Your Chance to Meet Bill Gates

tcak writes "From the CNET article: "You could meet the chairman of Microsoft, but you'll have to profess a passion for Windows first. Microsoft is looking for true stories about people using Windows computers to pursue a passion or hobby. The company plans to use them in a marketing blitz tied to the 20th anniversary of Windows' debut. ""

Passion

[Anonymous Coward]

A lot of people seem to be passionate about Macs, Linux and some Unix variants. But I've never known anyone who is really passionate about windows, some people prefer it to other operating systems but nobody really seems to love it. I could understand apple doing this, but I think Microsoft might have difficulty finding people who really love windows.

If a story could ever be marked as Flamebait...

[Enoch Root]

...this would be it.

Seriously, what is the point of posting this to Slashdot? No, REALLY? Is this some kind of group anger management therapy?

Re:Wonderful

[DoraLives]

How many of us will pretend to love windows just to get a chance to relive some fond memories?

How many of us want to see OUR names splashed around the world by the marketeers as somebody delirously in love with windows?

Re:Wonderful

[soloport]

but you'll have to profess a passion for Windows

Isn't hatred one of the seven passions [commspeed.net]?

Passion FOR Microsoft's products?!

[Anita Coney]

The thing that really bugs me about Microsoft's products is how they'll fuck over paying customers.

Here's an old by great example. Back when Win95 was released you could not natively use long file names with 16-bit apps. However, there was a product called "Name-It!" which did allow that function. In other words it was possible, but Microsoft chose NOT to implement it. Why? Because long file names was a great feature and it would give incentive to users to upgrade to new 32-bit programs.

Another great example is Messenger, the chat program not the service. Microsoft has made it nearly impossible to get rid of. Even if you edit your sysoc.inf file and uninstall Messenger, it'll suddenly come back. Even if you delete the subfolder under Program Files, it'll mysteriously come back. Obviously Microsoft considers its chat war against AOL more important than ease of use for users.

And of course there's product activation. We were told it was to stop piracy, but that was bull-shit. You can easy obtain pirated copies of XP. Let's face it, if it product activation really worked, then why is Microsoft implementing its anti-piracy feature for people downloading software? And even more importantly, if piracy has been decreased, then why is XP Microsoft's most expensive OS? Why aren't they passing the savings back to use? Once again, the real purpose of product activation is to screw over the paying customer who wants to install XP on both of his systems.

And lets not forget out Microsoft's Office products are constantly screwing with file formats to make the later versions incompatible with earlier versions. Once again, this is NOT done to make it easier for paying customers. It's merely leverage to get those customer paying again and again.

It'd be really hard to be passionate FOR Microsoft's products. It's hard to be passionate for anything that nickel and dimes you at every turn. That treats you like a criminal. And sees you merely as a cash cow to be milked at every chance.

Re:Passion

[jellomizer]

Unix/Linux Zealots push technical superiority.

Mac Xealots push design superiority.

Windows Zelots push the fact that they put in a lot of time and effort into it, and they just can't turn back now.

Sounds similar to GWB's town hall events

[Aqua OS X]

Sounds similar to GWB's town hall events.
You have a shot at talking to the president, but first you have to pledge support. :/

Re:Passion

[bheer]

Not to be trollish, but -- IMHO -- Macs and Linux are loved because they're used mostly by committed users who have made an active choice to use what they do.

But I've never known anyone who is really passionate about windows, some people prefer it to other operating systems but nobody really seems to love it.

You make a very interesting point: most non-corporate buyers today will not be able to tell you why they chose Windows, beyond a "It's what I'm familiar with" or "Everyone else uses it" or "My bottle-carving program runs on it". Windows is an externally enforced choice for most people. So far so good, and by now the slashbots would be frothing about how great it'd be if only the evil M$ was broken up so that people could finally Choose(tm).

Problem: if MS were to go away, something else would take its place, say Linux. When that happens, when Linux is mandated across broad swathes of business, you can be quite sure that the crowd of lusers that you now have would bring the inevitable kvetching about how The Computer Ate My Work(tm). No amount of telling them '..but Linux is stable!' will help: they'd sooner believe that the computer is a piece of shit than admit a mistake.

And oh: this is already happening today: We have a CRM app that runs crossplatform on Moz and IE, and quite a few of our customers (call centers who want their IT as lean-and-mean as possible) have standardized on Linux/OO.o because their users don't need much more. I've been to a few of these places, and FWIW the IT staff at at these places are happy as clams but user satisfaction has not gone up (it has actually dipped in a couple of places but I'm willing to pin that on poor retraining). Of course, none of this means anything except anecdotally but your post made me wonder how passionate a user in these companies would be about Linux.

Passion, Yes--But Not What They Have In Mind

[Horrortaxi]

Yeah, I'm passionate about Windows. After using it for 10 years I came to so passionately hate it that I stopped using it. And then I watched as all my friends and family got passionate about Windows and buy Macs.
The Your Potential. Our Passion campaign has always bothered me (again, passionately) because Microsoft doesn't make any products that have anything to do with any of the things shown in their ads. They can't make you an astronaut, fashion designer, or bass player. Clearly they're just selling an image--but it's Apple's image that they're selling and they're not even doing a good job at it.
If they really want to find people who love Windows they should just look for cars with Windows stickers on them. I see Apple and Tux stickers all over the place and with a million percent more market share there should be a million times more people so passionate about their OS that they celebrate it with a sticker on their car. No, I've never seen one either, but you figure they've got to exist somewhere.

Re:Passion

[jellomizer]

You havent really looked at Apples a lot lately. Espcetilly compared to the other OS's out OSX is fairly plain interface. (Maybe flasy compared to FVWM) Yea there are some transperencies and some shadowing but it is about the same as the other modern GUI. But without all the IN_YOUR_FACE graphics that Windows and other WMs provide. The Design superioity is more to the way that things are handled on the mac. Where you can get most things done with simple steps, like typing in what you want to see into spotlight and rather quickly get the list of matches. Or being able drag your files into nested folders with spring loaded folders, and many other features that just making the computer productive.

Also with Linux/Unix technical superitory I don't mean to say that Linux and Unix have the cleanest and fastest code on earth but are built for technical user with choices of tools that are optimesed for their jobs. And after a bit of training they can do very powerful things quickly.

While Windows fanboys just try to be smug and go We have 90% market share so Neaa!! And are afrid that they made a bad choice so they will be defensive about their investment.

Re:Passion

[bmajik]

That's entirely false for me.

I like windows because i have _no_ time invested in it, and i dont need to invest time in it.

When i come home from work, the last thing i want to do is spend more time screwing with cantankerous computers. I wave the mouse, the screen lights up, and i am doing whatever i want to be doing with the computer. The web browser renders every page correctly. The email program is perfectly fast even though i have thousands of messages. My terminal emulator running a text-mode irc client hasn't spun out of control consuming all my ram. Visual Studio has been minimized for days and i breifly restore it to see what i was last "working on" at home in my hobbyist coding hours.

This is windows xp for me. I spent about 2 hours assembling this machine from parts that newegg sent me and about another 2 hours getting xp, office 2003, and a few other apps installed on it. I haven't had to do a single thing to it sense.

I'd say my time investment is pretty low. That's precisely how i like it.

I've spent much more time trying to get an Aironet 352 working smoothly on OS X. I've spent a bunch more time trying to help my wife troubleshoot her ibook G4's sleep-of-death problem. (her powerbook G3 had it also, and i've spent a bunch of time on _that_ thing)

I suppose thta i haven't spent much time on my OpenBSD machine.. i put in "the time" on that thing a few years ago and i mostly forget i even have it apart from every few months wanting to do something or other with it. Which requires 2-4 hours of reading and mucking.

Of course, im not a "zealot" for any of these platforms. I use all of them at home, but the machine with me physically sitting at it the most is windows, yet it requires the least "effort" by far.

Re:Passion

[jellomizer]

It seems like you have a lot of time invested into it. You got your system to run the way you wanted it. You know windows you know how it works. That didn't come naturally. When you were younger you probably used older versions of windows and you learned how to use different bits and peaces over time.

While it may not be good meaurable time learning windows it is still an investment in your time. And you combine all your experice using windows you find that you have a Lot of time invested into it. And switching to a different type of working will require you to start over from scratch again.

The same things happen to me when I was using Linux as my primary OS (I am now using OS X) going back to a windows system was very fustrating because all my command I knew by heart wasn't there. Having windows do a simple job like downloading a webpage once an hour and check for important change and notifiy me by email when the change was mad is a large task which can be easilly done with Linux. I have been using Linux sience 1994 and I know how to get around the system much like you probably have been using windows sience 1995 or earlier with 3.1 and DOS.

SO the truth is that you have invested a lot of time in windows and know how to deal with its problems. Vs. Fixing your Aironet working on OS X. I am sure if you were using OS X for years and OS 9 before that you will have a better understanding on how to get it to work on the ibook.

So the statement is true for you except for the fact your time was spreadout so your investment is hard to quantify.

Re:You fake it

[zCyl]

Microsoft is looking for true stories about people using Windows computers to pursue a passion or hobby. (Emphasis mine)

It sounds like they're looking for people who have been motivated by the experience of Microsoft products to participate in open source development.

WIndows The Imperial Operating System

[gcatullus]

Windows is easier because it is the market leader and almost every bit of hardware or commercial software that you find is designed for it. Chances are that you also "grew up" using it and the knowledge that you gained was bit by bit and mostly painless. The windows environment comparable to the American system of weights and measures -- everyone (in the US) uses it, everyone has some knowledge about it, and everything is designed for it. I know by looking at a bolt if it is 5/16 of an inch, if you asked me how many milimeters, I'd have to think. Even if metric "makes more sense" it won't "just work" for me unless I retrain myself. Linux has made things easier and with some of the Live CDs things mostly just work, but there is usually some retraining and tinkering for me at least.