Microsoft opens Windows 7 to advertisers Microsoft has cracked open Windows 7 to commercial sponsorship with desktop themes from advertisers. The company Friday announced desktops from Ducati, Infiniti, Porsche, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, and Twentieth Century Fox under a pilot program that'll run until next October. Microsoft also created its own Windows 7 themes for Xbox …
That, dear readers, is yet one more reason to switch to Linux on the desktop. How long before you go to your computer in the morning and MS have switched your desktop theme to "biggest sponsor of the week" without your consent, re-set your home page, added some extra bookmarks etc... isn't that a similar process to some versions of spy/nagware?
Go MS.
Those who worship corporations like NFL football teams, NBA Basketball teams, professional golfers. ML baseball and etc. will flock to download their favorite corporate logo so they can bow and pay homage sitting right there at their desk or on a laptop at their favorite corporate coffee vendor.
I'll put a corporate log on my computer just as soon as they pay my fee to advertise on my property. My property being a home built has NO logos, stickers or other advertisements extolling the evil inside. Oh wait ... no evil inside since mine are all AMD. No wait ... lemme think about that ....
"The announcement drew support from advertisers who spoke in terms of opportunities for their brands to engage with people."
MS not just content with fleecing you for £150 a copy for Windows 7, they sell your desktop space too! FFS! You might have a pop as us Apple fanbois and the the basement dwelling beard strokers of Linux fame, but at least we wouldn't sell out a user's desktop space to the lowest common, slimey, piece-of-dirt ad-man!
As it's only a theme I guess not. Wishful thinking I guess.
But it is only a matter of time before your m$ system that *YOU* paid for and should do what *YOU* say will bombard you with crapvertisements. I doubt you'll be able to turn them off without disabling windo$e update.
So the next time you run spysweeper don't be surprised when it wants to remove all m$ software as it's now become spy/adware.
Please will the arrogant redmond pricks realise that this is not the way ? The future is not bright, and it will be free from innovation if m$ have their way.
In the meantime mankind advances back in to the swamp.
Progress !!?????!!?? Sounds like the bloody dark ages all over again.
Except the merchant bankers (who are wankers) have got us there already. Go get that BONUS instead of a prison sentence boys/girls. Let us tax payers fund it - how much would you like ?
Beer cos I need more.
On my left, wearing an austere anthracite suit synonymous of efficiency (with the corresponding price tag): Paid "the Beancounter of Doom" APP-LI-CATION!
In the opposite corner, in the hawayan shirt and covered in ad stickers, synonymous of annoyance but free-as-in-beer: Sponsored "U-Kewl" SER-VICE!
And now standing in the middle and loosely disguised as a referee, please welcome the best of both worlds: Micro "I Fuck You All Sideways" SOFT!
Let the fight begin!
Charge ridiculous prices for licences for not fit-for-purpose software. And still get the advertisment revenue. That's a win-win situation. Too bad MS' definition of "win-win" doesn't take the customer in account. It's "we win, and then we win again"...
...for a bunch of people running linux, you sure are getting excited about this. Have you guys ever stopped to think that you might want to take a deep breath, step back, and stop treating a piece of software (which you don't even USE) as if it's a personal assault on your religion? Yikes. Haven't you got better things to get outraged about?
When you see the number of sites dedicated to windows, Linux and Mac themes or GUI customisation, many of them with adware and other unwanted programs attached, I think it is a good idea to have M$ providing a few wallpapers.
How many of us already have changed the colour and added our own backgrounds?
I just don't think that M$ is opening the GUI skinning enough. As far as I am concerned, the theme is always Aero. What is provided in those themepacks is nothing but the lipstick to be put on the proverbial pig.
Now as long as nothing from sponsors is forced onto me, why not. Hopefully sponsored themes will be of quality. If you like having a car as your wallpaper, you don't have to get the image from the net and infringe copyrights in the process.
In the future, we get a W7 (or 8, or...) that 's subsidized by advertising -- but you won't be able to turn off the ads. Hack the machine, and they'll boot you off Hotmail, and Messenger, and...
So much for customizing.
Happy with my Mac, my Solaris, and my Ubuntu. Windows lives in a VM solely for games and the odd Office-using dipstick who can't figure out how to send interoperable files.
You will swallow it all and like it. Strap on your helmets, lads, because Microsoft is planning to recover the lost revenue caused by each customer defection to other OSes by making more money on your back. They know they can't bring back any of those who moved to Apple, Linux, BSD so they figured out a way to maintain the same level for their revenue stream. If you think it's bad, just wait until they will start monetize all your personal information by personalizing those ads.
Not an original bone in that company's closet. This was all well understood way back in 1997. VäporOS proposed to sell UI elements to sponsors. Someone should have told Steve it was a joke and not to be taken seriously!
http://www.dalahus.com/sites/vaporos/vaporscrn.html
Hmmm.... Maybe I should start reading The Onion to get a feel for Windows 8?
Good thing we have all these commentards on hand to explain what the article didn't, i.e. how these themes are going to be stealthily implanted onto all our PCs and won't be able to be removed once installed. From reading the article I assumed that the themes would just be available to download and install, y'know, if you wanted to. That's set me straight, thanks team!
@ Strappy: "Apologies for the pendantism but I've had beer."
Pendantism? Swinging back and forth in front of a woman's cleavage? Don't worry, I do that too when I've had beer.
@ Antti Roppola: "Not an original bone in that company's closet."
I wonder why they got rid of the original bones that came with the closet? Maybe it's very old and needed restoration with some new bones. Where do you buy a closet with bones anyway, I know someone who'd like one of those.
Over desktop themes that people will install voluntarily. There's no gun to your head. Yes its corporate greed trying to find new outlets, but I looked at the themes available, installed one without corporate sponsorship and moved on. Is it much different from themes for mobile phones? Some people will pay for those themes.
Yes, another misunderstood feature, and in wade the expert commenters, all guns blazing, with the predictable comments about "switching to linux" and spelling Microsoft with a $. So if you don't want a themed desktop, don't download it. Very simple. Well yes, very simple, but also leaves nothing to moan about, so let's pretend that we've all been sold up the river and spout off in the comments. I have to say that El Reg has fallen a bit on this one too, choosing to use loaded phrases instead of simply reporting the facts. A number of other outlets have done the same, and people really want to believe the worst, hence the predictable comments.
The Register is not the Daily Mail and I expect better of it and its readers.
I use Windows Media Center to record stuff from radio 4, and now suddenly I have this new entry in the WMC "menu strips" for Sky Player "Coming Soon". WTF???? I will never subscribe to Sky, and am seriously pissed off with MS for pushing their crap at me (and there doesn't appear to be an obvious way to disable it).
You wrote :-
"Yes, another misunderstood feature, and in wade the expert commenters, all guns blazing, with the predictable comments about "switching to linux" and spelling Microsoft with a $. So if you don't want a themed desktop, don't download it."
Will anyone understand it until we see it in practice? The fact is Microsoft have got themselves into a position such that a significant proportion of us are deeply suspicious of every new project they announce. Microsoft have only themselves to blame for this serious breakdown in their public image.
The concern here is that these themes may be rammed down our thoats whether we ask for them or not. In other words the worry is that adverts may come with Windows whether you download a theme or not, as they currently do with most Websites (the latter is not MS's fault, just in case you think I'm claiming it is).
Eg : No downloaded theme? Then you get a stock theme with ads based on your browsing history."
As for spelling Microsoft with a $, that is not inappropriate in this context, which is about a spivvy money-making scheme. I don't make it a habit of it myself though.
Glad I left MS some years ago....Yeah, I admitt the poo-brown color of the default Ubuntu desktop and theme is kinda bland, but the system sure has a lot of positives going for it, among them now I can add
Not having to listen to some crazy old lady injected up with 5 gallons of Botox from Tennessee belting out some campy southern tunes...yeah, I am a deep-blue stater where the classical music stations way outnumber the country and western ones...
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