Download Free Windows 7 RTM 2010 Theme and Wallpapers

Content designed to let end users take advantage of the new personalization capabilities on the latest iteration of the Windows client seems to never be in short supply. Windows 7 customers can take advantage of the default themes and wallpapers that ship with Windows 7, the downloads on the Windows Personalization Gallery, as well as additional materials put together by various third parties. It is the case of the new 2010 theme created by Tim Heuer, Microsoft program manager for Silverlight, using wallpapers from Smashing Magazine.

“Smashing Magazine, an online (and independent) publication focused on web designers and developers, and the design community, has released 35 really neat desktop wallpapers for January 2010. A calendar is embedded into each of the wallpapers,” revealed Brandon LeBlanc, Windows Communications manager on the Windows Client Communications Team. “These wallpapers were created by designers all across the world. Smashing Magazine features a quote from designer on how they created their wallpaper in their post. They plan to post wallpapers by designers for each month.”

Obviously, the theme provided by Heuer featuring the 35 background images from Smashing Magazine is focused on January 2010. At the same time, the 2010 theme can only be integrated into Windows 7. However, the wallpapers in question are also available as standalone downloads, free of charge, directly from Smashing Magazine.

“So here you go: Smashing Magazine January 2010 Desktop Wallpaper Windows 7 Theme (I contracted Microsoft marketing to come up with that name). This is a widescreen theme as most of the wallpapers are widescreen – I think three in this set aren’t so when they rotate they may look weird, but I didn’t want to exclude any of them. The sound for this pack is the Windows Default so if you want to make tweaks to it for your own liking, go for it. I did, however disable the Start Navigation sound,” Heuer stated.