The new Windows 7 ad is, um, happy
Windows 7 will be breaking down the doors on October 22.
So the advertising has to start round about September 10, right? And, indeed, here it is, making its debut Thursday in the prime-time premiere to which America is no doubt glued, the CW's "Vampire Diaries."
The ad is as safe as certain critics suggested Vista wasn't. There's a girl. And it's not Lauren, the one who isn't cool enough to buy a Mac. No, it's Kylie, the rather younger girl who is frightfully adept at all things digital.
You remember Kylie. She's the one who has a fish called Dorothy. She's the one who e-mails a picture of said Dorothy to her family (well, not Dorothy's family), having color-corrected it using the Windows Live Photo Gallery.
Well, now they've given Kylie the big one. Will she carry it off? Or will she falter like a one-armed juggler on "America's Got Talent"?
Kylie tells us she's found happy words, lots of them. Yes, they are happy, happy reviews of Windows 7--from such august names as, well, CNET. Kylie makes a slideshow so that we can clearly see just how everyone thinks Windows 7 is the not a blister like Vista. As the same tune that tells you there are very few seconds left in an NBA game--yes, Europe's "The Final Countdown"--intones with gay abandon, Kylie says: "I'm a PC and more happy is coming."
I know there are those who will struggle with the concept of "more" happy after Vista. But they will, equally, be grateful that some happy is on the way.
I, of course, am happy as long as everyone else is happy. Even if this ad feels splendidly safe rather than, well, ecstatic.
Chris Matyszczyk is an award-winning creative director who advises major corporations on content creation and marketing. He brings an irreverent, sarcastic, and sometimes ironic voice to the tech world. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. 
Take that you snobby Mac guy. And don't you dare stereotyping PC users anymore. You are the stereotype, with a snobby attitude thinking you are somehow better than hundreds of millions of PC users, just because you bought some expensive plastic with double the price and half the features.
(answer: A geek!)
For the record, that would be aluminum, not plastic. Please list the "half the features" that are missing, along with your Mac/OS X experience so we can see how credible you are. I own and regularly use both Macs and PCs (XP), and I do not see any significant features of Windows for which there is not an OS X equivalent. They are both very capable OS that can handle any task. My MacBook Pro was more expensive than the HP laptop I have, but it has more power and features too. I think I can get most of the features in PC laptops (except perhaps the multi-touch trackpad), but then they aren't cheap PCs any more.
Good luck you snobby Windows fans!
Geek? Perhaps, but I'd say you're just well adjusted to living in the real world. (The two are orthogonal.)
That said, these ads are *very* happy. I guess I'm not part of the target demographic. :P
you can get a mulitouch trackpad with a pc now, and for a fair price (under $800) but yea the feature rich PC's are not the cheapest things in the world.
The MAC can't make it on it's own merits, they can only snip at the boots of Windows, the universally accepted and overwhelming market leader for 25 years.
I pre-ordered the Windows 7 upgrade, but I will not be installing it on October 22. I'll wait until February or so to see how well it is going. I expect there will be several '7' patches and migration fixes by then.
Microsoft has lost all of its credibility.
[CNET editor's note: Offensive language deleted.]
ya its great!!
i agree... "Im a PC and more happy is coming!!!".. cant wait till the 22nd!!
I'm curious how something can be "dumb," "retarded" and "gay" (enough for you to mention that word TWICE). Considering gay people have generally higher levels of education than straights, the only thing "dumb" and "retarded" is your infantile choice of words. Grow up, moron.
It appears you missed the point of the the commercial. Sometimes that can happen if you view things with a closed mind- there's no room in there new ideas.
@sythara
what world do you live in?
The point of a commercial is to pique your interest enough to go and check the product out. Having positive quotes is a common marketing mechanism--tying both "bandwagon" and "expert" campaigns together.
Nobody is going to buy an OS because a 4 year old told them to. However it's a cute ad, demonstrates there might be something to Win7, and lets you know when Win7 will come out. I don't see the problem.
(Cute that it has a CNET quote in there)
Win7 largely kicks ass (I say this based on personal experience).
Mac OS X is great in its own right (I say this based on personal experience).
But most importantly, the competition is great for consumers!!
OTOH, these are the negatives, and I doubt they can be avoided: The public at large still uses XP, and they're likely going to have some troubles with learning the new setup (under the hood, it's a lot like Vista, but Vista only has something like 23% adoption total now). Once they do, it shouldn't be too bad. There will likely be a raft of incompatibility reports w/ existing software (yes, I know about XP compatibility mode, and I also know it doesn't quite work in too many instances, especially with custom apps). That may improve over time. Then there's the crippled basic version vs. the full-featured Ultimate version that they'll market all the features off of. There are still bugs that need fixing, though the regular Joe Sixpack probably won't notice them.
But - those are the only negatives I can see. They have reduced the memory hog aspect big-time (it runs slightly slower than XP, but much faster than Vista on the same gear). They were smart enough to let you choose whether or not you want that stupid CPU-sucking indexing service on or off. Basically, Windows 7 is what Vista was promised to be. (though that should have all happened in 2004 when Longhorn was originally promised to be out - not 2009 and a ton of bad press later. :/ ).
No, you can just buy the upgrade version. However, you may have to do a clean install from xp to 7 if you really want things to run at their top speed. Currently, my company is moving 7 on promo for like 146 bucks a seat.
(Sorry, couldn't help it.)
Cute kid, but I and my clients have @#$@#$ businesses to run. Converting to 7 is still going to be time consuming and costly, even if it doesn't suck as much as Vista did.
That's worthy of a double post...
i also don't see your point, are you saying microsoft should've just stuck with vista and stopped making new operating systems?
O RLY?
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13505_3-10348493-16.html?tag=mncol;posts
- 'splain that one, then.
Virtualization tagets server farms primarily.. and int he companies listed redhat would serve as a hypervisor... VDI is virtually (pardon the pun) non-existant in most enterprises as its cost saving impact is negligible and in most cases even more expensive... and ultimately if they are virtualizing that typically still means they are running windows... so theres your explaination
Your link pointed to large corporations exploring virtual machines and looking to open source alternatives for running them.
Windows 7 is a desktop OS.
I think you may have made a mistake in your attempt to make a point here. While VM's are nice, they really don't help me run Photoshop on my desktop very well, nor will they help small to medium businesses that don't have servers or IT departments. Even if a company does have a VM server out there, how will they access it? Through workstations and those workstations run.... a desktop OS.
The two are different products, different markets entirely.
The article also goes on to say that businesses are cutting back on their IT budgets. That includes money spent on Windows, Linux, and Apple.
So your point is rather lost when the article you link to... doesn't really have anything to do with the comment.
I was expecting some badass product demonstration or something, but this works too, I guess.
When happen disable firewall then you will get blue screen while connect to network printer or file sharing. Good luck with blue screen of death. Win7 is not major. Vista and 7 are minor. Win8 will be major unlike XP. Major have a lot of bugs fix and improve. Stay away from Vista and 7.
Stick to XP!
Wait for Windows 8!
Sorry, coudln't help it.... your comment was rather... disjointed and obscure. Try again?
Thieves! They are admitting that they screwed everyone with Vista and selling the service pack
for $$ again!
The only difference is really the price. Have to hand that one to Apple. Even if you think Snow Leopard is a service pack, to go from Tiger to Snow Leopard costs you $169 (with entertainment and productivity software) now, or $158 if you went Tiger to Leopard to Snow Leopard. Can you buy Windows 7 for less than $169? Let me rephrase, do you get the whole operating system for less than $169?
Chevrolet released a 2010 Malibu. That clearly means they were intentionally trying to screw you by selling the inferior 2009 model.
McDonald's had the gall to make me a NEW and FRESH burger instead of selling me that one that had been sitting under the heat lamp for an hour. Obviously they knew and meant to do that on purpose!
It's all a conspiracy, I tell you! Everyone- all of them - are in cahoots to go after only one person in the world... and it's you, Slickuser. Congratulations. :)
;-)
Technology improvements and new features you pretty much have to pay for. In Snow Leopard's case, things like 64-bit computing, Grand Central Dispatch to manage multiple processor cores, and out-of-the-box support for MS Exchange (which even Windows itself does not have) fall into these categories. Tuning the OS to make it better, faster, etc. OTOH always feels like a bug fix whether it really is or not.
Has MS ever truly added new features to a "service pack" for free that it could have otherwise charged its OS customers for? I don't think either Apple or MS is going to pass up a chance to make a buck, but that's why Apple strikes a great balance this time with the $29 price point: not so much in the way of new features, not so much can be charged (with the accompanying bug fixes and tuning coming along for the ride since they'd be released in a "service pack" for free at some point anyway.)
@markosph - Minor release is not a service pack. Service pack is bugfix and SL is more than just bugfixes. Also, minor release, minor price. Windows 7, we'll give it the benefit of the doubt and call it a moderate release, but it has the full OS price.
I can't say I'm seeing such a drastic change from Vista to 7 though, and I'm familiar with all 4 platforms.
I'm not trying to slam Windows 7, I've run the beta and RC and it's better than Vista and will eventually be worth upgrading from XP to, but to say Windows 7 is great when you aren't using the features that make it Windows 7 is disingenuous.
I won't say its a service pack, but it is a minimal upgrade as Windows 7 is.
7 is not even close to XP. So, the guy's not using the facny a$$ GUI? Wooo, big deal. I don't plan on using it on my desktops either. I'm not going to chew up valuable resources just to make the interface look prettier. I'm sure lots of people will, but I see no need for it. I would rather use the XP type interface myself. But what do you care which interface people use? What difference does it make to you? What "everybody doesn't like what I like so that makes them lame" or something along those lines? Since you're not even using a Windows PC, I really don't see how it affects you at all.
MS does a lot of things wrong... but they arent any worse then anyone else; theyre just more public...
as a developer (looking to make money)... straight out of school i choose .net and asp.net and now i make a killing and teach it at a local college.... why because they have spent hundreds of millions or dollars/hours making a platform which is excellent to develop for and extend.... not to menion visual studio is by far the best IDE that exists...
they arent the be all/end all....cut them some slack.. they might be the root of all evil but they make HUUUGGEE strides to help anyone that wants to use their platform (91% of all computers....ish)
Err, as someone who used to work full-time in academia, I can tell you right now that you cannot be making a "killing" and at the same time teach professionally - for two reasons:
1) schools pay at most 75% (if you're lucky) of the average salary for using the equivalent skill out in the real world (let alone a "killing").
2) if you were making "a killing" as a developer, you wouldn't have time to hold a second job with any regularity, and you'd be too busy fending off headhunters to even think of considering a low-paying position like teaching.
I will grant that Visual Studio is a decent IDE, but there are far better (and far more flexible ones) out there, if you know where to look and are able to establish a decent workflow.
"but they make HUUUGGEE strides to help anyone that wants to use their platform"
I can agree to that - as long as you only use their chosen language sets. Otherwise, you find support and extensibility to be rather lacking when you step outside the Microsoft bubble (try and use something like, say, Qt in there without having to reach for an external pre-compiler...).
I use Windows XP for work and I am hoping they upgrade me to Windows 7. XP works, but it's 10 years old now.
Let's see what windows 7 brings new. "I Want to be happy" also.
They should show some of the UI tweaks, they should show the themes (I have the British Isles one, where the background changes - that's actually kinda cool, and not too distracting) they should show the touch features (admittedly they are of absolutely no relevance to anyone, but they do demo well). But this? Argh!
Now for the record, I usually use a Mac (hey, I'm doing it now) so maybe I don't quite get the Microsoft ad mindset, but really, this makes as much sense as the stupid Seinfeld ads. Maybe it's because I'm not American (but I don't think that's it, it's true I don't understand HSM either, but I'm probably a few decades past that). Honestly, the Mac ads, like them or hate them, are pretty easy to grok.
All I can say is it's a good job I'd seem Windows 7 BEFORE the ad, or I might never have bothered to even look at it.
I have a feeling that's how the new OS will be viewed as well -- not great, not bad, but compared to Vista and XP, pretty dang good. That's one advantage of having set the bar low. Fine work, Microsoft!
Plus, I want work to go from XP to 7 just because XP is 10 years old.
- by jacksoncapper September 10, 2009 8:38 PM PDT
- I liked it. Cute kid. Something different. I think Microsoft is taking the right approach if they are to maintain their monopoly. I am a software engineer and have been using 7 at work and home since the beta and I have to say it absolutely hits the mark. Competition is good for consumers so go Microsoft, go Apple and go Linux and go Google ect ect.
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- by NikEst September 11, 2009 8:44 AM PDT
- You've got a lucky job if you can use a beta OS at work. I had to propose to my bosses we install 7 RC in a virtual machine to test our products for compatability. I wanted to head off complaints from early adopters, a pretty valid reason to work with 7, and it was quite a battle to get 7 installed in a virtual machine for testing only. We still develop on XP.
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- by heygeo September 11, 2009 2:30 PM PDT
- not sure if you knew but if your company has a volume license agreement you already have access to the final Win7 bits... FYI
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Showing 1 of 4 pages (173 Comments)someone should prod your manager to change his calendar to this year.. developing around XP is like preparing for the W2K shutdowns now..