Microsoft's 2023 ugly sweater lets you wear the famous Windows XP wallpaper

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Holiday party like its 2001.

Woman wearing Microsoft Windows XP ugly sweater.
(Image credit: Microsoft)

Microsoft has debuted its annual ugly sweater, which this year is celebrating one of the most iconic wallpapers of all time. That's right — Microsoft has made a sweater out of "Bliss," the default background in Windows XP.

Windows XP Bliss Ugly sweater

(Image credit: Microsoft)

The sweater is $69.99 over at Microsoft's Xbox Gear Shop, with some of the proceeds going to the Nature Conservancy, a non-profit charity focused on conservation, biodiversity, and finding solutions to climate crises.

This year's sweater looks a bit like "Bliss," the famed 1996 photo that became one of the most recognizable images on the planet when Windows XP launched in 2001, but has more of an illustrated feel. If it weren't for the mouse cursor, you may need to look for it.

Look, the resemblance is totally there, and there's only so much you can do on a knit sweater. On the other hand, if you saw that on your desktop, you might think you were having issues with your graphics drivers.

This isn't the first time Microsoft has put out an ugly sweater in time for the holidays. I'm the proud owner of the Windows 95 original, while other releases have included the Windows XP logo, Clippy, Paint, and Minesweeper.

Whether or not you're into the sweater, Microsoft clearly realizes that the Bliss wallpaper invokes nostalgia. Over on the ugly sweater site, you can download the famous wallpaper for whatever computer you're using today and your phone with new mobile versions. The desktop and mobile versions also come with Sketch, Pop Art, and Watercolor variants (I wonder if Microsoft's AI had anything to do with those).

Like previous ugly sweaters, Microsoft will sell this one directly while supplies last. While they've come back before, this may be your last and only chance to show your allegiance to one of Microsoft's best operating systems ever.

Andrew E. Freedman
Andrew E. Freedman

Andrew E. Freedman is a senior editor at Tom's Hardware focusing on laptops, desktops and gaming. He also keeps up with the latest news. A lover of all things gaming and tech, his previous work has shown up in Tom's Guide, Laptop Mag, Kotaku, PCMag and Complex, among others. Follow him on Threads @FreedmanAE and Mastodon @FreedmanAE.mastodon.social.

10 Comments Comment from the forums
  • linuxdude
    I would say mission accomplished - they got a whole article on your site for free while they would otherwise have to pay quite a bit to get a featured article.
    Reply
  • JarredWaltonGPU
    linuxdude said:
    I would say mission accomplished - they got a whole article on your site for free while they would otherwise have to pay quite a bit to get a featured article.
    First, this is news. We deemed it fun / newsworthy. Nothing more, nothing less. It's almost like we write articles that we think people might want to read! Will this succeed? Perhaps not, but it wasn't a ton of work to get it put together and the nostalgia factor with Windows XP is real.

    Second, articles written by the staff are never paid for content. There are spon-con articles, labeled as such, but they are not written by me, Andrew, or any of the other regular writers. And yes, we generally dislike those as much as anyone. The most a company can do to "buy" an article is to contact us and offer us a review sample, and that still won't guarantee the review gets published, or that it has a favorable score.
    Reply
  • USAFRet
    Timely. The theme for our office holiday party this year is...."Ugly sweater"

    However, I'm not buying one of these for $70...lol
    Reply
  • Alvar "Miles" Udell
    $70 for something that costs (maybe) $7 to make, that's Apple level gouging there. For that kind of money you can buy a custom ugly sweater on Etsy with what the Bliss location looks like now (below, so much uglier), make a $20 donation to The Nature Conservatory, and still have enough left over for a 6 pack of craft beer.

    Reply
  • Sippincider
    Pfft you want ugly?

    Have a sweater with the Windows 1.0 or 2.0 desktop.

    Or one with "Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate UPGRADE Limited Numbered Signature Edition".
    Reply
  • Giroro
    Why would you want an ugly sweater... In 2023?
    That fad joke is so old, I'm pretty sure it was in an episode of The Office. What's next, planking? Snuggies?
    Windows Vista branded Tide Pods?
    Reply
  • cyrusfox
    Giroro said:
    Why would you want an ugly sweater... In 2023?
    That fad joke is so old, I'm pretty sure it was in an episode of The Office. What's next, planking? Snuggies?
    Windows Vista branded Tide Pods?
    Ugly sweater is a holiday tradition for many US sub cultures. It is not much of a fad but more a re-occurring seasonal gag that has existed for decades. If anything it is picking up steam and spreading...

    Ugly sweater I think is preferred to the zany costumes displayed here
    k8MYNytmaI0:149View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8MYNytmaI0&t=149s
    Reply
  • Amdlova
    I want this :) maybe solve my blue screen in life.
    Reply
  • linuxdude
    JarredWaltonGPU said:
    First, this is news. We deemed it fun / newsworthy. Nothing more, nothing less. It's almost like we write articles that we think people might want to read! Will this succeed? Perhaps not, but it wasn't a ton of work to get it put together and the nostalgia factor with Windows XP is real.

    Second, articles written by the staff are never paid for content. There are spon-con articles, labeled as such ...
    What I ment is that typically companies would have to pay for publicity like this, but thanks their marketing trick they got it for free. And its not just tomshardware, many german IT sites also have exactly the same article. - so just imagine what it would have costed to have this amount of news if MS would have bought "featured" articles for all those magazines.

    However, I have to wonder - it seems fine for the magazines to have their revenue stream bypassed like this.
    Reply
  • Yveske
    Amdlova said:
    I want this :) maybe solve my blue screen in life.
    Now that would be a theme for an ugly sweater: BSOD
    Reply