Vista scrabbles for X Factor

Microsoft has desperately turned to Simon Cowell to help sprinkle some X Factor dust on Windows Vista, giving the already has-been OS a last shot at stardom. In its latest effort to get the youth to take up Vista, Microsoft will debut its ‘I’m a PC’ ad campaign in the UK during a commercial break in the first live X Factor …

[Anonymous Coward]

Louis liked it, but.....

Sorry Vista, It's 4 no's I'm afraid.

[Nic Brough]

Oh Oh Oh!

Pleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeease let it be the "boy band" advert. It's brilliant (and definitely better than the X factor)

<where's the sarcasm tag?... oh, gottit...>

[dervheid]

You can't sing, you can't dance - what do you want me to say?

how about "fuck of vista, and never come back, you bloated pile of shite"

Ah, that's better.

[Gordon Matson]

It's been a tough decision but.....

*3 hours and an extended drumroll later*

"you're going home"

[Rat]

Marketing is the root of all evil

'"This is where we set the record straight, shatter the stereotype and show who the REAL PCs are," thundered Rob Reilly, top man at Microsoft’s ad firm Crispin Porter + Bogusky.'

What record? That Vista's crap? Too late, the techies that decide which OS your average punters - ie their Mums and Dads - buy already know that Vista is a steaming pile of shite.

Which sterotype? That Vista's a steaming pile of shite? Horse has already bolted on that one, mate. You know what they say - you can't polish a turd.

The REAL PCs? Wtf? Does this marketard even know what he's talking about? Well, of course not, but that's never stopped them. Oh, and they're inanimate objects, so that's "what", not "who". And this muppet is allowed to *employ* people?

Just put Vista out of its misery and move on.

[zenkaon]

What a waste of marketing money

I mean come on, who actually watches the X factor?

The people who watch this show will buy new PCs with vista on them, they won't look for XP or Linux machines, or even macs, they'll pop down to good old PCworld and buy the laptop with the most usb ports.

They are the sort of people who call their wallpaper their screensaver, call word windows and still have msn as their homepage on IE6

[Anonymous Coward]

Ad Executives

I have often heard rumour that Ad executives partook of copious amounts of illegal substances from Colombia but even that cannot explain the behaviour of Rob Reilly,of Crispin Porter + Bogusky (crazy name, crazy guys!).

Do they really think the sort of people who watch X-Factor give a shit about operating systems? If so they really do need to lay of the Colombian talcum powder.

What next? A bankrupt ex girl band singer saying "That's why Mums use Vista".

I bet Steve Ballmer will say "I have no knowledge of this. I do not know who Simon Cowell is. I do not know what the X Factor is. I do not even know about somewhere called England, that was someone else's responsibility"

[Paul Murphy]

Never watched it

So I'll miss out on the crap program, and it's crapperer adverts.

I'm sure I'll be able to find something better to do with my time (and no it won't be installing vista).

ttfn

PH - something better to do with my time (I wish !)

[Paul Lee]

wtf?

BOGUSky?

My God, Miss Jones.

[Matt]

Vista is good!

I've been using it for a couple of months and I can't stand XP now!

[Bassey]

I may be mistaken but....

Surely the sort of people who watch XFactor have neither the brain power nor the inclination to switch on something as potentially interactive as a PC?

Incidentally, I've heard of Dannii Minogue but who the fuck is Cheryl Cole? Actually, on second thoughts, don't bother.

[Dangermouse]

Err...

"This campaign demonstrates how the PC connects a vastly diverse collection of people through a multitude of devices and one common emotion: Pride."

What?

[Daniel Bennett]

RE: *3 hours and an extended drumroll later*

Hahahahahahahahahaha!

Frickin pint on you man that one is funny, yes so true :P

[Natalie Gritpants]

Probably won't see it

I'll be viewing the lovely Cheryl using MythTV on Linux precisely because I can skip over the ads with the handy 30 second skip button on the remote (it's the only button with any signs of wear).

[Anonymous Coward]

Crap program, crap programming

What a wonderful union. The worlds worst tv show with the worlds worst OS.

Paris, because this is aimed at muppets like her.

[Tony Barnes]

Best. Booknote. Ever.

Title says it all!

[Anonymous Coward]

hardware requirements

... i am not getting into the vista is crap thing, but so many novice users i know (i.e. the people who need a puter to use their ipod), bought a new machine with Vista cos that is what i comes with.. but it runs like a dog.

If MS had only been honest and upfront about the really really high spec you need, then people probably wouldn't be so down on it.

As most reg readers are likely the IT support to family and friends, you will no doubt understand the difficulty in telling someone their brand new laptop from PC world is slower and harder to use than the one it replaces and there is nothing they can do about it, aside from rolling back to XP.

Vista may be good in some situations but if it is slower than what it replaces on much better hardware than its predecessor, then it is a big fat FAILURE... market it all you like but like another man said "you cant polish a turd".

[Robert Moore]

Seen it

This ad has been out in Canada for a while. and it is a huge waste is Microsoft's money.

Just like the Jerry Seinfeld ads.

They really have no clue why people don't like their products. It is simply the latest is a long line of clueless MS ads, and it will do nothing for them.

So I like it.

[RW]

@ Matt

Dear Matt: Your posting indicates you are a shill for Microsoft. Please go have your brain examined.

What's that? You don't understand the word "shill"? How about "sock puppet"?

What I wonder: Vista has been a failure in the market, no question about that. Is anyone in Microsoft looking at the money they took from Hollywood and comparing it to the sales of Vista lost thanks to its over-DRM-ization? Do they notice that they have shot themselves in the foot? Have they learned any lesson here?

Have they noticed that what Redmond thought the customers wanted (recte "would tolerate having shoved down their throats") has turned out not to be what the customers actually want? Or even just tolerate?

I'm waiting for the day MS announces "Speedy Windows" with no DRM and no automatic anything, an OS that does what you tell it to do, nothing else, and never, ever tries guess what you meant if you make a mistake. An OS that delivers as much CPU power to application programs as is possible. An OS that doesn't make a quad core machine act like a sluggish 286.

I'm not holding my breath.

[Bad Beaver]

Pride?

WINDOWS related pride?! Say WHAT?!

[Mike Moyle]

It has to be asked...

So, that'l be the "OS X Factor", then...?

[Steve]

@ Jeremy - Wow!

That's the first proper statement from an El Reg commenter regarding Vista that's actually reasonable! Thank you very much sir - I am impressed.

I disagree with your comment, to the point that if you show me a PC with a gig of RAM and anything above a P4 2.6Ghz chip then I'll run fine with Vista on it for the usual things like printing photo's, doing emails, spreadsheets, browsing the net, downloading porn etc. No sweat.

I'd recommend another gig if you are a bit more hardcore and want to be using Media Centre to record freeview, authoring DVD's or photoshopping.

Biggest problem is the crap that's installed. I counted 38 different "applications" Dell put onto a workstation for us. THAT's 38!!! First thing I do is wipe the box with the original install disk. After that's Vista's actually pretty good as long as your PC's been built in the last 3 years...

[Thomas Baker]

@Paul Murphy.

Nice use of the word "crapperer". So perfect for this thread. I call Vista - Fista, as that's what it does to you. You get nothing extra that actually you want over XP, loads of shit you don't want though and all the memory-suck that goes with it, oh but you do lose an awful lot of functionality and features to boot.

This would be my winning slogan:

Microsoft Windows Fista - It's Just Crapperer.

[Eric Dennis]

My Two Vista machines run fine

$398 Compaq Desktop. $389 Acer Laptop. Both have Vista and both run fine. 2GHz CPU's and 2GB of RAM. That's the minimum spec that works. minor hitches like all other versions of Windows, otherwise they run fine. I have however optimized them and turned off features I don't need, but I did that in XP too. Like it or not, if you buy a new PC, Vista is what you will get. In a year this will all be old news as Service Pack 2 comes out and everyone stops complaining. Meanwhile, the point of that ad is that most computer uses do in fact use a Windows PC and most software is written for Windows PC's. You can always switch to Apple or Linux if you like. My PC's work fine for me.

[Anonymous Coward]

Marketing idea

Why not just hire the has-been, but still touring band Foghat to advertise it? Seems appropriate somehow.

[Dr. E. Amweaver]

If you work in marketing or advertising...

...kill yourselves.

Just planting seeds, here.

[Paris, because it's vastly unjust that Bill Hicks never got to do her. Do material about her. Material. That's it.]

[Anonymous Coward]

What's the Cheryl Cole Angle?

Can we have an icon for that? Cheryl is cute. I would. If she asked nicely.

Paris, we're through. Move on.

[Richard]

My PC is a 2GHz Athlon XP with 1GB of RAM.

My brother has a Dual-Core Intel with 2GB of RAM.

Both have the original OEM install.

However, mine has considerably more rubbish on it as it's not had a clean-out in the last five years, the first two of which it spent running as close to 24/7 as Windows Update let it.

Which machine connects to the internets and opens Firefox faster from a cold start?

The machine that draws less power, has much slower processing and half the RAM - my Athlon XP.

That's actually true of all the common tasks, such as opening a document in Open Office for editing.

(We can't compare Microsoft Office as he has 2007 and I have 2003, so it wouldn't be fair on Vista).

The difference?

Mine's running Windows XP (SP2) - his is running Vista (SP1).

Surely this simple test of "What does a customer actually DO with their PC?" alone proves that Vista is in fact rubbish.

To Steve - My PC happily records Freeview, authors DVDs and even runs some rather hefty applications like Photoshop CS2 and 3D Studio MAX without complaining.

And it's considerably less powerful than the spec you quote for "does the usual things"

[Martin Usher]

Its not the PC, dummies!

I've got no complaint with the PC as a platform, its the crap you want us to run on it.

I'm a PC, too. I just have better things to do than tinker with Vista.

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Jeremy and Steve

The trouble is this..... For Joe Ipod owner, what the hell does Vista do, that XP didn't, and how come XP does it quicker ? Oh errrrr....... that's right, bugger all.

DirectX 10 was going to be the be all and end all of gamers lives, except that the dev houses have been less than enthusiastic about going purely DX10 because it would cut their market at a stroke.

All this plus all the usual Vista grumbles mean you need to buy a massiviely specc'd PC just for the O/S itself and few shiny bells and whistles ? Why in Gods name, is a business going to adopt Vista when XP does everything they need faster and on cheaper kit ?

DRM has it's place but the implementation in Vista is appalling. Even if you don't use your PC for "premium content" you still end up running a pile of DRM code..... Oh how sensible.

A DRM less, or at least sensibly DRM'd version, with a cut down GUI might actually be a good idea and sell well, but what the **** do I know. Oh hang on ...... there is one, it's called XP

Remember.... the real reason new O/S's are produced by Microsoft is to drive revenue both from the product itself and training, nothing else.

[Claire Rand]

still waiting

for someone to tell me exactly why I _need_ vista? ok forget my main machine being a mac, I do have an XP machine as well. thing is assume I install vista over xp MCE... what exactly will it now _do_ that it can't presently?

hi def video? not interested really, don't have a high def video source and not interested in downloading. but what else does it actually do?

and why is it worth reasonbly scare money these days exactly?

not an anti MS rant, I've not upgraded the mac to 10.5 either, 10.4 "works well enough" here.

assume I'm not into games but the machine should be able to run vista... but whats in it for me exactly?

and the other question I'm still waiting an answer for.. this online phone home thingy. how well does that cope with an internet link that is no "always on"?

[Jeff Rowse]

Vista "as good as" XP - sorta.

I don't know, and never have, worked for M$. I do not think the sun shines out of Richmond, or that Bull Grates is the greatest "inventor" who ever lived (or stole the Macs' GUI, whatever) but I do know three households who are running Vista with the same level of performance as they used to get from XP (I'm not one of them).

They've all bought new machines with (much, in one case) higher specs than their old XP machines, but they still get the same performance... oh, and none of them do anything that particularly stresses their machines either.

I'm not saying Vista is wonderful or terrible (but I'm not using it either - draw your own conclusions), just that I know three families using it happily...

[michael]

@everyboady @matt

pl do not feed the trolls

[Yfrwlf]

PC = Windows

...is what they'd like you to think, and pretend that no other OSes exist since it would be marketing for competition if they did that.

I think one of the biggest problems is what many commenters have already noted, the fact that most all new computers come with Vista and don't offer anything else. I'm surprised that even in an EU country, a choice of operating systems isn't offered, or at least the choice to get a blank hard drive and save some money. I thought the EU would be a lot more concerned about that anti-competitive tactic.

[Martin]

I'm a PC

I thought we'd had the I'm a PC adverts, starring Mitchell and Webb. They were quite good.

[Kenny Swan]

Fanboys

There's nothing wrong with Vista if it's configured properly. Maybe for people who build custom desktops and can't stop arsing about their install for five minutes, it's nothing but headaches. Buy a new laptop with Vista installed and configured and it runs fine. If you like XP, great! Stick with it and more power to you, but shut up about how shite an OS is if you don't even bloody USE it. Whining, geeky bastards...

[Neil]

Fill in the blank

Was it just me or did the advert not mention the word "Vista" once, only "Windows". Even MS won't utter the dreaded V word.

[John O'Hare]

@Jeff Rowse

"They've all bought new machines with (much, in one case) higher specs than their old XP machines, but they still get the same performance... oh, and none of them do anything that particularly stresses their machines either."

So your point was???

Right, my point exactly. Spend more money to get the 'same' performance. People who are into that sort of thing have more money than brains.

"just that I know three families using it happily..."

Yes, ignorance is bliss.

Paris, because she's like that as well.

[Henry Wertz]

Ignoring the problem

Yep, if it's like the ads in the US, people retardly say "I'm a PC" over and over for like 30 seconds. All it does is pisses off the viewer as far as I can tell -- I have ad skip on my mythtv though. Completely pointless. It seems the ad people are looking at Microsoft's problems as in "PC versus Mac", I guess. I mean, *I'M* running a PC, it just has no Microsoft crap anywhere near it. I think Microsoft's current Linux strategy is to pretend Ubuntu etc. don't exist. Oh and also to ignore that Vista is crap.

[Sceptical Bastard]

A bit of gratuitous vitriol

Weirdly, we seem to be debating the proposition 'Windows Vista is better than X Factor.'

We've even put Steve Ballmer and Simon Cowell in the same sentence. Actually that's not as inconguous as it seems.

Both are ill-informed, bullshitting, foul-mouthed, opinionated gobshites. Ballmer is less infuriatingly smug and less vain (fat bald sweating men have nothing to be vain about) but that's no reason not to beat up either of them on sight. (or, in Cowell's case, shoot on sight).

[Pascal Monett]

Vista works just as well

Gosh, you get a Vista machine with specs that would make a grown man cry, and when comparing to an old XP machine you say "it works just as well" and that doesn't make you pause and think about it ?

Hello ? Anybody home ?

If I go from a circa-2006 single-core machine with 1GB of RAM to a circa 2008 quad-core machine with 3GB or RAM and it doesn't work any better, then I just have to question the usefulness of the investment.

If you bought yourself a 300hp SUV to replace your economy car, yet couldn't put more stuff in the trunk, do you really think you would believe that you had made the "right" choice ?

[druck]

Has anyone actually seen it?

I was flicking through the channels last night, and was unfortunate to have actually seen it. There is a bunch of unattractive people reeling off their dull occupations, then sounding like complete knob heads by saying "I'm a PC". If it was "I use a PC", it wouldn't be so bad, and you might be able to make it all the way until the the orange screen containing the words "Microsoft Vista" before vomiting.

But "I'm a PC", twats, twats, twats.

[sam]

You can't polish a turd,

but you can roll it in Glitter

[Matt]

@unbelievers

Without wanting to 'feed the trolls'...

I used to feel the same way as you all do. Vista is slow, bloated and generally crap. After using it for a while and finding a few tweaks, I have to say that I was completely wrong. Whether or not its just the fancy interface playing tricks on me I don't know, but Vista feels so much faster than XP. I also can't notice any performance loss in games. I have had absolutely no driver issues with Vista (more than can be said about my changeover from 98SE to XP), although I know there are still quite a few issues out there. The main problem I have is that VB6 has to disable Aero to run, and VB.NET 2005 has a compatibility warning (although I haven't had any problems running it yet).

Anyways, I don't want to get into the whole Vista debate because I know I don't stand a chance. All I'm going to say is don't knock it too much until you give it a (fair) chance. Ok, if you're a linux freak then you're obviously not going to get what you want with Vista, its just not designed for the same thing. Its like comparing buying a finely tuned race car to a feature laden people carrier. You may not want the optional cup holders in the wing mirrors and ass warmers, but Microsoft targets the average person. As techies, if we don't like the cup holders, we know what we're doing and with the aid of Google, we can crudely hack it off with an axe. Ok, back to leaving which I meant to do 3 sentences ago.

On a side note... MS Server 2008 is also very good.... and Vista > OSX

:)

[Anonymous Coward]

people only watch the X Factor

Because they don't know how to change the Chanel, so suggesting they change their operating system is a bit pointless.

[Mike]

RE: @unbelievers

I completely agree, Vista is fine and very stable, fools who try and run it on underspec'd kit get what they deserve (for being so gulible, think about the gene pool - don't breed), just becuase something goes wrong with your computer don't instantly blame Vista, M$ were let down i the early days by hardware suppliers that didn't create reference drivers to the schedule they said they would, no wornder they didn't work very well until the driver came out.

Just because a machine is newer doesn't make it better, disk/ram speeds and caches still have to be compared, my dual boot XP/Vista machine works equally well in both OS's, games, DVD authoring, video compression, no noticable difference.

Vista does a lot more in the background now (on the assumption you have a powerful machine) if you don't want this stuff, turn it off! please stop complaining about it and do something about it, it's not that hard to switch off sidebar, aero glass and services you don't use, yes it's bloated, so put it on a diet.

So trolls, enjoy your feast.

[Daniel B.]

It'd work...

But it'll have to change a bit:

"Hi, I'm a Mac"

"And I'm a WC."

Where else does crap go, other than a WC???

[Anonymous Coward]

I watch X Facor

...and I can change the 'Chanel'. Sometimes I wear Hugo Boss.

Cheryl has a crush on me BTW.