When you first got Windows 7 and started exploring its personalization options, you might have noticed that there was already a theme for your country when you went to the Personalization control panel.
I’m in the United States, so you can see that’s the theme I have here in my Personalization control panel, but if I was in the United Kingdom (or Canada, Mexico, South Africa, etc.), the theme you see here would be for that location instead.
Another thing you might have noticed is that we have a lot of international themes on the Personalization Gallery. In this post I want to give you some behind-the-scenes information about how we created all these international themes for Windows 7.
First of all, these themes really did come from all over the world, not just from Microsoft main campus in Redmond, WA. When I was working on Windows 7 themes for specific places, such as India, Brazil, Italy, and Korea, I relied on co-workers in each country to advise me on which photographs would be best for their local areas. In other words, Microsoft employees in India voted on all the photos for the Indian themes; employees in Brazil voted on all the images for Brazil; and so on. Most of the photographs in the final themes were taken by professionals, but I also organized a worldwide employee photo contest to showcase what employees considered most unique and beautiful about their home countries. Here are a few of their winning photographs:
As I explained in my blog post “Windows 7 Themes: Where was this photo taken?” you can find information about each picture, where it was taken, and the photographer, by going to the Desktop Background tab and hovering with your mouse pointer over each image.
My team produced 40 themes for 20 different locales as part of this project. Twenty of these themes are included in various language versions of Windows 7. A selected theme is installed depending on which language version of Windows 7 you buy, and where you live. So, if you buy the French version of Windows 7 and you select “France” as your location, you’ll see a French theme in your Personalization control panel. We created preinstalled Windows 7 themes for Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, the Netherlands, Poland, Russia, South Africa, Spain, Taiwan, Turkey, the United Kingdom, and the United States.
The other 20 themes we created are on the gallery, and are for the same locations, but have different images. So, if you buy the Japanese version of Windows 7 and set “Japan” as your location, you can have two different Japanese themes—one preinstalled on your PC, and one you can download from the gallery. Our goal in preinstalling themes for selected locations was to make Windows 7 feel like it was made for you from moment you begin to use it—no matter where you live in the world. We wanted to make sure there was a wide variety of themes available on the gallery, too—and we’ve been adding to it ever since.
In the past year, some Microsoft employees in the international offices have organized their own local photo contests or reached out to local photographers or artists to create even more themes and wallpapers that celebrate the landscape, natural beauty, arts or culture of their countries. Here are just a few of those:
An Hsin Pu Tzu
Baltic Beaches
Colors of India
Czech Spring
Daydream
Nenggao Mountain
Latvian Nature
Wieliczka
We currently have almost 60 international themes. You can find these and many more on the gallery right now, and we add new themes and wallpapers all the time, so keep on checking back!
You need an official Windows 7 theme for Jamaica. Some pictures I believe that would make our culture proud to celebrate include our National Fruit (Ackee), National Bird (Scissor tail Humming Bird), National Flower (Lignum Vitae). Places in Jamaica that would be great landscapes include Holland Bamboo, if you see it in person you would love it! Also, places such as the Blue Mountains, Dunns River Falls in Ocho Rios (definitely one you should have), Fern Valley in St. Ann, beaches of Montego Bay.
any chance of us getting a version of the Nanami Madobe that Microsoft japan put out? it would be nice to have an official English edition of that theme
I love the selection of themes available for Windows 7. I've especially enjoyed the RSS-powered Bing Dynamic theme, but there have been no new images added to it for over a month now. How hard is it to drop a new image on the server once or twice a week?
Greg, the Bing Dynamic Theme was "offered as a three-month pilot period." So it technically ended in November. It'd be nice if it was continuously updated...
windows.microsoft.com/.../rss-theme-faq
Last question in the above page.
Worth entertaining at least as a proposal, and then also definitely worth posting, is a Croatian Windows 7 themepack. Surprisingly, your Personalization Gallery already features the excellent Serbian Nature and Slovenia theme (originating from the same geographical region!), but there is still no trace of a Croatian dedicated topic. My familial extraction is Croatian, indeed, but I am sure the other users would also enjoy deploying the high-quality photos of the beautiful and world-known Croatian vistas, e.g., Adriatic coastline, Dubrovnik, Zagreb, etc. Any chance to get it downloadable soon?
@Christopher - Thanks for the heads-up. Bing Dynamic was a huge success IMO, and I'm still puzzled why it is classified as a "pilot project." It seemed to be working just fine to me! I'll grab another Bing's Best for the time being and look into how to homebrew my own RSS-powered theme.
Odd. Some of the Theme downloads for Arts & Entertainment you linked to will not download. The nature ones downloaded just fine. On another note. I really appreciate this blog, as I'm sure other's do. Just wish there was a way to really get the word out better. I spend alot of time training average users just on basic things like this. Theme finding and installing. However, sending handy links to blogs like this via email and address lists really makes communicating tips & hints much easier.
Brandon, which themes are you not able to download? Do you get an error message, or does the theme just not work? Please let me know and I'll investigate. Thanks for reporting the problem!
Greg and Christopher, thanks for your comments on the RSS themes. Yes, the Bing theme was a limited-time pilot -- we stopped adding new images to the feed after three months, although the entire collection is still available to download now. The intent of this project was to test the RSS server and backend management system, to see whether an RSS theme would be well-received, and to discover what issues and questions people might run into, so we'd have a chance to iron out any snags. Some new RSS themes are in the planning stages now.
Adacosta, thanks for your suggestions about Jamaican landmarks and subjects to include in a theme. It's really helpful that you provided so much detail. I agree, a Jamaican theme would be a nice addition to the gallery!
Jen, I'm not at all jealous but only curious: a Jamaican theme would definitely be a nice international thematic addition to your Personalization Gallery, as would a Croatian one! E.g., if not for its natural beauty and tourist potential as the "Pearl of Adria," Dubrovnik, Croatia certainly deserves its own Windows 7 theme, like many other Croatian attractions, and MS would thus also confirm its impartial selection policy concerning the reasons I've already adduced in my feedback post commentary on Dec. 13, 2010, i.e., both Slovenia and Serbia received a Redmond donation in the form of a nice landscape theme months ago, and only Croatia has somehow been repeatedly left out of your regionalization scheme. Why? We simply can't believe the Redmond giant is still unable to pack some nice high-resolution photos with so many US nationals visiting our coast annually... :)
Hi, Tihomir -- sorry, I should have replied to your comment the other night as well; that was just an oversight on my part. Actually I added both your suggestion and Adacosta's to my list of theme ideas to investigate in the future. By the way, the Latvian, Slovenian, and Serbian themes were created by employees in the local Microsoft offices in those countries, which I was very glad about. So those themes didn't actually originate from Redmond. There is no way I myself can produce a theme for every single country in the world, although I certainly plan to do more of them! :-)
Hi, Jen! Thanks for your reply. No need for an apology, though. Definitely, your artistic talent renditions are the eye candies of any Windows 7 desktop, so please keep going and produce some more. Regarding my suggestion(s), as a perennial TechNet subscriber, I somehow anticipated the local MS branch offices could have been involved in the regional theme production, what has been now officially circumstantiated. Thus, both Jamaican and Croatian themepacks could realy be investigated, and Redmond could certainly do a laudable job while motivating the MS locals to design them in the forthcoming vernal/estival period. We could easily fancy about the enchanting images of the Antilles island paradise and/or Croatian archipelagos, for instance! How about you? ;)
Windows 7 India themes. some of the landscapes, flora and fauna, people, diversity. Indian Gir Forest, Bengal Tiger, Mango (National Fruit), Peacock(national Bird). 1st ranked wonder in the world (Taj Mahal). Etc and many more from India can be included into this series of Windows themes. Also 3D images of some of the places are available with me my self. So please make a Theme for India