I’ve really enjoyed the default background images that have shipped with Vista. I think they’re beautiful, even if some don’t make great backgrounds behind a lot of desktop icons - if that’s the case, shame on you - clean that up!
If you didn’t know, Microsoft commissioned some amateur photographers to capture live-image backgrounds. I think that’s a fantastic idea, as there’s some real talent out there (in many disciplines, not just photography) that hasn’t made the decision or had the opportunity to go professional. Long Zheng of istartedsomething.com has more details on the process and the results.
If you enjoy the shipped Vista backgrounds, you’ll be glad to know that Hamad Darwish, one of the amateur photographers has released an additional pack of Vista backgrounds that didn’t make the Microsoft cut -and they’re fantastic. You can get the download links from his website.
The easiest way to view all the possible images without selecting each one individually via the “Browse…” button is to unzip the images to the public pictures folder, typically located here: C:\Users\Public\Pictures
They should show up under the “Public Pictures” option in the Location drop-list.
Enjoy! Unless you agree with Jeff Atwood, then you should never see your background image anyway. 
And thanks, Hamad!
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