How to Get the Old Windows 10 Default Wallpaper Back

In May of this year, Microsoft introduced the Windows light theme in a Windows update. The introduction of this new theme also introduced a new, lighter, default Windows 10 wallpaper.

Unfortunately this update also completely removed the original, darker, background that many of us have become accustomed to. Luckily someone uploaded a 4k version of this wallpaper to Imgur and we’re here to show you how to restore it.

You can also download this wallpaper in various resolutions thanks to a user over at the Windows 10 Forums. If you’re unsure of which resolution to use, just use the 4k version at the Imgur link above.

At a Glance

1. Click this Imgur link
2. Right click anywhere on the image and click Save image as. and save it to your Desktop
3. Find the image on your desktop, right click it and choose `Set as desktop background`

Video: How to Restore the Old Windows 10 Default Wallpaper

How to Restore the Old Windows 10 Default Wallpaper

Step 1: Open this Imgur link and save the image to your desktop.

Step 2: Go back to your desktop and find the image you just saved. Right click it and choose Set as desktop background .

Your desktop wallpaper should now be back to the original Windows 10 wallpaper.

Windows 10 Wallpapers Location

Another option you may have, if you have access to another Windows 10 computer that has not yet received the update, is to pull the original image from that computer’s windows wallpaper directory.

You can do this by navigating to the C:\Windows\Web\4K\Wallpaper\Windows directory on the older Windows 10 version PC and copying over the img0_3840x2160.jpg file to the updated computer. I’d recommend using something like Dropbox to do this but you could just as easily use a USB stick.

Once you have the original file copied over to the computer with the update, simply right click and set it as your desktop background like shown in this tutorial with the copy from Imgur.

A user over at the Windows 10 Forums retrieved these images and uploaded them for others to use. You can download these instead of copying them over from an older computer.

On the topic of frustrating changes Microsoft has made this year, have you suddenly started seeing a program called Microsoft Teams startup when you turn on your computer? If so, and you find that it annoys you, we have an article on how to uninstall it or simply remove it from the startup processes.

Официальные обои из Windows 10

В последние перед финальным выпуском сборки Windows 10 Microsoft добавила окончательный набор новых фоновых рисунков. Поэтому для всех тех, кто хотел скачать официальные обои из Windows 10, мы решили сделать небольшой подарок и собрать все имеющиеся картинки в одном месте.

Здесь вы найдёте как обои из финальной версии Windows 10, так и те фоновые изображения, которые использовались во время тестирования системы, то есть обои из Windows 10 Technical и Insider Preview. Кроме того, здесь же находятся обои с экрана блокировки финальной и тестовых версий Windows 10.

Разрешение всех представленных изображений – 1920*1200 и выше. Сохранить их к себе можно как по отдельности, для чего достаточно открыть картинку и в её контекстном меню выбрать команду «сохранить как…», так и скачать целиком весь архив с рисунками.

Ссылка на загрузку всего архива: скачать обои. В открывшейся странице кликните по кнопке «Скачать», находящейся на панели справа под жёлтой кнопкой «Сохранить на Яндекс.Диск».

Также вы можете взглянуть на обои из тестовых сборок предыдущих версий Windows (Vista, 7, 8), которые по каким-то причинам не добрались до финальных выпусков этих систем. Все обои на нашем сайте можно посмотреть здесь.

Where are Windows 10 Default Wallpapers Stored

The desktop backgrounds which come with Windows 10 are really lovely. Many users like these wallpapers much. I have been asked by readers where they are stored on the disk drive. If you are interested in finding them and want to use them somewhere else like in your dual boot operating system like Linux or Windows 7, here is how to find them.

Traditionally, wallpapers in Windows were stored in the folder C:\Windows\Web\Wallpapers. To find Windows 10 Default Wallpapers, open File Explorer by pressing Win + E on the keyboard. Type or copy-paste the following path in its address bar:

There you will find 3 subfolders which contain all the default desktop backgrounds available in Windows 10.

The 4K folder contains different sizes of the default wallpaper known as the «Windows Hero» image. These images are used with different screen orientations on supported devices. It is also available in 4K resolution (3840 x 2160).

The Screen folder includes default images used for the Lock Screen background.

Note: When the Spotlight feature is enabled, Windows 10 downloads gorgeous Lock Screen wallpapers from the Internet automatically. The OS stores them at a different location. To learn more, please refer to the following article: Where to find Lockscreen Spotlight images in Windows 10?

The last folder, Wallpaper, contains the default Desktop backgrounds. They are arranged in three folders:

The Flowers folder stores images for the built-in «Flowers» theme.

The Windows folder comes with only one stock background image.

Windows 10 — this folder contains the default backgrounds visible in the Settings app out of the box.

If you are interested, you can download the entire collection of the Windows 10 default wallpapers here:

You might be curious why the folder has the name «Web» in its path, when the images are not related to the web. That’s because of the «Active Desktop» feature in early Windows versions. Windows 95 had no ability to use a *.JPG image as the Desktop background. Later, when Microsoft released Internet Explorer 4, it brought the feature called «Active Desktop». Its key feature was the ability to display your favorite web content right on the Desktop. It also extended Explorer with the ability to show folders as web pages. JPEG images could also be used as the Desktop background. So, starting with Windows 98, Windows keeps all images in the Windows\Web\Wallpapers subfolder.

Modern Windows versions have no support for Active Desktop or for the web view in File Explorer, however, the folder structure remains intact even today. Windows 10 has mostly the same folder structure for wallpapers and allows you to adjust the wallpaper image quality.

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About Sergey Tkachenko

Sergey Tkachenko is a software developer from Russia who started Winaero back in 2011. On this blog, Sergey is writing about everything connected to Microsoft, Windows and popular software. Follow him on Telegram, Twitter, and YouTube.

Upgraded to Win 10 1903 — How to get back (darker) desktop background?

JorgenJ

Hi!
Just upgraded to Windows 10 1903. Seems to work fine. However, I now have the new lighter desktop background image (light blue, window to the right with light shining trough, see attached image). I much prefer the darker version I had before the upgrade.
However, under Settings -> Personalization -> Background, the old darker version is no longer available (I can however find it on another upgraded PC, but in the wrong resolution).

I can also not locate it here (only the new lighter version can be found here): C:\Windows.old\Users\jjoha\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles

Any idea how I can the old standard Windows 10 desktop image back ?

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kd833

Grizzly

I can offer you the background picture of the April 2018 update (1803) .

Comp Cmndo

Garyw

Settings > Personalization > Colors. Scroll down and select the “Dark” option under the “Choose your app mode”

Sets some (but not all) Microsoft applications to a dark background.

StevenG

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davehc

Here is exact way to do it

Settings/ personalisation / colors

Select your Windows default mode Change to DARK

Default App mode Click LIGHT

Transparency mode ON (optional)

Choose your accent colour

Strangely it only did it on my desktop Both lappys were OK

Bill Shannon

davehc

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StevenG

Here is exact way to do it

Settings/ personalisation / colors

Select your Windows default mode Change to DARK

Default App mode Click LIGHT

Transparency mode ON (optional)

Choose your accent colour

Strangely it only did it on my desktop Both lappys were OK

JAY B.

Here’s a 4K file of the old desktop background.

Attachments

• 

liteshotv3

Bill Shannon

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robra

Hi!
Just upgraded to Windows 10 1903. Seems to work fine. However, I now have the new lighter desktop background image (light blue, window to the right with light shining trough, see attached image). I much prefer the darker version I had before the upgrade.
However, under Settings -> Personalization -> Background, the old darker version is no longer available (I can however find it on another upgraded PC, but in the wrong resolution).

I can also not locate it here (only the new lighter version can be found here): C:\Windows.old\Users\jjoha\AppData\Roaming\Microsoft\Windows\Themes\CachedFiles

Any idea how I can the old standard Windows 10 desktop image back ?

I understood.
So. to solve this, I attached the jpg files that exist in c:\windows directory, of the screen pictures of old windows 10, 1809 version.
Remembering that to replace the original image files you will need to give right permission to the folder «web», and subfolders and files too.
The file img0.jpg belong to folder C:\Windows\Web\Wallpaper\Windows.
The others jpg files belongs to folder C:\Windows\Web\4K\Wallpaper\Windows.