Windows 7 branding leaks out

You didn't think Microsoft was going to ship Windows 7 with that same tired Vista-esque branding it's been using on the betas and RCs, did you? No way, man -- and if those crazy-cool wallpapers didn't prove it to you, the eager monkeys at MS China have thoughtfully posted up the new branding for your perusal right now. We rather like it -- it conveys a welcoming sense of lightness that contrasts well with the battleship-heavy aesthetic of Vista, and that's pretty much exactly how Microsoft needs to position 7. A few more shots of the branding being used at the Chinese PCBETA event at the read link.

[Thanks, Nicola]

Read - Microsoft China Windows 7 site
Read - Branding at PCBETA

[Raziel66 Posted May 22nd 2009 3:49PM]

The 7 looks kinda like a large mouse cursor, upside down, and half faded. Kinda cool.

[MoBeReal Posted May 23rd 2009 4:01AM]

The "7" logo is the top right corner of the Windows logo... pretty awesome.

[ethana2 Posted May 22nd 2009 3:54PM]

Thank you, that makes a lot more sense now.

[Ghen Posted May 22nd 2009 3:55PM]

You're absolutely right, the angle is a perfect match!

[Feb30th Posted May 22nd 2009 4:33PM]

Great eye!!! That makes this logo even cooler lol.

[liamdevlin Posted May 22nd 2009 3:54PM]

Prince's song Seven should be the default Windows start up tune.

[ash chapman Posted May 22nd 2009 4:18PM]

"One day all 7 will die
All 7 and we'll watch them fall
They stand in the way of love
And we will smoke them all"

...or maybe not. Could you imagine the parallels people would make. "Microsoft is standing in the way of love! OSX!"

[Jamma Posted May 22nd 2009 5:09PM]

Compared to vista i think D;Ream's "Things can only get better" would be more suitable


i kid i kid, vista wasn't that bad imho, but 7 RC1 is soo much better

[(Unverified) Posted May 22nd 2009 6:04PM]

we all hate leeds scum
we all hate leeds scum
we all hate leeds scum
we all hate leeds scum

[(Unverified) Posted May 22nd 2009 4:08PM]

I really am looking forward to the official release of Win 7. I never thought I'd say those words about any MS product, but there they are. I think they might have finally figured out how to make an OS!!

[Snake Robot Podium Posted May 22nd 2009 4:09PM]

Can anyone point me to an example of Vista's battleship branding? They took the circle off of the Windows logo, but I can't see much difference.

[jeremyjwebstudioscom Posted May 22nd 2009 6:12PM]

Seriously. That just felt like an unnecessary bash on the Vista branding.

[abrli Posted May 22nd 2009 4:10PM]

funny... on Microsoft's China website, it wrongly translates "RC" as "Trial Version" in Chinese... But I think that was deliberate...

Anyhow it's not gonna sell many genuine copies there so no one cares...

[jakem Posted May 22nd 2009 4:37PM]

The RC says it's an evaluation version on the desktop so it's not that much of a stretch to trial version.

[abrli Posted May 22nd 2009 4:51PM]

RC is release candidate, it's BETA. Features advertised there may be changed or removed altogether.

The definition of a Trial version is something of a SUBSET of an releasED version, with limited functionalities and/or limited time. That means you can buy the full version at the time the Trial is downloaded.

Release Candidate is really more of a thing to developers and IT professionals to see how Windows 7 WILL roughly speaking look like, NOT how it IS like.

These are all very basic terms in software industry. The most straightforward example is that when you offer a Trial version of something and accident happens, you need to take liability for that damage(say burnt your hard drive), but that liability is waived if you were downloading a BETA/RC version. So these two things assume very different legal rights as well.

[neufsky Posted May 22nd 2009 6:25PM]

What is funny about that? After you install the RC, even with the English version, you get "evaluation copy" clearly stated on your desktop. There is nothing wrong with Chinese term used. (Shi Yong Ban = evaluation copy).

[neufsky Posted May 22nd 2009 6:35PM]

@b, "Trial version" is a term you put in Microsoft's mouth.

The Chinese phrase they used on the website should be translated as "Evaluation Copy" not "Trial version", the difference is subtle, I think you got confused between these two.

[pika2000 Posted May 22nd 2009 4:15PM]

Nice, but is this really the official brand, or is it just for China/Asia?

[(Unverified) Posted May 22nd 2009 4:37PM]

Engadget Fail: You guys should have given credit to the original story writers:

Redmond Pie:
http://www.redmondpie.com/more-evidence-confirms-windows-7-box-art-is-for-real/

istartedsomething:
http://www.istartedsomething.com/20090520/microsoft-china-look-here-the-windows-7-logo/

[Mikeo Posted May 23rd 2009 12:51AM]

Engadget almost always takes from iStartedsomething WITHOUT backquoting to them. Awesome job, not.

[Gazoobee Posted May 22nd 2009 4:35PM]

Man, you guys are all idiots.

First off this isn't the real branding. Secondly, it's lame and anyone that ever did any serious design can tell you that lens flare effects are for Hillbillies. A serious designer would never use a cheesy lens flare in a major product branding. Third, the whole piece looks like a serious rip-off of the Apple web site from the colours to the bar at the top and the squaricals.

Lastly, Leopard is faster and more stable than Windows 7 in all tests so far and Snow Leopard (the OS this will actually be competing against), is rumoured to be about twice as fast as that.

Dream on windows Dudes. :-)

Have another beer and pretend like Windows will "finally get it right" or "finally get cool" or "finally be easy to use" (or any of the above.)

[MarcusMaximus Posted May 22nd 2009 4:44PM]

Care to cite any of that? Especially the part about snow leopard being "twice as fast", I'd really like to know the metric used that showed that. At any rate, I like the comparison of Windows 7 RC1 with an operating system that's actually been out for a while and one that so far has only rumors going for it.

[(Unverified) Posted May 22nd 2009 5:11PM]

I love how you think that navigation bars, colors, and rounded rectangles were all invented by Apple.

Maybe they invented the letters and numbers you see on their webpages, too?

[Mr 14 Posted May 22nd 2009 5:21PM]

He's right! The TV told me that Macs are for unique and creative people, so clearly this guy (being a Mac user of course) knows a thing or two about professional design.

[Ruben Posted May 22nd 2009 6:43PM]

Nothing you say will prevent Windows 7 from surpassing OSX's lifetime sales in a few months.

Win 7 is making OSX look alot more unnecessary and irrelevant.

[(Unverified) Posted May 23rd 2009 2:00AM]

You are right that Lens Flares are usually looked down upon, however, in this instance I think it works just fine. If you take a second look at the "7" you will realize that it's cleary the top right corner of their 4 panel "window" logo. Secondly you will notice that the 7 is metallic looking, thus it's reflective.

Now imagine a shiny piece of metal that is reflecting the sun, what do you get? A lens flare.

The 7 is brilliant, they took an existing element and transitioned it into another part of the design (which is good branding). It's a subtle effect and you don't notice it right away, but when you do it's like "ah ha" that's cool.

[acniehaus03 Posted May 22nd 2009 5:22PM]

who the hell cares if mac os x leopard can run on a 12 yr old mac laptop? This is a fricken windows 7 ad article. But just to be a hypocrite to my previous statement i'll add to this since everyone else has commented on the whole mac os x compatibility question, its pretty easy for apple to develop an OS that can only run on computers that they have sold in the past, unlike microsoft that has to deal with literally 100's of manufacturers using 1000's of different hardware combinations. I put OS x leopard on an ibook g4 with a 1ghz ppc processor and it ran like absolute crap. It locked up constantly (even after upgrading the RAM to 1.25gb over the original 256mb), scrolling through the dock would be very choppy, couldn't stream online videos, was horrible to use with excel and word and would never be able to catch up with me typing anything, and caused me to have to change the colors to 1000's everytime i had to reboot so that it would work a little better. I then downgraded back to os x tiger and it runs 100x's smoother, so i'd like to see how your laptop runs with leopard. Also, leopard will not install on a mac laptop with anything lower than a g4 processor, so all of those with g3 and older processors are out of luck and will have to use tiger from here on out.

[(Unverified) Posted May 22nd 2009 7:27PM]

Dont worry, I have a ibook here aside of me. OSX is incredibly slow on it. Its simply unuseable. I buyed in for 50$ thinking it will be cool for the kids... no, its not cool at all. Cant play a divx on that thing.

[insky Posted May 22nd 2009 8:46PM]

Needs more lens flare.

[Decoy Posted May 23rd 2009 6:46PM]

See the new Star Trek.

[tophat Posted May 22nd 2009 9:51PM]

I'm a dedicated mac fanboy, but have installed 7 through boot camp after my install of XP locked up. I've never tried vista, but 7 has been a huge leap forward from XP. I am of cause going to continue to use OSX, but there are some very clever features in windows 7, and it doesn't look half bad either.

[mcaron1234 Posted May 22nd 2009 11:22PM]

This comment is entirely too rational for this blog.

[Federaly Posted May 22nd 2009 10:01PM]

I am loving this WIndows 7 RC I installed on a dinosaur of a Lenovo think pad ex-government laptop with only 1.73CPU and 1.5GB-RAM with no graphics card and everything works flawlessly.

It's can even use the aero-peek and glass effect without a single iota of lag or jittery. I was qutie surprised. My mate installed it on his ASUS netbook and he's so happy now that he has something usable on it =]

[(Unverified) Posted May 23rd 2009 2:30AM]

Windows 7 looks spectacular so far. Hopefully, it will give PC users something to shut up those mac fanboys for good. Sorry, but my three year old laptop using Vista Business/Win 7 runs smoother and is more productive than Cupertino's latest 'computers'. At least Microsoft doesn't dictate to us what we can and can't install on devices WE purchased...

[(Unverified) Posted May 27th 2009 2:01AM]

I really am looking forward to the official release of Win 7.