If you want to tile the background image of all windows that look like "General", you can edit the following file with PropertyList Editor (or pico or vi or BBEdit etc):
~/Library/Preferences/com.apple.finder.plistSearch for 'icnv' and you should find a section that looks like this:
<key>icnv</key>Change the "0" below "BackgroundFlags" to a "1" (and save the change!) and then either logout and login or relaunch the Finder. When you do so, the image you place in the Global View Options will be tiled in the background of the Finder windows.
<dict>
... lines not shown ...
<key>BackgroundFlags</key>
<integer>0</integer>
... lines not shown ...
</dict>
Mac OS X Hints
http://hints.macworld.com/article.php?story=20011020122213250