Windows 10 wallpaper wiki

From Windows Wallpaper Wiki

For pre-release wallpapers and pictures, see Windows 10 Technical Preview.

Windows 10 is an operating system released by Microsoft in 2015. It is the successor to 8.1. Unlike previous versions of Windows, builds are released very frequently and major updates are provided at no cost.

Wallpapers

Regular desktop editions

Chris Raykovich (acting as director) and Marylee Johnson (acting as executive producer) were responsible for the production of Windows 10’s wallpaper sets. They commissioned former National Geographic photographer Steve McCurry^[1] to take photos in New Zealand, and Chad Copeland to take photos around the world.^[2][3] Along with the new wallpapers, the Flowers theme from its predecessor would be reused in the final release of Windows 10. McCurry and Copeland also took several shots that did not make it into the final release, which is present on Raykovich and Johnson’s websites.

The default wallpaper was created by a team led by graphic designer Bradley G. Munkowitz. It is included at many different resolutions as low as 1024×768 and as high as 3840×2160. A version of this wallpaper was included in Windows 10 S, a feature-limited edition of Windows 10 designed primarily for low-end devices in the education market, which only allows the installation of apps from Microsoft Store; system settings are locked to only allow Microsoft Edge as the default web browser with Bing as its search engine. This edition existed only in Windows 10 Creators Update (version 1703) and Fall Creators Update (version 1709). With Windows 10 April 2018 Update (version 1803), Windows 10 S became a mode (called «S mode») available in Home, Pro, and Pro Education editions. Starting with Windows 10 May 2019 Update (version 1903), it was replaced with a more simplified version that features a bright blue background. An alternative variant of the simplified wallpaper was later included in the Windows 365 service as the default wallpaper for virtual machines that run on the aforementioned operating system.

These wallpapers also appear in Windows Server 2016 through Windows Server 2022, as they share the same wallpaper set from their client counterparts.

Windows Spotlight — Miscellaneous

Windows 10 build 1904x.4116 introduced Windows spotlight service for desktop backgrounds after being introduced in Windows 11 build 25197 and 25281. The initial images and the theme thumbnail are identical to the ones seen in Windows 11 builds with this feature. The initial images are located in C:\Windows\SystemApps\MicrosoftWindows.Client.CBS_cw5n1h2txyewy\DesktopSpotlight\Assets\Images.

China Government Edition

First released with version 1703, Windows 10 China Government Edition, also called Enterprise G, is an edition designed for use within branches of the Chinese government as part of the partnership between Microsoft and China Electronics Technology Group. Its wallpapers depict mainland China landmarks and contain the watermark of CMIT, a Chinese holding JV jointly established by China Electronics Technology Group and Microsoft. Versions 1703 to 1803 include the same Flowers theme as other editions, and versions 1809 and 21H2 both feature an entirely different set of wallpapers. It’s currently unknown who took these wallpapers.

Versions 1703 to 1803

Version 1809

Version 21H2

Team

The Team SKU of Windows 10 contains an entirely different set of wallpapers, all at 3840×2160 as opposed to 1920×1200 in order to accommodate for the screen resolution of the Microsoft Surface Hub. They are split into two folders: Cat01 and Cat02. At least three of the images present in this set are alternative versions of lock screen wallpapers present in other editions of Windows 10. Most of the wallpapers present in this set are in PNG format, resulting in large file sizes.

Windows 10X

Windows 10X is a version that was originally supposed to arrive alongside new dual-screen devices like the Surface Neo. It was announced in October 2019, then delayed in April 2020, and canceled in May 2021; many of its features would rolled into what would eventually become Windows 11. It has a very small selection of wallpapers in inconsistent resolutions, and it is very likely this was not intended to be the final set. The first few sets of wallpapers were taken from the free photo site Unsplash, rather than being licensed from a stock photo site or taken by an employee/hired photographer, so they were likely placeholders. White Objects was also not originally created for 10X either: it was one of several pieces created by Six N. Five for McCann Milan’s design walls in 2017.

Lock screen wallpapers

Regular desktop editions

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

McCurry and Copeland were also involved in the creation of the lock screen wallpapers (excluding the final image, as it simply consists of a shade of blue). img100 is the only image at 3840×2160 instead of 1920×1200. They were later replaced with a set of CGI images from Windows 11, with exception of img105.

The wallpaper set also appears in the Windows Server family from 2016 through 2022.

China Government Edition

Most of the lock screen wallpapers are identical to the desktop wallpapers. Exceptions and special cases are:

• img105 in versions 1703 to 1803 is identical to how it looked in other desktop editions of Windows 10.
• img105 in versions 1809 and 21H2 are the 16:10 versions of the respective Windows 10 China Government Edition versions’ img13.

Versions 1703 to 1803

Version 1809

Version 21H2

Team

The Team SKU features a set of lock screen wallpapers that mainly consist of environmental shots. At least three of the images present in this set are alternative versions of lock screen wallpapers present in other editions of Windows 10.

Sign-in background

The sign-in screen in Windows 10 version 1507 (initial release) and 1511 (November Update) feature a darker version of the default desktop wallpaper as the background. This was removed in version 1607 (Anniversary Update), and the sign-in screen background now matches the lock screen background instead.

User account pictures

Like with Windows 8 and 8.1, Windows 10 has only 2 identical user account pictures 一 guest and user 一 used for default accounts and guest accounts respectively, even though it is impossible to create a guest profile without command prompt and local policy editing since very early Windows 10 builds^{[exact build?]}. Starting with Windows 10 May 2020 Update (version 2004), both pictures were altered to fit the light theme, which is now used by default in the Home edition.

Both pictures, just like in Windows 8 and 8.1, have a resolution of 448x448px. Also included are PNG versions of both of the pictures and resized versions of the user picture, which are used by UWP apps.

The 1080×1080 version 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:

Setup background

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

References

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Windows Spotlight

Windows Spotlight is a feature included with Windows 10 and Windows 11 which downloads images and advertisements from Bing and displays them as background wallpapers on the lock screen. In 2017, Microsoft began adding location information for many of the photographs.

Windows Spotlight images are provided by Windows’ Content Delivery Manager. New ones are shown every 1–2 days. Downloaded images are stored in JPEG format on the computer.^[1] If the Content Delivery Manager has no new picture to display, a default image is used. This default fallback image can be changed.^[2]

Is this article up to date?