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If, for whatever reason, you want or have to use Windows 3.0/3.1 in this day and age, and want to add some extra flavor to your desktop, look no further than desktop wallpapers. Please keep in mind that Windows 3.0 and 3.1 made their debut in 1990 and 1992, so they don't support modern JPG or PNG files, which made their debut in 1992 and 1996 respectively.
This was tested with DOSBOX-X. You may need to install specific drivers for your environment.
0. (Optional step, tested on Windows 3.1) Video drivers. The wallpapers shine their brightest when it's displayed with as many colors as possible. Here's a guide to change the resolution and colors for DOSBOX. In my testing, I got "Please insert the S3 Flat Model Driver disk" as an error, though the video drivers installing just fine after cancelling the installation and worked when I tried it a second time.
1. Pick out a wallpaper and convert it. Windows 3.0 and 3.1 seem to only support Windows BMP v3 files. Using ImageMagick and aiming for a resolution of 1024x768, this command worked:
convert <inputfile> -resize x768 BMP3:<outputfile>.bmp
(For more information, check here.)
2. After which, transfer the wallpaper directly to the "WINDOWS" directory. This is where Windows will find the wallpaper. Make sure to respect DOS's 8.3 filename limit.
3. To access your wallpapers, go to:
Program Manager -> Main -> Desktop
Wallpaper will be its own category.
