Windows 11

Windows 11
Year of release	2021
Default wallpaper	img0 (light) img19 (dark)
Included image types	Wallpapers
Preceded by	Windows 10 (2015)

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

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 21H2 as well, and it features a unique wallpaper for when Spotlight is unavailable.

• 
  img50
• 
  img14 in Windows 11 21H2

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.