I know that this is a Linux blog, and thats what readers have come to expect. But sometimes one encounters stuff that is just too good to pass. So that other day my dad bought a new HP Pavilion desktop, and since I am the geek in residence I ended up setting it up for him. So while I was waiting for Microsoft’s endless configuration and setup screens I decided to dig into the fluffy paraphernalia and promotional material bundled with the Desktop. The first thing that fell into my hand was this Microsoft Vista promotional booklet that had an image of the ideal happy family computing on a laptop. What stood out was that the laptop looked awfully similar to the Macbook Pro! In fact I am 90% sure that its a Mac!

The original Pic is below. I swear I think they snatch generic photos off the internet.




  1. BigBoyBC says:

    It’s kinda funny, I’m sitting here on a MacBook Pro using Windows. But still, WHOOPS!!

  2. withani says:

    3 thousand euros monthly for 25 years? what is the second ad for?

  3. brendal says:

    Sure sign of END TIMES!!

  4. zorkor says:

    So what? Did this enabled the hell hounds of Windows users a glimpse in to the apple paradise? Who cares if there is a frigging apple laptop there. Many Chinese manufacturers make apple look alike cheap laptops which run on Windows. So maybe its one of them in the pic. But then again who cares other than Linux losers and sour apple heads.

  5. Ah-Yea says:

    Boot Camp?

  6. BigBoyBC says:

    Nope, Parallels

  7. @whitani #2: As I understand, you get 3333 Euro monthly for 25 years. If you win the lottery from the lottery company on whose site this image appears. Once you have that money, than you can afford MacBook Pro and Vista to run on it.

  8. jccalhoun says:

    This is something like the thousandth time that Apple computers have appeared in Windows ads. Here’s one from 2003 http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2003/07/09/microsoft-woman-uses-mac-os-rather-than-xp
    I remember an even earlier one where they got caught and then just hastily photoshopped a Thinkpad over it.

  9. Buzz says:

    … or, just jump to the other side of your machine and fire up iPhoto, then try things that make intuitive sense. You’ll be organizing and distributing your photos in no time.

  10. chuck says:

    Bill Gates owns Corbis, which provide royalty-free stock photos. It should not be surprising that many advertising companies use stock photos and probably re-use the same stock photos without realizing it.

    In this instance someone could have checked to make sure the happy family were using a Windows-based PC rather than a Mac.

    Or maybe they were secretly suggesting that you could use Parallels and run Vista on a Mac.

    I don’t think Microsoft cares whether people buy PCs or Macs – as long as they all run Windows.

  11. Angel H. Wong says:

    Vista is an OS and macs are (now) just sexily PCs with a tweaked BIOS.

  12. Gasbag says:

    Oh Angel how can you say that! You know you will be hunted down by the Mac Fanboys and killed for just thinking that.

  13. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz says:

    I have seen ads where some body take time. Using PC Laptop with Mac OS screen print pasted on it.

  14. hhopper says:

    With the right setup and Vista Basic, things run just as well as on XP.

  15. Travis J says:

    Windows runs on Mac computers and that is all they’re marketing.

  16. Ron Larson says:

    There is a terrible TV that I’ve seen recently for some service who claims that they can make your computer run faster, or browse the internet faster, or some BS. But what is funny is that they show a guy using an iMac with Windows photoshopped on the screen.

  17. jccalhoun says:

    finallyfast.com

  18. pjakobs says:

    you know that ads are created by agencies, which still (and again) are Mac infested.
    This is probably a stock photo that was badly researched. So what? How many people can tell a Mac from another PC or a toaster for that matter?
    If they knew, would anyone buy a Mac?

    pj

  19. Somebody_Else says:

    Last I checked lots of companies used stock photos for advertising. But I guess we’re talking about Microsoft so we have to shit all over them every chance we can get.

    “So while I was waiting for Microsoft’s endless configuration and setup screens…”

    Have you ever set up a Vista box from scratch? You boot from the CD, select which version to install, and format the OS drive. Once it’s installed there’s a screen to set up a user account, a screen to turn on Windows Update, and screen to make sure the time is correct. That’s it, the whole thing takes about 15 minutes on a new machine.

    I don’t see how that’s any more difficult than the popular Linux distros or OSX. If anything it’s easier.

  20. Mr. Fusion says:

    What I was going to say has already been said. So it must be Cow-Paddy’s fault, whatever the issue is.

  21. Zybch says:

    #24, Seems that way. I wonder if hes to blame for the new sunspots, probably.

  22. Mr. Fusion says:

    #25 Zy,

    That plus the fresh round of hemorrhoids I’m going through.

  23. m.c. in l.v. says:

    As a graphic designer I’ve had this come up many times and when the clients are made aware to the situation I’m usually told, “Just go with it, no one will tell the difference” or the old standby, “Can’t you just photoshop it to be a PC (or Mac). Usually followed by, “Make the logo bigger!”

    Meh.


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