Windows XP Default Wallpaper’s Location Revealed

Posted by: Noob Blogger in Featured, Web Updates Sep 25, 2011 0 394 Views

Windows XP Default Wallpaper’s Location Revealed – Ever wonder where the Windows XP default wallpaper came from? Did you really think it was just surreal or not real at all? Have you ever stopped to wonder where the image was taken, or who took it? The Next Web revealed all the answers of these questions.

One of the most famous wallpaper images is undoubtedly the default Windows XP image showing a blissfully relaxing vista of green rolling hills and a bluer than blue sky. The wallpaper, probably one of the most viewed images of all time, is aptly named ‘Bliss.’ Do a Google image search for just the word ‘bliss,’ and the first result is the Windows wallpaper.

For Dutch Windows users however, the name of the image is Ireland, which has mistakenly led many to believe that that’s where the image was taken.

The wallpaper, probably one of the most viewed images of all time, is called “Bliss.” The Next Web revealed that the man behind the camera is American photographer Charles O’Rear. O’Rear took it in Sonoma County, California in 1996, years before Windows XP launched, and before the area was converted into a vineyard.

Here’s what the same location looks like 10 years later.

According to The Next Web, “O’Rear himself has seen the image in the window of a restaurant in a Thai village and in the background of a TV interview with the Venezuelan president.” Here in the Philippines, Bliss was used as the background of one of the posters used by one presidential candidate of 2010.

If you want to see for yourself the same location where Bliss was taken, just go to Google Maps and enter the following coordinates: 38.248966, -122.410269.

And here’s is my screenshot of such location by doing the instruction above.