I like how the girl holding the XBOX 360 controller was moving it like it had motion sensing technology. (hehe) Perhaps Microsoft is hinting at devlopements yet to come?

That's pretty bad, but at least we don't have to look at emo mac boy talking to a guy who is over-acting as a doof in a "pc" role in this commercial.

Oh my god. Might as well be selling linens or diet supplements. Looks like generic stock footage.

I still see no really compelling reason to "upgrade" to Vista.

I don't see this as a general Microsoft Vista commercial. Rather I see it as more of a Microsoft Vista Business commercial. There's no way they expect that commercial to appeal to the average user looking to upgrade their OS. I foresee other Vista commercials for the general public.

Summary:

You without Vista: :(
You with Vista: :)
Buy Vista

With all the great feeeware portable apps out there nowadays I'm probably just fine sticking with WinXP for quite a while, thanks.

As far as commercials go, it was too long and without focus to make me want to act on it. Furthermore, the footage of the Xbox controller was just out of place and confusing.

I was one of the early adopters of Vista, and i have to say it is gorgeous! That said, its the buggiest OS i've ever had to deal with. I give them a pass however because it was still in development. The OS is such a memory hog though, and Aero is unforgiving with the memory allocation.

FYI - all you guys waiting to upgrade - make sure you have 2 Gb of RAM, else you'd be limited in what you can run!

Does MS and Starbucks share an ad agency or something. They both have the lamest commercials ever.

Did anyone else understand this commercial?
Apparently if we buy Vista we can not only do what ever the text said we can do, but we can also dance, jump, perform hand-off maneuvers, and get blown over by the wind.

SIGN ME UP!

You were really expecting something innovative? After how many years of ripping others off? Keep waiting guys. It seems like that's what you Windoz people do!

I think what everyone here is missing is that this commerical is geared towards buisnesses, very clearly too. You probably won't see this commerical during your primetime tv watching. Wait till January and you will see the commercials for home users and I'm sure they will include a song from some popular pop artist and be a little more exciting. I say a little because how exciting can a commercial about an OS be?

very boring indeed... some kind of corporate ad built like a too long powerpoint presentation full of general, yawn-inducing bullet points with stock footage and crappy music. yawn. at least they didn't use the "clapping hands" sound, word art typo effects and the checkerboard transitions from powerpoint.

hasta la vista.

FYI - all you guys waiting to upgrade - make sure you have 2 Gb of RAM, else you'd be limited in what you can run!

2 GB of RAM! Is this for day-to-day computing or stuff like doing graphics or video?

I had to shut it off half way through - that music was making me insane. What the hell were they trying to do, annoy people into buying Vista.

It would have been more effective to show Steve Ballmer's monkey boy dance again, at least it would be funny and memorable.

That's like the apple ads, only with swinging cameras, no creativity, boring jazz muzak, and me going somewhere else until it's over.

Wow, design studios and ad agencies should see this commercial for educational purposes. It's so in the DON'T DO list.

This is NOT a commercial for the home user or even the end user from what I can tell. Comparing it to a Shuffle commercial for the masses is a little underhanded no (even though I disagree with that the Shuffle commercial is that unique or exciting anyway)?

Since I sit through plenty of 'corporate' ads at work it is pretty good.

I especially like the saxaphone at the end, reminds me of 'Down for Whatever' from Office Space. What could be better to appeal to business purchasers?!

im running vista RC2
my acer aspire laptop (i paid 1200 last summer, prolly like 900 now):
-1gig ram
-1.66 core duo (the first cheapest one released)
-an external 22" widescreen monitor that i dual wield.

i can run photoshop and illsustrator and AIM, winamp and Aero, and i only use about 60-70% of my memory. (depending on file size) and if things get to hectic, vista automatically reverts from Aero to its basic interface to free up memory. not too shabby, no?

oh and for clarification, i meant i can run all those programs at once.

Vista is currently only out for businesses. Hence this entirely business-targeted commercial.

It's not supposed to be "exciting", because no company is going to make the massive investment of upgrading all it's operating systems on such a frivolous basis. If you want to sell something to a company you have to do it like any other business deal- what can it do for me. In this case, that's security, productivity, etc.

This isn't really a commercial, in that it's not meant to be an ad on tv. This is designed as a promo video to run at trade shows and the like. Different aesthetic.

Worst Windows commercial Ever!

well someone had to say it..

ronnsprocket -
I'd say you're doing pretty well... I'm running an AMD 4200+ with an NVidia G-force somethingerother 256Mb and 1 Gig of RAM, and i can only run one or two mail clients and one or two IE explorer windows before it starts to slow down and have bugs... for instance if i have too many IE windows open, i lose right-click ability. I don't see how this would be related to RAM, but that is the only time i lose that. I also can't open task manager to close programs! I purchased 2 Gb of Corsair RAM (2x1 Gb matched), and it fixed all of THOSE problems... (still have other issues).

But this isn't a "Vista bugs" thread, so i'll stop there. Again, i LOVE the interface, just wish the OS wasn't so buggy.

And i agree with those that said the commercial was earmarked for corporate america, not the home user.

Vista changes the entire interface based on the workload and available resources? Seriously? That's the WORST idea I have ever heard. Imagine some novice user playing around and all of a sudden everything changes. They will be 1) scared shitless that they messed something up, 2) confused, and 3) annoyed. And will it swap back and forth like this as resources become available and are used up again?

Even if there is a dialog saying this is about to happen, it's still a terrible idea. Interface consistency should one of the most important things, not secondary to how much RAM you have available.

Did they mean "see the difference in your revenue" or "see the difference in OUR revenue since we know your all going to purchase vista sooner or later whether you like it or not because your all ignoramouses"?

I have RC1 on a spare box (p4 2.4ghz with 768mb ram and a 5200 agp) it runs great with Aero on full settings its also working as a spare gaming rig (plays ut04 just fine, lol), the only time I had any problems with Vista was when I installed it on my main box (AMD 64 3200+ 2gb ram 7800 pci-e) it has lots of problems on any AMD box I've tried. I would guess that's now fixed since RC1.
I'm personally going to switch ASAP on my main box, Vista makes using the every day to day stuff on a computer much faster (interface wise)

I see why MS would make the add the way they did, it is a good way to get corp to look at it.

A modest proposal for a few minor changes...

Drop the words, get U2 to do a song for them, and we only see the silhouettes of the people moving around...

And add a few sexy silhouettes of hot chicks dancing around swinging a mouse around by its cord...

Then at the end...

A big message reads...

COMPATIBLE WITH YOUR IPOD. (but please consider a Zune.)

If this is for corporate, why is Game and Media Center stuff highlighted?

They sure use a lot of generic business buzzwords. The term "solution" was used almost gratuitously. I expected to see "Don't look at it as the Start button, look at is as the Solutions button."

Solutions,
Solution

I agree with bteverybody. For everyone saying this is just for business, which I do think was the focus, why put the Xbox 360 controller, some women listening to music with headphones and a third person with a MCE TV remote? Pretty schizophrenic if you ask me.

I watched it on mute (I'm currently at work) and it looks like it was a PowerPoint presentation.

i think the references to the 360 and whatnot are more to highlight the "versatility" of Vista. It's clear based on the format of the commercial and the language that it isn't marketed towards home users, but that doesn't mean home users won't see the commercial.

and otheorange - i agree with you buddy... the interface has too much dependence on the RAM, and for what reason i don't know. Aero is like a Corvette Z06 - sexy but thirsty.

Oh, I don't know- I'm using the vista 6000.16386.061101-2205 msdn version and it's drop dead gorgeous. I haven't had the opportunity to experience a graceful degradation of aeroglass (which is fx, basically- don't wet yourself, otherorange)-because my 3 year old test bed computer's doing just fine with it all.

In some ways, it reminds me of the change from OS 9x to OS X and the Aqua to Classic degradation of UI which took place with non-carbonized programs.

Oh yeah, the commercial. Definitely lame. If it was for business- you'd want to stress easier deployment, networking and maintenance, increased security and to all the rest- it looks freakin' gorgeous.

Can't wait to see what Apple pulls out of it's hat in 2007, but for now ... vista has the eye candy- of course, you'd have to actually have BOTH operating systems operating natively on their respective machines to compare and contrast....

Whoa! Is anyone else excited about the INFRASTRUCTURE!!?

"...and I'm a PC."

Everyone trying to convince us that the commercial isn't crap because "it's for business customers" are missing the point:

The commercial is crap whether for business customers or home users. It's just a crappy commercial. It didn't make me want to buy Vista for any reason.

it's just bad stock art come to life.

This ad is really for Microsoft PARTNERS, not consumers, and not even businesses considering purchasing Vista.

Yeah, it's bad advertising -- as is nearly all of corporate-aimed advertising. Stay tuned for the consumer ad campaign; I'm sure it'll be different.

I could care less how good the ADVERTISING is -- give me a great OS.

Wow, Vista lets you use third-party accessories like digital cameras, headphones, and remote controls. I've never seen that before.</sarcasm>

The commercial itself is great, too, with brand new music from 1991.

The predatory business practices of the Microsoft company became standard in the IT industry worldwide thereby contributing to the fall of "western civilization.

Oh man, I love House of Pain.

It's weird that the "corporate" focus of the ad seems to mean that they must lag around 15 years behind in terms of music and well, "hip" factor.

Seriously though, couldn't you hear it?

"Jump Around! Jump Around! Jump up Jump up and get down!"

That's not the Vista commercial I've seen on TV. That looks like some internal video Microsoft made for its partners. This was probably never even meant to be seen outside of Redmond. The actual Vista commercial has a bunch of people saying Wow. I think you got the wrong end of the stick.