Windows has several good-looking photos/wallpapers for Desktop background, and slide shows in Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1 and 10. You can also use your own photos for your Desktop slide show or wallpaper.
If you do not want to use a picture for the desktop background, you can choose a solid color instead.
Using a photo for Desktop background in Windows
In case you want just one photo for Desktop background in Windows Vista, 7, 8, 8.1 or 10, and you know exactly where the photo is, right-click it in Windows/File Explorer and select Set as desktop background.
In Windows XP, the command is in Common Tasks pane, so you must click (not right-click) the picture instead.
To use advanced options, right-click some empty area of Desktop.
In Windows XP, click Properties.
In Windows Vista, 7, 8/8.1 and 10, click Personalize.
In Windows 8 and 8.1, you can also use the keyboard shortcut Windows Key+I to open Settings Charm and click or tap Personalize.
In Windows 10, the Windows Key+I keyboard shortcut opens the Settings app. Choose Personalization there.
Alternatively in Windows 10 Anniversary Update and later, open the Run dialog with keyboard shortcut WINDOWS KEY+R or via the Quick Links menu (WINDOWS KEY+X), type ms-settings:personalization-background and click OK.
Windows 10 users can skip this step as the correct tab opens automatically.
In Windows XP, open the Desktop tab.
In Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1, click Desktop Background.
In Windows XP and Vista, choose a picture from the list and click OK.
By default, there is only one picture selected in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, and that is why slide show options are disabled. Just click or tap a photo and confirm with the Save changes button.
In Windows 10, click or touch the photo you like and desktop background changes right away.
In Windows 8 and 8.1, colors of selected items in Modern UI/Windows Store apps, title bars, window borders and Taskbar change according to the displayed photo if Color in Personalization section is set to Automatic.
In Windows 10, selected items in Windows Store apps and window borders change color only if the Automatically pick an accent color from my background option is turned on in the Colors tab of the Settings app, Personalization section.
Taskbar, title bars and Start menu in Windows 10 can be colorized according to the desktop background by enabling the Show color on Start, taskbar, action center, and title bar option in the same location of the Settings app.
Selecting a folder or library from which pictures are shown
If you are not satisfied with the default background photos in Windows, you can choose your own.
In Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1, you can use the Location or the Picture location combo box for selecting the folder or library where available photos are displayed from.
In Windows 10, there is only the Browse button.
- Windows Wallpapers (Vista) or Windows Desktop Backgrounds is the default selection and includes all photos from built-in themes.
- Pictures means all photos in the My Pictures folder in Windows Vista; Pictures Library means all your photos and all public photos in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1.
- Sample Pictures includes all photo samples that came with Windows Vista; Top Rated Photos means all your photos and all public photos that have a high rating in Windows 7 and later. You can change the rating of your photos in Windows/File Explorer of Windows 7 and newer by clicking on a photo, adjusting its rating in Details pane and clicking the Save button.
- Public Pictures includes all public photos in Windows Vista.
- Solid Colors means that no photo will be displayed and the Desktop background will consist of one color only. This one will be covered later in the article.
If the photo or folder you need is not on the list, click the Browse button.
Browse (in Windows XP and Vista), Open (in Windows 10) or Browse For Folder (in Windows 7, 8 and 8.1) dialog opens.
In Windows XP, Vista and 10, find and click the photo you want for the background. Confirm the selection by clicking Open or Choose picture.
In Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, find and click the folder where the required photo is and then click the OK button. This displays all available pictures in the selected folder.
Background picture positioning options in Windows - fill, fit, stretch, tile, center, and span
By default, Windows XP and Windows Vista use the Stretch and Fit to Screen options to fit a photo to screen regardless of its aspect ratio. Windows 7 and later use the Fill option by default, resizing a picture according to screen resolution, but retaining its aspect ratio.
Picture position/fit options in Windows are:
- Fill - only in Windows 7 and newer, the picture is resized to screen resolution while retaining the aspect ratio
- Fit or Fit to Screen - in Windows Vista, the picture is resized to screen resolution ignoring aspect ratio. In Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10, the aspect ratio is retained, possibly leaving blank edges on the screen.
- Stretch - in Windows XP, 7, 8/8.1 and 10, the picture is resized to screen resolution without retaining the aspect ratio.
Please do note that in Windows 7, this option can be broken after applying January 2020 updates - black background is displayed instead of the stretched photo. Other options still work fine, though. To fix this, apply the KB4539602 manual update from Microsoft. You do need to have a few prerequisites installed, these are described in the corresponding support article. - Tile - if a picture is smaller than screen resolution, it is repeated across the screen vertically and horizontally.
- Center - if a picture is smaller than screen resolution, it is centered on the screen, leaving blank areas around it. If a photo is larger than screen resolution, only the center part of it is visible.
- Span - only in Windows 10, the photo is divided across multiple displays/monitors. Panoramas are best suited here.
To change photo position, select a value from Position (Windows XP), How should the picture be positioned (Windows Vista), Picture position (Windows 7 and 8/8.1) or Choose a fit (Windows 10) dropdown.
Enabling and configuring Desktop Slide Show in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10
Windows 7 and later allow using slideshows for the background - the photos are switched at intervals you specify.
In Windows 7, 8 and 8.1, select a folder or library from the Picture location combo box or use the Browse button to specify your own folder.
In Windows 10, choose Slideshow from the Background combo box. By default, photos in your Pictures folder are used. Use the Browse button for changing the location. You can choose only one folder/album.
To select or deselect a photo in Windows 7 and 8/8.1, hover your mouse pointer over a picture and fill or clear its checkbox.
To quickly select all pictures available, use the Select all button. To clear the whole current selection, click Clear all.
To change the picture switching interval of Desktop Slide Show, select a value from Change picture every combo box.
Laptop users should certainly leave the When using battery power, pause the slide show to save power checkbox in Windows 7 and 8/8.1 unticked. In Windows 10, make sure the Allow slideshow when on battery power switch is in the Off position.
To display selected pictures in random order, enable the Shuffle option.
Selecting a background color for Desktop
As background photos might use a quite large chunk of memory, so it is sometimes better to use a solid color instead. This could improve your device's performance a bit if your PC has less than 4 GB of RAM.
In Windows XP, click a color in the Color combo box. To disable background photo, click (None) in the Background list.
In Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1, choose Solid Colors from Location or Picture location combo box and click the color you prefer.
In Windows 10, select Solid color from the Background dropdown and touch or click the color you like.
If you are not satisfied with the default colors on the list, click Other (in Windows XP) or More (in Windows Vista, 7, 8 and 8.1).
Windows 10 has this option only in Creators Update and newer: use the Custom Color button.
In the Color dialog, use the slider and target mark on the right side to select a color. Alternatively, you can type Red, Green, and Blue (RGB), or Hue, Saturation and Luminance values in their respective boxes, or select something from the Basic colors list on the left.
Click OK to activate the custom color.
Changing background color without disabling background photos in Windows Vista and 7
If a photo does not fill the whole screen and you need to change Desktop background color for a better match in Windows Vista or 7, you need to go back a step. In Windows 8 and newer, the option is not available anymore.
Click on an empty area of the Control Panel window and then press the Backspace key once.
In Windows Vista, click Window Color and Appearance. In Windows 7, click Window Color.
In Windows Vista, the Appearance Settings window opens. Click the Advanced button.
In Windows 7, click the Advanced appearance settings link in the bottom of Change the color of your window borders, Start menu, and taskbar window.
The Advanced Appearance (Vista) or Windows Color and Appearance window opens.
Make sure that Desktop is selected in the Item combo box. Then select an appropriate color from the Color 1 combo box or specify a custom color clicking the Other button.