Microsoft has kicked off a $300 million marketing campaign, aimed at improving the image of Windows Vista and striking back at Apple's "Mac vs PC" ads.
The first commercial of Microsoft's new marketing push, being created by advertising agency Crispin Porter + Bogusky, aired on US television last night, featuring comedian Jerry Seinfeld and company co-founder Bill Gates at a shoe store.

You can watch a video of the advert here.

Despite selling more than 180 million licenses since its launch in 2007, Windows Vista continues to suffer from the perception that the operating system is clunky and hard to use compared with Mac OS X.

That image has been stoked by Apple's "Mac vs PC" ads featuring a geeky and unfashionable PC guy unable to keep up with a better-looking, hip Mac counterpart.

more.. link to news article

Side note. My Mom purchased her new Vista early this year and when we last talked on Friday, she was once again taking here new PC into the techs (4rth time) She's griping that all new data cannot be saved, just old stuff saved from her beloved WPXP, which she now regrets giving me.
When chatting with my PC dude locally he stated the Vista is basically a good product but most buyers choose the more economical hardware and that's why they're having problems. Of course, to keep the family peace, I'd never mention this to my Mom!

Our new top of the range HP laptop came with Vista installed. Within a week we exchanged the Vista license for Windows XP because of various incompatibilities. It wouldn't work with our high-end printers and many of our peripherals, not even our Sony headphones! It was a joke.

I'm a die-hard PC head , builder, lover of computer technology. But when XP is made redundant, I will either commit to linux or buy a mac (or both)

One of my desktops crashed & I have my eyeballs on a Dell small business desktop for about $269...and for $99 you can have Windows XP installed instead of Vista....

DOH....I'll write the check for the $99 FIRST...LOL

sylvia

Last fall, my laptop lovingly become 'one' with the floor in my front room (hubbie did it ... not I). Needless to say, hard drive 'dead' and I decided to shop (Black Friday was good 2/for me).

So - my oldest teen also wanted a LT for school - I got 2 (Sylvia - they are Dells). I also bought 2 desktops with XP so that I have backups for when my current environment dies/is obsolete.

Back then, you could select the OS (free), so one came with Vista and the other with XP.

I've been testing the 2 side by side for a while - and definitely prefer XP. Keep in mind, my laptop is NOT for production, does not have mail nor does it need to function/integrate with anything in my world. My production machine(s) are desktops.

So - my experience is not the typical user - which often is compatibility - it's about functionality. I hope they figure out what they did wrong BEFORE they launch the next OS...

Don't get me started on Vista. I bought a brand new computer with Vista on it. I had to exchange my computer twice because of it constantly crashing.

Vista is starting to be stable, but every once in a while, it starts to crash again and have to apply upgrades.

We still keep our old computer running with XP.

I thought my Mom was crazy when she GAVE me her "old" XP unit and I had it upgraded to use for my own business needs. She HATES the latest vista PC she paid a lot of $$ for.
Like the above poster (JIS) she's had the new PC in the shop for repairs and upgrades numerous times since the beginning to THIS year Appears all of her old info on XP cannot be transfered to the new vista. I feel bad for her problems but advised her (well before she purchased it) to NOT buy the new vista until the bugs were worked out. Once again, she did not heed my suggestion

I'm hopeful MS will fix the bugs with the latest viats programs and make it's buyers at bit more at ease, especially my Mom!!!