February 7, 2009, 12:28 pm
I am really down on Microsoft. I have three Xbox 360 and all of them have some problems. One developed a weird grahic problem in several games after Microsoft repair it twice for the three red lights of death, I am tired of them, try to fix it myself and failed. I got an used three red lights of dead ringed Xbox for cheap and try to repair, did so successfully using the X Clamp Fix, but now the thing just crashes constantly in almost every game. My out of warranty elite crashes if I don't use it for a few days, after it gets warm it stops crashing. After opening these things my impression of Microsoft has gone way down. Just by looking at the insides it is clear these things are shoddily made. The engineer who design the Xbox 360 should just go back to school. The things look like they are put together by a five year old. They all have a ventilation problem, despite being mostly nothing inside. really crummy. To top that I gave away my Zune after getting tired of not being able to hear my subscription music if I didn't reconnect the Zune to the computer every two weeks or so. Besides the Zune works only with Windows, while the iPods and my new iRiver SPINN works on any system. iTunes is still the best platform for podcasts which sucks when you want to use Linux. The only light on these Microsoft darkness is my Vista Tablet. It is an old machine and it had to be called upon service when my daughter mac started to crap up. I gave her my old MBP, which immediately develop a screen problem (a blue tinge in the screen), it is now in the shop (under AppleCare), my daughter is grudgingly using the Asus eeePC. The Vista Tablet as a TV computer works just great. It is amazingly good despite the obvious limitations. I will, at some point, buy a Windows 7 machine to do that job, probably a Dell Studio Hybrid.
That turn of events made me think, how is Microsoft going to market Windows 7? After the Vista perception debacle, people will stay with XP. Unless, Microsoft uses my brilliant idea. About a month after Windows 7 comes out, make an install fest day. In every Fry, Best Buy, Comp USA, set up stations where geeks will install Windows 7 Home Premium in any machine that support it, for a cheap price, say 40$. People should also be able to print a screen from their desktop PCs that proves that their machine support Windows 7 and get to take a CD (OEM type, no box, no manual) and a sheet with installation instructions for both XP and Vista. My point is that the only way that Windows 7 won't suffer the same fate as Vista is if people actually try it out for a while. Most of Vista criticism comes from three camps: XP users that do not want to learn new things, people that use Vista for a little while only, and people who never use Vista, just heard how bad it was and repeated it like geeky parrots. So, the solution is to give drove of people an easy great way to try Windows 7. The Windows 7 Install Fest Day. That's the ticket.