Microsoft has a new label for the imagery designed to personalize Windows 7. “A desktop background, formerly called wallpaper, is a picture on the desktop that provides a backdrop to your open windows,” the company revealed on a webpage in the Windows 7 online hotspot dedicated to personalization. The next iteration of the Windows client ships, even as early as pre-Beta builds, with a collection of content on the same model as Windows Vista. Build by build, Windows 7 is growing into its own, with an incontestable evolution from Beta built 7000 to Release Candidate.Of course, the Milestone 1, 2 and 3 releases, including, for example, Milestone 3 – labeled pre-Beta Build 6081, including the pre-Beta version that was delivered to participants at the Professional Developers Conference 2008 in Los Angeles and then at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference 2008, failed to really bring anything new compared to Windows Vista in terms of the default wallpapers. In fact, changes to the collection of backgrounds shipping with Windows 7 only started being contoured as the next version of the Windows client when it was approaching the Beta stage.
Microsoft thinking “in-the-box” with Windows 7
With the release of Windows Vista, the Redmond company attempted to offer extra flavor on top of the operating system with the introduction of the Ultimate Extras for the high-end edition of the platform. At that time, the Ultimate Extras website was applauding the initiative as thinking outside-the-box. One of the elements that contributed to the Ultimate Extras fiasco was DreamScene and the associated animated background. The inconsistencies, and inconsistencies is, by all means, a euphemism, that plagued DreamScene made the feature virtually unusable, even for the most stubborn Vista Ultimate users.
There will be no more animated or video desktops for Windows 7. In fact, even upgrading from Windows Vista Ultimate to a pre-release version of Windows 7 Ultimate kills removes the Ultimate Extras installed. But Microsoft has undoubtedly done the right thing, having been unable to get DreamScene to a consistent standard of quality, to kill it altogether.
Instead, Windows 7 brings to the table themes, collecting wallpapers, Aero UI configurations and sound settings into single packages, which can be used for personalizing the operating system across all aspects of the UX. Users can also customize the desktop in order to enjoy a plus of variation, by selecting a group of wallpapers that will be shuffled around on it at intervals specified by the end-users.
Windows 7 pre-Beta Build 6956 and Beta Build 7000
Both releases were wrapped up at the end of 2008, even though, Beta Build 7000 was only released to the public on January 10, 2009. Windows 7 Build 6956, which was leaked to BitTorrent trackers worldwide, marked the debut of the Betta fish wallpaper, which had survived well past the actual Beta of the next iteration of the Windows client, and into the Release Candidate branch builds. But otherwise, when it comes down to the default imagery, Microsoft has not made any changes between 6956 and 7000.
Build 7000 of Windows 7 made it into the wild at the end of December 2008, weeks ahead of its official launch following CES 2009. Microsoft revealed that the Beta of Win 7 was downloaded by the millions, but failed to provide the specific numbers. However, interest for the release was extremely high, and it caused the company to postpone availability by a day in order to extend its server infrastructure to support the influx of users. It was Windows 7 Beta that put the Betta fish on millions of desktops worldwide.