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Microsoft Battles Vista Perception With Prizes
LambAndMint writes "In what can only be described as an act of utter desperation to overcome Vista's mostly negative public perception issues, Microsoft has put together an online "Fact or Fiction" quiz about Windows Vista. Every person who submits themselves to Microsoft indoctrination gets a free shirt and the chance to win a $15,000 prize. Some of the supposed 'facts' will make you feel like you're reading a document from an alternate reality. Get ready to get a job as a computer salesman for a mass-market retailer as you go through the quiz."
Woohoo! Free shirt!
This is left as an exercise for the reader.
I'm glad they're not running an airline. They'd be in the side of a mountain by now.
Most of the stuff on
is a free upgrade to XP Pro!
...and all I got was this lousy operating system.
(But the T-Shirt wasn't half bad)
And the actual meat and potatoes of all this would be here, Silverlight required of course!
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
The grand prize includes a multitude of Sony products. *sniff* I can smell the conspiracy theorists from here!
This is slashdot, but I find myself a little surprised to see this as a headline. Sure, microsoft is giving crap away in order to boost sales of their new lackluster OS. Same story happens in every business. Marketing gets told to go make some sales happen and they often ocme up with things like this. It's not propaganda anymore than any advertising is propaganda. How about we stick to decrying the main and major faults in the OS, rather than poking fun at a common business tactic. It's not like we are short on low hanging fruit.
Got to get some better packaging. Yeah, that's it.
"I bless every day that I continue to live, for every day is pure profit."
Oh. It's just a way to seed Silverlight. Nevermind.
Most of the stuff on
CONDITIONS OF ENTRY
Instructions on how to enter form part of these Conditions of Entry. By participating in this promotion, entrants agree to be bound by these Conditions of Entry.
You must be a Local OEM Channel Partner. Definition of a Local OEM channel partner ("partners") includes resellers and System Builders who resell other branded hardware (PCs and Servers) with Microsoft OEM Licenses or who build hardware to sell directly to end customers.
Entry is only open to Australian residents residing in NSW, VIC, QLD, NT, or SA who are Microsoft OEM Channel Partners. The promotion commences at 09:00am (Sydney time) on Friday 14th December 2007 and closes at 11:59pm (Sydney time) on Friday 14th March 2008 ("Promotional Period"). The Promoter's decision in relation to all aspects of this promotion is final and no correspondence will be entered into.
Windows Vista sold more copes than any other Microsoft Operating System (including Windows XP) In the first month following launch.
(Fact) Fiction
Windows Vista faces significant Compatibility issues with hardware devices.
Fact (Fiction)
Windows Vista faces significant issues in terms of integrating with other software applications.
Fact (Fiction)
Windows Vista delivers all new levels of security compared to previous Windows operating systems.
(Fact) Fiction
Windows Vista is expneisve to deploy and run.
Fact (Fiction)
Windows Vista hasn't been popular with businesses.
Fact (Fiction)
Windows Vista is unreliable and requires more technical support than Windows XP.
Fact (Fiction)
Microsoft has been swift to diagnose and rectify initial issues with Windows Vista.
(Fact) Fiction
Windows Vista can help deliver peace of mind for parents in terms of their children's online safety.
(Fact) Fiction
Windows Vista won't truly be ready until the first complete Service Pack is released.
Fact (Fiction)
Their answers, not mine!
I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask where they're goin' and hook up with 'em later.
I've got a triple boot laptop: Vista, FreeBSD, OpenBSD. I only ever had one problem with it and it was fixed- the USB subsystem blue screen. Most of my old programs run on it unless they have some funky driver.
But I customized it so perhaps I just don't see any of the problems. My screen looks like Win2K and all the eye candy and crap is turned off. And I have yet to see any Ultimate Extra that is anything more than a screen background.
One thing that is useful is to download "Server Tools". With it you get a utility that will make bootable iso DVD's. Otherwise I just make DVD's in FreeBSD.
Instead of Gates doing the "Wow" thing, he should have just stuck to the features.
that secretaries listen to that suck so much that they have to give away money every hour to get people to listen.
Microsoft: The most free money every hour!
This test is interesting enough to clog your system with silverlight.
[ ] Fact
[x] Fiction
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Because the preloading on non-apple x86 customers is only a small piece of the pie. What they really want is large corporations to start rolling it out by the truckload. Major companies don't want to do that, largely because of the perception (whether true or not) that it is a crappy product. Many large companies are flat out telling Dell and HP and their ilk that they will not mass order machines without XP on them, or that they better ensure that they can revert to XP, and still have working drivers and support. Then Dell, HP, and their ilk get mad, because they have to train employees how to troubleshoot problems on model X in two os's, driving their costs up.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
If Microsoft Marketing was running an airline, it would be 100% safe! Zero crashes. Because no Microsoft aircraft would work well enough even to taxi on the runway.
Have you ever talked with Microsoft marketing people? Every day they have to go to work and pretend that they are doing something positive for a company that pretends to sell quality products. They pile fantasies on fantasies. They live in a world of unreality.
Microsoft marketing people are far scarier than zombies. Zombies have more respect from the universe; they were at one time at least allowed to die.
Like zombies, MS marketing people also have no will of their own; they are automotons of corporate speak, which is a language that no one understands, including themselves. But they wander the earth undead, believing that they are human, believing that they have jobs.
Okay, some of this may not be completely true. However, I'm not sure what or how much.
By not having large corporations move to vista, one of the major incentives for moving to Windows server 2008 is evaporated, meaning a huge financial hit for MS. One of the biggest selling features of 2008, is how well all the new features are supposed to work with vista. Yes, that and server core, and Hyper V.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
I love how the silverlight download wants me to run silverlight.exe to install it... on my Linux box. Probably not going to work. How about some better user-agent checking with a message like: "For your own good, please go away. We are only planning to provide half-baked implementations and lip-service to non-Microsoft platforms".
Can somebody help me? I'm trying to complete the quiz, but I'm having trouble installing this sliverlight stuff on my Linux box and getting the site to work under Firefox.
If I could just finish the quiz I might ditch Slackware and move to Vista!
Find coupons in Greeley
Q: Vista faces significant compatibility issues with hardware devices
A: Fact!
MS: Are you 100% sure? We supported 1.4M devices at launch and have doubled that number since then. Are you sure
YES / NO
A: YES
MS: You're wrong WRONG! WRONG! Too stoopid to have a computer TRY AGAIN
Q: Vista faces significant compatibility issues with hardware devices
I'm sorry Dave, I can't let you do that.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
You want the shirt's 'source pattern'? Here you go. I ... uhh ... reverse engineered it:
####
####
####
I'm not too familiar with this 'Silverlight'.
Is it equally devastating to both werewolves and vampires?
Bingo. that's absolutely correct. It's maddening when I have to hit their site (for work) and I have to click to remove that stupid silverlight full page cover.
I don't want it, I don't need it, and please, for the love of god, stop mooning me with it.
_ _ _ Go for the eyes Boo! GO FOR THE EYES!
Where's the CowboyNeal option?
The Fact or Fiction site was put together by Microsoft Australia for "technology professionals" and aims to help Windows tech experts sell Vista to their customers. This is not oriented toward the general public, and frankly it doesn't look "desperate" to me.
Sure Vista has been a disappointment, but not everything Microsoft does is evidence of this.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
I've met Microsoft Marketing employees, that's what I was talking about. I was just trying to describe what I saw. My sense of horror was stronger than I am able to put into words, however.
Suppose you had a job, but what you did in your job didn't actually benefit your company. And your company was adversarial toward its customers, as much as possible, so that, even if you did benefit your company, you would being doing harm in the world. How would you describe that?
Second prize is two copies.
I actually did this a while back (the promotion has been running since December 2007 IIRC). They send both a shirt and a certificate (as a Vista certified salesperson) to whatever name you fill in the form. I did it several times with the names "A Retarded Monkey", "Someone Brain-damaged", etc.
I have a certificate on my wall that states "This certifies that An Ignorant Buffoon has reached the level of excellence to qualify as a Vista Certified Salesperson".
(I'm paraphrasing as I'm not in the office at the moment).
(T>t && O(n)--) == sqrt(666)
Dude, the waft of bullshit coming off that quiz is unbearable. I couldn't get past the first part because I couldn't stop clicking the wrong thing.
Almost none of the statements on that quiz were 'fact' or 'fiction'; they were mostly opinions that differ based on your needs for a computer.
Security, for example: Sure, Vista has the 'protect the user from himself by continually asking if he really wants to X' features, but I'd be happier with licensing agreements for bundling in AVG and Spybot, both as low priority scheduled tasks (better integration, of course, but basically the same system I use to keep my friends and clients from calling me every twenty minutes saying they've contracted a virus).
Compatibility: sure, Vista supports '2.2 million products', but that's still less than what XP supports. Why don't they have a compatibility layer for legacy devices? Is it that damned hard?
I could go on.
The point is, if you value intellectual honesty, you can't even pass the first question.
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Huh? Didn't you read Microsoft's answers to the Microsoft Vista quiz??!
Windows Vista faces significant Compatibility issues with hardware devices. Fiction! It's just not true!Windows Vista faces significant issues in terms of integrating with other software applications. Also fiction!!!
I think whoever did your planning needs to re-take the quiz so they can learn the real truth. Microsoft's own quiz proves you wrong. Smackdown!
Donate your shirt to charity. Your feelings will go like this:
Living well is good revenge. Being kind can be better. You will never get back the time you wasted but someone can make good use of the results.