The company is bidding goodbye to another legendary Windows wallpaper

Apr 11, 2014 12:35 GMT  ·  By

Microsoft pulled the plug on Windows XP on April 8, but there’s one thing that millions of users out there will continue to see each day they turn on their computers.

The Bliss wallpaper, which is the default Windows XP wallpaper, still lives on and will survive for at least a couple of years, given the fact that at least 28 percent of the desktop PCs worldwide are still running the operating system retired this week.

Microsoft knows that Bliss remains a legendary wallpaper that’ll still live in the hearts of many users out there, so the company created a video tribute for the photo, showcasing the photographer who actually took the picture that served as the core for the desktop background.

Charles O’Rear, who captured the landscape of Napa Valley, is 73 years old and says that he applied no effect and made no editing to the picture. Instead, Microsoft slightly cropped it to better fit the desktop.

“There was absolutely no Photoshop or any editing involved. I live 60 miles north of San Francisco in a wine region of Napa Valley. I took the photograph in an area called Carneros,” he said. “I took the picture in 1998, when I was driving down to see my then girlfriend Daphne.”

The region where the Bliss wallpaper was made looks completely different today and O’Rear himself explains that it’s almost impossible to stop and admire the landscape.

“It is a narrow, winding road where traffic goes fast and more accidents happen here than anywhere in our large region,” he says.

A very interesting thing about Bliss is that the wallpaper was selected by stock photo agency Corbis, which was and continues to be fully owned by Bill Gates. Corbis selected the photo and submitted it to Microsoft, which then decided to use it as the default desktop background of Windows XP.

“I have made an awful lot of photographs where I thought, ‘God this is a great shot!’, but nobody liked it, and it went absolutely nowhere. In this case, had it not been picked up by Corbis, it might have disappeared,” O’Rear said. “It’s my theory that if I’m at Microsoft, and I need a photograph, I’m not going to go to Getty, I’m going to go to Corbis. Let’s keep it in the family.”

Even though Windows XP was officially retired, there’s no doubt that Bliss will continue to bring back memories every time you see it on a desktop. And, in case you’re wondering, here’s what the scenery of Bliss looks like today, almost 13 years after the launch of Windows XP:

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