The green meadow from Windows XP is known to everyone, but the image is from 1996. Today it looks completely different there, as some users have to find out. And there is a good reason for that.
What kind of background is this? Those who installed Windows XP always see the standard background upon starting: A large green meadow with hills and a blue sky with a few white clouds. The background, officially called “Bliss,” has become synonymous with the “Windows XP” era for many.
But today, the place where the picture was taken looks completely different.
Today, a large vineyard stands in the place of the background
When was the picture taken? The image “Bliss,” which means “bliss/happiness” in English, was created by photographer Charles O’Rear in 1996. It shows the California wine-growing region of Sonoma County. In German, the background is rather unspectacularly called “Grüne Idylle.”
Why does it look so different today? Shortly before the photo was taken, the vineyards experienced a phylloxera infestation: These are root lice that cause significant damage in viticulture. In this context, the vineyard was cleared and in the photographer’s image, green hills are visible without the vineyards. The entire background story of the image’s creation has been explained by the magazine ARTE in a YouTube video.
If you look at current photos of the area, you can see that vineyards are growing again on the formerly green hillside. Depending on the photo and the season, it is sometimes greener or less green. On Reddit, you can see the status from 2025.
In 1995, a year before the famous meadow photo, Microsoft released software for Windows, but a year later the project was discontinued. For years, the failed software remained hidden in Windows XP: Microsoft hid its biggest failure for years in millions of legal copies of Windows XP.
