Microsoft's Mojave Experiment "promotes" Vista -- Ashton Kutcher-style

You may have heard that Microsoft is "like, totally serious, guys" about patching up Vista's good name, and, well, so far they're off to a rocky start. After pushing up a few lackluster web ads, they've decided to trick users en masse to prove a point. They've termed the Punk'ing the "Mojave Experiment," which placed 120 regular computer users of all different OS persuasions in front of a Vista box, except they were told they were getting to look at the next Microsoft OS, codenamed "Mojave." Results of the test will be unveiled tomorrow in what are sure to be glowing customer reports. Scientific validity of this test aside, we're not exactly sure testimonials from a blind taste test are going to turn the tide of Vista ill-will, but now we're starting to sound like Demi Moore our parents.

[Via Techdirt]

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 8:48PM]

@Cody

Best comment yet

[UnixSystemsEngineer Posted Jul 29th 2008 12:18AM]

Unless you use emacs.

Then your software really does suck.

[Aristaeus Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:01PM]

@Mark Anderson: Actually, I purchased an HP notebook with Vista Home premium on it (had no other choice, as they would not sell it without an OS, and it was the best deal at the time, on sale). I tried using Vista for three months, and was frustrated at the slowness of response (dual core machine), the UAC, had several blue screens, and lost the OS completely after installing Zone Alarm, which did not warn me BEFORE the installation, but popped up a screen afterward, stating that it was not compatible (oops, too late...). Restored from backup, but ran the same (just as crappy).

I spent days talking to HP support about multiple problems. They refused to "downgrade" me to XP, so I asked them if I could install Ubuntu. They said that would be fine (still covered under HW warranty), so I did so, and never turned back (fast, free, secure, thousands of free programs, runs any Windows programs I need under wine).

So I do know what I am talking about, and have also used XP, Ubuntu, OpenSuse, and other OS's for many years. But thanks for the "smart" comment.

@ fred: The "news headline" about "stupid" users was meant to be humorous (look up "irony" in wakypedia). But if you want to take it personally, that must mean something...

[GoodBytes Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:45PM]

This is because HP packs the OS with badly programmed drivers, and crapware (software that you don't need, and are terrible).

Anti-virus, anti-spyware, outside OS firewall, are computer resources killer.
That is why I keep everything manual. Nothing runs on the back, and on my laptop I format and use my trusty official Vista disk, and install the software myself.

Moreover, HP puts not-vista compatible (to my level) hardware. Doesn't me it "works" that it should be used. A Geforce 6150 (for example) is unable to run Aero. The video card was NOT designed to render UI's. The video card is designed like most older Intel video card as receiving the calculated data from the CPU and output it on your screen. The only the card does something is when you try to do someone of basic 3D with little to none visual effects (which actually your CPU does the work in a game) , and when it comes to DVD's movies and videos.

Now this is JUST the video card... who knows what else hey put (ie: bad motherboard)

As for Wine. You lie. I have Ubuntu right here on my test computer with Wine,. and Wine can run properly less then 1% of my applications on PC, not counting games.
This false fact proved that everything you said is a complete lie, and probably don't even have an HP laptop to begging with.

[sokket Posted Jul 29th 2008 1:59AM]

yea, most of that sounds kinda fishy...although kudos for Open SuSE, I'm learning that now.

[llxxjinxxll Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:13PM]

honestly, vista is rock solid.

i totally agree that vista's bad image is mostly from bad press/media and *ahem* that "cool" mac dude on tv.

i've used vista for quite a bit now, and on occasion i build computers for people. and everytime i get the question "what operating system will i get with this system?"
i say "well you have a lot of options, but i suggest vista"
and usually i get something like "oh but i heard a lot of bad things about vista"
and i say "and thats what you HEARD but i've TRIED and USE vista on a daily basis, give it a try and if you don't like it i'll throw on XP or whatever else operating system you want"

and 100% of the time they come back saying "wow, i have to thank you about vista I was wrong about my assumptions Vista is great!"

i'd like to think that i'm converting people...one at a time ^^
i'm doing my part heh

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 8:54PM]

you are Vista jesus

[UnixSystemsEngineer Posted Jul 29th 2008 12:16AM]

Honestly, stability was not XP's weak point. Sure, it flakes out sometimes on my Thinkpad when I dock/undock, or put it to sleep, or mess with the wireless switch, but who knows how much of that is related to Lenovo's weird hardware or drivers. The OS itself is quite solid, and even occasional app crashes are no big deal (and much less frequent than on my work G5 with Leopard, though my home Mac Pro with Tiger is solid as a rock).

XP is just suffering from a tremendously broken UI model, a crufty core, and a complicated and non-intuitive userland layout. I'm afraid Vista just grafted on some pretty eye candy, another layer of spackle, and some enterprise-friendly management capabilities. That's not to say it's not better in many ways, but the fundamental model is just so bad that it's beyond repair -- or at least beyond the capability of today's Microsoft to repair.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:16PM]

Ok.. look, I use Vista. I like it. But.. well... mmm...

Is it just me or are there a lot of new names here singing the praises of Vista?

Maybe we Vista fans are finally speaking up or something... yet... it does feel a little... contrived. :)

[RAMz Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:17PM]

It takes 30 seconds to go and look at the system window and find out it's vista.

Why do they have to trick people into using it?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:21PM]

They wanted a reaction that wasn't tainted with preconceptions.

[Compnird Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:41PM]

What about the PAINS of upgrade? Sure, if I am going to drop some dough on a new rig, Vista would be fine but forcing people to buy new machines and just throw away their old ones is why Vista failed... Give me an OS that works as good or better on my current machine with MINIMAL modifications (like Linux or heck even OS X and XP) and you got yourself a winner.

[GoodBytes Posted Jul 28th 2008 7:51PM]

I ran smoothly (faster than XP, due to superfetch and instant search) Vista on PIII 800Mhz 512M of RAM, yes bellow the minimum system requirements.
Now it WAS a pain to move your mouse around to disable everything down to XP (just leaving Search indexer and Superfetch). But the results was promising. and yes, of course I using Vista classic theme. That computer can't handle XP theme perfectly smoothly. So it is doable.

What Windows Vista is missing is a system that form the benchmark score it receives it disables the feature that your computer can't handle, or wont' run the OS smoothly. Then have you prompted once your log-in for the first time about the disabled features, and give you the option to enable feature by feature the disabled ones. Probably companies like HP would hate so deeply for doing so at Microsoft, but that its a sacrifice worth it. Also note, that by features I don't mean Media Center and all that, I mean stupid stuff like "CardSpace" or even worst "SmartCard" that no one uses.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 9:24PM]

You can't fool me MS bwahahaha

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 10:28PM]

I can't wait for the results.

"Wow that sucked."

"Did it just Blue Screen of Death?!"

"Funny, why does it say Windows Vista on the wallpaper...hmmmm."

[Nihility Posted Jul 29th 2008 7:50AM]

You never actually saw vista, did you?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 9:11PM]

Vista Rules on a decent machine with 4GB ram or so, people just install it sub-par machines and think it'll change their world, My HP DV9000 ran sweet on Vista Ultimate, not a hitch!!!!! But I still like my MacBook Pro a bit better, but I use both all the time and love em both, just for different tasks is all. And the HP had al the bells and whistles built in, Webcam, BT, Wi Fi SD slots, etc. etc. etc. no complaints at all!!!


Faslane

[IanKen Posted Jul 28th 2008 10:38PM]

Love to see all the h8ers. This news broke elsewhere last week, as well as the results.

Result: haters who thought they were playing with "Mojave" were shocked ot learn that it was Vista.

Conclusion: Most haters have never actually USED Vista and are just the usual blog following sheeple who want to be part of the trendy bash msft crowd so they can look coll with their buddies.

[IanKen Posted Jul 28th 2008 10:44PM]

Oh. And I run Vista on all my machines. Vista x64 on a quad core, quad SLI box is rock solid. No BSODs. No hangs. It just works and works very well and on a home built rig, not some turn key OEM POS.

It does NOT take "10 minutes" to boot as the ignorant 'tards claim. Actually, thanks to decent power management support it hasn't rebooted in a while. A few weeks or so since the last time I had to actually POST due to some hardware tweaks.

Vista has been great for me. But then I never cared much for being part of the trendy crowd. They always seemed to be a bit douche-baggy,

[UnixSystemsEngineer Posted Jul 29th 2008 10:47AM]

Uhoh, you accidentally became a part of the "I build my own boxes, not buy OEM crap" trendy crowd.

Also, part of the "I hate trendy people" trendy crowd, which is actually larger than the crowd of supposedly trendy people you purport to mock.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 28th 2008 11:24PM]

If these testers don't know what Vista looks like and pick it anyway, that's a pretty epic phail on Microsoft's part and I don't see how it's proving anything.

[Evan R Posted Jul 29th 2008 12:34AM]

So what happens when someone realizes whats going on and yells "This is f***ing Vista! RUN!!!"

"OMG, this is Vista!?" asks another and pukes on ground. many others also start vomiting.

then the cloverfield monster appears.

[UnixSystemsEngineer Posted Jul 29th 2008 12:59AM]

Website: Apache on Linux.

[sokket Posted Jul 29th 2008 2:03AM]

Basically...it comes to this:

All modern Operating Systems are stable, or people wouldn't use them.
All modern Operating Systems have software, or people wouldn't use them.
Some OS's are better at one thing than other, and vice versa.
Fan boys get angry when people say the other is better.
Pick a damn OS and you'll most probably be fine with whatever you pick...unless you pick OSX for huge Driver Support or Windows for no virus....then you're just an idiot.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 3:26AM]

This all seems pretty pointless. Those people interested in upgrading to Vista would have done so already, and those who haven't are unlikely to be swayed by marketing from Microsoft. There's nothing compelling in Vista to prompt a paid upgrade so you might as well wait until you buy a new computer and get the OS then.

As I've said numerous times before, the time to do stuff like this was about a year to 18-months ago when the OS was launched and people were interested/excited about it. It's too late now.

[tsurugi Posted Jul 29th 2008 3:56AM]

Results of a test with over 120 people dumb enough not to realize that they were testing Vista doesn't really make much of a difference for me. But I guess those kinds of people are the target audience for this thing :) Not much can be done to convince the people who actually tried the OS.

[Chickenatr Posted Jul 29th 2008 3:57AM]

*yawn*

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 4:36AM]

I think people are forgetting the demographic these ads will be targeting. It's not saavy computer users or mac users.

It's the average computer user (who probably get their info on Vista from people here) and considering that, if this marketing campaign is wide-spread, I think it will work.

The site is live now, btw.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 5:21AM]

...so is it safe to assume you can play Doom on it?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 6:58AM]

microsoft should have given all 120 ten minutes in front of mojave/vista and mac os x.

then they could decide which was better.

the reason vista has such a bad rep is because so many people are unhappy with it. so they found 120 people who in ten minutes saw some shiny features. big deal.

[Patrick 2 Posted Jul 29th 2008 7:52AM]

I'd just like to say "Hi" to all of the microsoft employees in house today. How is the weather in Redmond?

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 9:01AM]

I've had no problems with Vista.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 10:09AM]

i really want to see this "demo ".
By the way, people here hate vista for many reasons. I love it, when i go back to my laptop that has XP i feel like im stepping down to an older laptop. I have themes and icons and stuff, but is just not the same...

Vista works for me and i never had any problems with drivers, if you have problems with drivers then jump to Ubuntu and shut the fuck up about it.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 29th 2008 11:50AM]

I have a solution for Microsoft, for starters give me a chunk of that 300 million advertising dollars, and second: just rename Windows Vista Ultimate SP1 to Windows Mojave and only sell it for system that meet the Mojave spec (unlike Vista capable).

Vista has gotten better with SP1, most problems that people had with Vista when it came out had to due with the fact that they bought it.

Maybe they can label which one is the linux user (does he/she run gOS?), go example how word of mouth had effects on Vista (so if you're just going on someone else's opinion then you owe it to yourself to actually try it and generate your own conclusion chances are with a new computer, 2GB of ram, and a guided tour: you might like Vista.

I always dislike the comments about Hating a product, is it wrong for people to disagree? is it OK for Vista fanboys to preach how wonderful something is in their honest opinion.

Then if so I should express my feelings on Ubuntu, it's not for everybody, but it works pretty damn good, and you should have to have an inkling of how a computer works to use it.

The Mojave Experiment, is an appeal to majority that only shows you a commercial in line with the BK whopper "freak out", the 55 clips of people being "blown away" by features that most of us engadgeteers already know exist. Perhaps if Microsoft wasn't afraid to expose themselves more they show show us the features that excited people the most, and had full confessionals (at the risk of boring us), I might be a little more impressed with their advertising efforts which, though are not entirely 'canned', are edited for the creme of the crop.

[Dimplemonkey Posted Jul 29th 2008 12:56PM]

Isn't this the same company that claimed to show Europe a Windows Lite OS several years ago and it ended up being a well constructed Powerpoint presentation that crashed midway?

[P0k3rch1p Posted Jul 29th 2008 2:51PM]

I liked Vista....until I reinstalled XP on my XPS M1730 and realized I gained back 30% of my RAM and an extra hour on my battery.

And if I want a "prettier" GUI, I'll install WindowBlinds...or Ubuntu.

[wolfus Posted Jul 29th 2008 7:55PM]

ok, so i don't own vista, and really don't have any plans to, but after watching this video, i see what the deal is. as someone who works in the tech field, with co-workers who aren't very tech-savvy, is that clearly just 10 minutes with some people would go very far in the general comfort and skill of computer users. i can't tell you how many people, PROFESSIONAL PEOPLE, who have no idea how their computer works. file structures, networks, you name it, they just know to click the things they were told to click, and if what is supposed to happen doesn't, they're lost. if you call something a name other than what they call it, they're lost. so, i'm not surprised that 10 minutes can get someone excited about something, i'm just surprised that it takes slow sales of an OS to get microsoft interested in properly explaining how to use it.

[(Unverified) Posted Jul 30th 2008 4:17PM]

"Have you driven a Ford lately?"
"We've secretly switched their coffee with Folgers Instant"
"Take the Pepsi Challenge"

This is the oldest trick in the book. Good luck, Vista!

[eatbuckshot Posted Jul 30th 2008 9:29PM]

http://www.imagebam.com/image/9786675364575

[jackchance Posted Aug 5th 2008 8:45PM]

I'm not going to bash Vista since i have never used it.
But one of the big problems that people had was unsupported hardware. Obviously you won't experience that on a demo laptop handed to you by MS (ya, i know about the past famous MS demo fails).

Point is: having a good experience on a demo machine does not equal having a good experience upgrading from a working XP system to a not so working Vista system.

[(Unverified) Posted Aug 10th 2008 2:19PM]

Hey guys.... it seems Microsoft is really looking to spread the message. I found this job posting online for positions across the US. Check it out below:

Could you be a Microsoft Windows Guru?

Would you like an interesting & challenging job?
If your well-versed with Microsoft technologies & enjoy working with people, we have retail-based job opportunities that might interest you!


We are hiring Microsoft Windows Gurus in the following states:
CA, DC, FL, IL, MA, MD, MN, MO, NH, NJ, NV, NY, VA, WA

Please apply at www.msretaillive.com

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 13th 2009 11:18AM]

ok, people are just angry becuz they want vista but have to upgrade their hardware from xp to do it. they are too cheap to buy products labeled "vista compatible" and opt for the cheap stuff, and when they run into a driver issue all of a sudden vista is a piece of crap. vista is "FRIGGIN' AWSOME!!" I built the five comp's in my home and all run vista ultimate...the gui is better, the navigation is better, the tools are better, and it boots fast....i run 2 quads and 3 duals (min 3gb ram) no issues except with ATI tuners (becuz microsoft wouldn't pay the bajillion dollars ATI wanted to put their tuners in comp's running Media Center, instead they went with nvidia) and older D-Link wireless adapters. another thing: if you dont like the UAC (user account control) you can turn it off in the user account section of the control panel (but if you didn't know that and were pissed becuz of it, you probably should stay away from vista becuz its too complicated for you)

peace!

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 22nd 2008 1:42AM]

Not like it is going to do any good i been fighting the vista program since i bought my new laptop i didnt get a choce on what OS i could get i was stuck from get go the incompatability
with softwear i have already is BS i dont like the delays in the loading and i hate that vista
seems to ask me 3 or 4 time if I am sure . once is enuff on most vital programs and well the less important file i want to move delete or change is my decidtion i hate that i have to tell vista which Os system i want to run a program in .. why why why.. they should have just made vista compatible with older stuff just like XP did i always knew the new OS system would have bugs.. but come on .. i have to do 3 times the work to enjoy the same stuff i have always had .. is there anything i like about vista.. well..... still thinking..... i can't think of any bottom line this OS went on the market way before it was done! i still have game i cannot run on my new pc because vista is not compatible .. i been told i have to buy new game and soft wear for those certain problems..

[(Unverified) Posted Sep 22nd 2008 2:04AM]

i shouldn't have to go out and buy new softwear for a new OS the OS should be upgraded to accept older stuff without having to do 7 -10 minutes of digging around to find out to make it run and then to find out that all that time wasted and it still won't work.

from 95 they all have been able to reconize previous run software

just a way to squeeze us for more money ..