How Microsoft’s ‘Mad Men’ Are Working Overtime

I haven’t seen this much hype since…well, since the last time Redmond came out with a new version of Windows.

Anyone who’s a member of the rapidly decreasing demographic that watches commercial television has by now seen Redmond’s prime time ads pushing Windows 10. If not, don’t bother to Google for the YouTubes. The campaign is kind of a bore with ads that aren’t quite as bad as what we saw with Vista (remember, “Wow!”?). The ads are of the feelgood genre, and they attempt to get viewers to suspend belief enough to believe that every facet of life will be instantly transformed into something magically perfect with Windows 10.

Watching the ads I find myself wondering why we don’t just airdrop a few million laptops loaded with Windows OS X on places like Sudan. If we do, suddenly colleges and universities will spring up, crops will grow abundantly — even in the desert and without irrigation — and the bad guys will throw away their rocket launchers to pursue productive careers as accountants and such. Here at home, I suspect we’ll see a painless end to global warming as adoption grows.

I can’t wait to see how Microsoft’s ad agency is going to handle product placement for Windows 10, which has got to be next up on the to-do list.

Ever since Ballmer unleashed Surface, the soft-top convertible tablet, we’ve been inundated with shots on TV shows, especially on CBS for some reason, of Surface machines saving the day — complete with lingering shots of the machines booting into the highly recognizable if not much loved interface formally known as Metro. It seems that every major crime fighting group on the planet, from the CSI folks to the Criminal Minds team to the yuppies at Five O, depends dearly on Surface to get ‘er done.

There’s no doubt that the TV cops will soon be trading in their Surfaces for something that’ll let us know that it’s now Windows 10 that’s keeping us safe from terrorists, common crooks and multiple murderers. First, though, they’ll have to figure out a way for the viewer to easily distinguish the new old Windows interface of Windows 10 from the old old interface of 7 and XP, or even from some obscure Linux desktop Ubutnu’s working on. I have confidence the Madison Avenue types will figure it out, however.

Another thing the Mad guys and dolls have been working on is getting tons of free publicity through news articles placed on content hungry news sites. Well, actually, this publicity isn’t exactly free, since Redmond spends big bucks advertising on most of these sites, which is something that must cross editors’ minds when deciding to go ahead and make important news out of what should be merely a product release.

Plus, a story that simply states that “Windows 10 is great!” might not make the cut as a news story, even with the always lowering standards on what passes as news sites these days. The job for the Mad ad men, then, is to create stories that find the positive within the negative — which they’re doing with great abundance, mainly because Windows never fails to offer a surfeit of negative.

Just yesterday morning, I took a quick gander at some sites and found these highly newsworthy stories about Windows 10:

• Microsoft just fixed Windows 10’s first problems on Fortune. This article details a whole slew of fixes that Microsoft pushed, mainly to address (what else, this is Microsoft) security issues with Windows 10, .NET and the new Edge browser. Although some of the issues seem to be pretty serious (a .NET flaw that could give cracker-hackers elevated privileges) this is still positive PR for Redmond as it lets the public know they’re on top of it. They’re paying attention. No need to worry about security holes with a shiny new Windows 10 system; Redmond will fix holes before they can be discovered by the outside world.

  And now, about that bridge I have for sale…

• People can’t dump Windows 8 fast enough as Windows 10 adoption surges on BGR. This article opens with the line: “So it looks like the Windows 10 launch was a big success if early adoption numbers are to be believed.” Yessiree Bob. Ya can’t buy publicity like that.

  Can you believe it, just two weeks after release and Redmond’s latest and greatest “already accounts for over 3.5 percent of desktop operating systems”? Never mind that it’s being offered for free to desktop and laptop users who despise Windows 8X and have been looking for any reason to jump ship. If that many people want it, it must be the next great thing. You need to get this on your computer before the Joneses do.

  Thanks, BGR, for supplying us with this most important news story.

• The Worst Bugs in Windows 10 and How to Fix Them on Gizmodo. Here we truly get to see the spin masters at work pulling a positive out of a negative. I can see Don Draper pitching Redmond now: “Of course there’s some bugs in the new Windows; it just came out and operating systems are complicated — people understand that. But for most of the bugs there are already work arounds, and for the others, you’ll be letting people know they’re no big deal and will be fixed before you can say ‘blue screen of death.'”

  Actually, I doubt that Draper would use the BSOD part, but you get the point.

• How to Install Windows 10 on Your MacBook on the Wall Street Journal. A reader writes: Wowie-zowie, FOSS Force! I just spent a gazillion dollars on a new Mac laptop, only to realize that it doesn’t come with Windows but with some crappy off-brand system called OS X. What the hell am I going to do?

  Answer: Thankfully, the folks at the Journal are offering step-by-step instructions so you can improve your MacBook Air or MacBook Pro Retina by installing Windows 10.

  There’s sure to be a big rush for this. Apple isn’t going to know what hit them.

So let’s raise a glass of fine Washington State wine and toast the hard working men and women who are putting great effort into ensuring that Windows 10 is a big success. Then let’s get some work done on our Linux machines.

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Christine Hall

Christine Hall has been a journalist since 1971. In 2001, she began writing a weekly consumer computer column and started covering Linux and FOSS in 2002 after making the switch to GNU/Linux. Follow her on Twitter: @BrideOfLinux

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