoft XK studio
 
img28 Sunrise commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
img29 Sunrise commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
img30 Sunrise commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
img31 Sunrise commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
img32 Flow commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five At 3841x2400
 
img33 Flow commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five At 3841x2400
 
img34 Flow commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
img35 Flow commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five

Windows Spotlight - Miscellaneous

Windows 11 2022 Update (version 22H2) introduced a desktop theme that uses dynamic images from Windows Spotlight. The thumbnail for this theme, img50, is included in the same folder as the wallpapers, but it is not actually set as the theme's wallpaper; it is just there to showcase the variety of wallpapers that may be shown. If Spotlight is unavailable, the theme will use the light version of Bloom, which can be found at C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Spotlight as img14.

An update has brought over the Spotlight feature to the initial release as well, and it features a unique wallpaper for when Spotlight is unavailable.

SE for Education

SE for Education is an edition intended for computers at educational institutions. It downloads three unique themes with light and dark variations of each: Flower, Planets and Sunset. These can also be downloaded onto other editions of Windows 11 by:

  1. Press Win+R, type regedit, then press Enter.
  2. Navigate to HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\PolicyManager\current\device.
  3. Right-click the device key and select New → Key.
  4. Name the newly created key Education and press Enter.
  5. Go to the Education key, right-click and select New → DWORD (32-bit) Value.
  6. Name the newly created DWORD key EnableEduThemes.
  7. Double-click on EnableEduThemes, change the value to 1, and select OK.
  8. Restart the computer.
  9. Wait until these themes will be downloaded.
Name Category Originates from Photographer/artist
 
flower (dark) Flower (dark) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
img41 Flower (light) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
planets (dark) Planets (dark) commissioned by Microsoft unknown
 
planets (light) Planets (light) commissioned by Microsoft unknown
 
sunset (dark) Sunset (dark) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five
 
sunset (light) Sunset (light) commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five

Lock screen wallpapers

This list only includes the built-in wallpaper set, and does not feature images served through the online Windows Spotlight service.

As with previous versions, there are six lock screen wallpapers to choose from. The selection of wallpapers are in many different resolutions; it is more likely this was an overlooked mistake rather than being intentional. With the exception of img105, which is identical to how it looked in Windows 10, each of these are similar to the wallpapers in each theme.

Name Originates from Photographer/artist Resolution Notes
 
img100 commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five 3840x2160 Cropped version of img19; default lock screen wallpaper
Also used as the fallback image for the Windows Spotlight service if new images aren't available
 
img101 commissioned by Microsoft unknown 3840x2400 Identical to img21
 
img102 commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five 6400x4000 Recolored version of img28
 
img103 commissioned by Microsoft XK studio 3839x2400 Cropped version of img26
 
img104 commissioned by Microsoft Six N. Five 3840x2400 Cropped version of img32
 
img105 Microsoft unknown 1920x1200 Reused from Windows 10

Touch keyboard backgrounds

Four of the touch keyboard themes have two image backgrounds, one for light and dark modes respectively. These are included in%SystemRoot%\Web\touchkeyboard. All of them are at 2736x1539 (16:9 aspect ratio) resolution. It is currently unknown who made these, although likely not Six N. Five as they only specified creating the default and theme wallpapers. There are other themes than the four listed here, which include flat color and gradient backgrounds, and are currently not listed here.

Theme Name
 
Indigo Breeze TouchKeyboardThemeDark000
 
TouchKeyboardThemeLight000
 
Lilac River TouchKeyboardThemeDark001
 
TouchKeyboardThemeLight001
 
Silky Dawn TouchKeyboardThemeDark002
 
TouchKeyboardThemeLight002
 
Tangerine Tides TouchKeyboardThemeDark003
 
TouchKeyboardThemeLight003

User account pictures

Like with Windows 8 to 10, Windows 11 has only 2 identical user account pictures 一 guest and user 一 used for default accounts and guest account respectively, even though it is impossible to create a guest profile without Command Prompt and local policy editing since Windows 10.

Windows 11 used the same user account pictures from Windows 10 version 2004 up to build 22533. Build 22538 introduced a new user account picture to align with the fluent design aesthetics of Windows 11.

Name Licensed from Originates from Photographer/artist Notes
 
guest (until build 22538) unknown Microsoft unknown Reused from Windows 10 2004
Duplicate of the user account picture; used for guest profile that cannot be created in regular conditions
 
guest (builds 22538+) unknown Microsoft unknown Duplicate of the user account picture; used for guest profile that cannot be created in regular conditions; Full HD version of this picture can be found in %systemroot%\system32\DefaultAccountTile.png
 
user (until build 22538) unknown Microsoft unknown Reused from Windows 10 2004
 
user (builds 22538+) unknown Microsoft unknown Full HD version of this picture can be found in %systemroot%\system32\DefaultAccountTile.png

Picture Password

You can see this image in the Picture Password setup tutorial when setting it for the first time:

Name Licensed from Originates from Photographer/artist Notes
 
12345 N/A Microsoft Bernard Hymmen Also appears in 8, 8.1 and 10

Setup background

 

The setup background called background_cli.bmp used by Windows 11 Setup. It was reused from Windows 8. It can be found in the /sources/ folder inside of Windows 11 ISO. The background itself consists of simply #180052, the default Windows 8 accent color. The same picture used in Windows 8, 8.1 and 10.

References