The Windows Mojave Experiment Results Are In

[Jason Dunn]

<div class='os_post_top_link'><a href='http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/windowsvista/archive/2008/07/29/windows-mojave-video-posts.aspx' target='_blank'>http://windowsvistablog.com/blogs/w...ideo-posts.aspx</a><br /><br /></div><p><em>"Last week we showed a video of the Mojave Experiment to a small group of folks here on campus. Today we are excited to share the results with the public. For those new to the Mojave Experiment, it's a focus group effort we initiated a few weeks ago. We interviewed and polled 120 participants in San Francisco, in hopes of better understanding everyday users' perceptions of Windows Vista and seeing whether there really is a gap between perception and reality. We wanted to see how people reacted to Windows Vista when they were not aware they were seeing Windows Vista. We recorded our discussions, and today you can see them for yourself."</em></p><p><img src="http://images.thoughtsmedia.com/resizer/thumbs/size/600/dht/auto/1217370450.usr1.jpg" border="1" /></p><p><a href="http://www.mojaveexperiment.com/" target="_blank">The results are in, and they're pretty interesting</a>. Each one of those icons above is a different video, and I've watched the majority of them. My biggest complaint? The audio level is really, really low on many of the videos - I'm having to crank up my speakers to make up what's being said. There are a lot of rumours floating around the Web - it's amazing to me what kinds of ridiculous things that people will believe, such as these people all being actors and this being an elaborate hoax. Time to replace the tin-foil hat with something stronger, like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alprazolam" target="_blank">Xanax</a>. These people aren't actors, and the results are legitimate and believable. The general public is ignorant about Windows Vista - that much seems obvious. The people involved in this experiment? 84% of them were Windows XP users, 22% were Apple OS users, 14% were other Windows users (pre-XP...God help them!), and 1% were Linux users.</p><p>A 10 minute demo of the cool features of an operating system isn't a fair way to judge the overall success or failure of an operating system, but these videos certainly demonstrate that purely on a features basis, people like what Vista has to offer - and that goes against much of the commonly held "wisdom" that Vista has nothing to offer in terms of feature, that it's just Aero eye-candy and nothing more. Day to day use, program compatibility, installation on custom (white box) hardware - all of these things weigh into the perception of how good an operating system really is.</p><p>I'm certainly not saying that Windows Vista is perfect, but the average rating of 8.5 out of 10 seems to be reasonable. I'd probably give Windows Vista an 8 myself, and that's after using it full time since it's release some 18 months ago. What would you rate Vista? Only post a number if you've actually used it for more than 30 days straight.</p>

[David Horn]

Not wanting to sound stupid, but isn't "Mohave" really an advert for Windows Live products? For example, the panoramic photo stitching they rave on about isn't in Vista. Nor are the multi-player games. I daresay that both Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Messenger are equally compatible with Windows XP.

From a Vista Ultimate user who likes it, but does feel slightly screwed over.

[EscapePod]

I'd personally give it 9.

I've used it since RC2, and on PCs as lowly as one with AMD Athlon 1900+, 500MB RAM, nVidia Velocity 440 w/64MB graphic card (sure, it wouldn't run Aero, but it worked fine as an OS if you didn't get into heavy multi-tasking).

I have now built over 25 PCs with Vista, mostly Home Premium. My main personal unit is Ultimate, but, frankly, I don't see an overwhelming justification for the extra money. All of these PCs use good components and Vista runs very well on each of them. They run from units with the new AMD 45 Watt, 1.6 GHz processor, 2GB RAM, and Gigabyte 780G mobo with on-board graphics, to units with Intel Q6800 processor, 4GB RAM, and twin nVidia 8800 SLI graphics cards on ASUS mobos. Most have HDTV cards and some have Creative X-Fi sound cards.

Being open minded, I also have built several nice ubuntu PCs. They serve their users very well, too.

[Rob Alexander]

I don't have a score to give since I haven't used Vista yet, but I ran across a link to that page on a web site today and so I went to take a look. I think their marketing people have done an excellent job. The sheer number of video clips, each with a different snippet of someone being impressed by Vista, creates the subliminal impression that there are hundreds of cool things about Vista that you don't know about but should. It's very clever, and that's something I haven't said about a Microsoft ad for many years.

There's nothing you can do for people who won't see the truth even when it hits them in the face, but taken at face value, you have to be impressed that they have addressed the issue straight on, without denying that people have a bad image of Vista, and have done a convincing job of making you think you should check it out for yourself. That's really all they need to accomplish... making you think 'hey, maybe Vista is worth looking into'.

[rzanology]

been using vista since it was rc1. and I've loved it all along. i run it on my old acer c110 tablet...i run it on my t40....i run it on my media center...on my macbook...and all 3 of my work computers. its behavior across each hardware platform are all consitant. im going to give it a 9!

[leslietroyer]

I've been using it since it went RTM - and on all new computers i've purchased since then. After getting over the initial lack of device drivers, It has been rock solid. Still not enought there to upgrade the several XP workstations I also have (mostly because of the high cost) ....

My vote 9.

LEs

[Vincent Ferrari]

The telling fact in these videos is that the people videoed didn't actually use Vista, they just watched it.

Look, I'm not saying Vista is a mess or that it's perfect, and I think a lot of the criticisms are overblown, but this means absolutely nothing. It's a stupid marketing effort that people are using to affirm "Vista ain't that bad." Microsoft basically said "let's make a viral marketing campaign" and everyone is spreading it for them.

That bothers me.

I would've been more impressed if you told these people to actually do something and filmed them figuring it out. Of course they won't do that.

Just annoying drivel.

There are lots of legit ways to change the perception of Vista. Anyone watching this with preconceived notions of how they like Vista already will probably get very little out of this whatsoever.

[Doug Raeburn]

I got the first consumer RTM version and installed it on my then current desktop. The overall experience wasn't bad once it was up and running, but startup and shutdown were glacial, to say the least. Startups sometimes took 4-5 minutes. I also had ongoing problems with NVidia drivers, where the driver would stop responding. Other than that, I don't recall any driver issues.

When I upgraded my desktop to a new motherboard and Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz processor, all of those problems went away. Startup and shutdown are much faster (like 300% faster) and the display driver problem is also gone (I did upgrade my video card, so that may have helped.) Rock solid is definitely how I'd describe it now.

I also got a new laptop with Vista Home Premium installed about 9 months ago. That laptop has run beautifully since day one.

My early experience with Vista would have earned it a rating of 6. But the much improved experience over the past few months would get it a 9.

[Jason Dunn]

Not wanting to sound stupid, but isn't "Mohave" really an advert for Windows Live products? For example, the panoramic photo stitching they rave on about isn't in Vista. Nor are the multi-player games. I daresay that both Windows Live Photo Gallery and Windows Live Messenger are equally compatible with Windows XP.

For the panoramic stitching, yes, that's true - but that's the only Live product I saw in the videos...most of the other videos focused on system-wide search, Aero, and the general speed of Vista. It's hard to say how much stuff was focused on Live because the videos are all so short.

From a Vista Ultimate user who likes it, but does feel slightly screwed over.

Yeah, Vista Ultimate was/is a complete rip-off for 99% of the people who bought it...Microsoft never delivered on the Ultimate Extras. I hope whole teams of people got fired of that, though they probably didn't (sadly).

[Jason Dunn]

It's a stupid marketing effort that people are using to affirm "Vista ain't that bad."

But I think that's all they were trying to do - and in fact, that's what marketing is all about: getting the message out. In this case they found people who had negative feelings about Vista without ever having used it...let's face it, no one reading this Web site would fall for this. They found people who were ignorant about what Windows Vista is/does, but still felt strongly enough to give Vista a rating. This campaign isn't going to change anyone's mind here. ;)

I'm hoping they'll assemble this experiment together into a 30 minute documentary or something so we can understand the entirety of the process, but it seems pretty clear from the reactions that the people involved:

a) didn't think Vista worked well
b) didn't think Vista had any compelling features
c) didn't think Vista was fast

And if you look at the reactions, all those notions were changed. This wasn't about usability, or task-based success, or anything else. It was just about the perception that, yes, "Vista 'aint that bad". The Mac attack ads spent over a year telling people that Vista sucked, so the perception is there amongst people who haven't even touched a Vista computer...so Microsoft has to start somewhere.

[Jason Dunn]

...installed it on my then current desktop. The overall experience wasn't bad once it was up and running, but startup and shutdown were glacial, to say the least. Startups sometimes took 4-5 minutes. I also had ongoing problems with NVidia drivers, where the driver would stop responding. Other than that, I don't recall any driver issues.

Yeah, I think people (myself included) underestimated how tuned motherboards, video cards, drivers, etc. had become to Windows XP - vendors had five years to tweak and adjust things for maximum performance on XP...and most of us just assumed that everything would work smoothly with Vista. Not so much. :o

[Rob Alexander]

But I think that's all they were trying to do - and in fact, that's what marketing is all about: getting the message out.

That's the point that a lot of people are missing. Sure, this isn't 'real' use and sure they didn't send these people home with a copy and check back with them later, and so forth. Of course not, it's marketing. The Mac guy standing there saying Vista sucks isn't real either, is he? But he affected people's opinions. The amazing thing is that MS marketing sat there with their hands in their pockets for a year before realizing that, to consumers, perception is reality. You can't let your chief rival take pot shots at you without responding. It would have been better if they'd responded earlier... the message would have been very different. But for where they are now, this is exactly what they need.

[randalllewis]

I give Vista an 8 and I've used it since launch day. My score would be a 9 if it didn't include my arch-enemy "Windows Mobile Device Center"- consistently the most unreliable component of Vista.

As for criticism of the Mojave Experiment as drivel because it was mere marketing. Duh! Marketing is consistently Microsoft's weakness. This effort is work of Microsoft's trendy new ad agency and I will assume that this is just phase one and will we see more based on this work. Many of us were wondering just how Crispin was planning to address the challenge of a company with a woeful marketing history that has not responded as a competitor set the terms of the debate for the last two years. I am impressed with the first step.....

[Jason Dunn]

Many of us were wondering just how Crispin was planning to address the challenge of a company with a woeful marketing history that has not responded as a competitor set the terms of the debate for the last two years. I am impressed with the first step.....

Well here's what interesting about that: apparently this isn't part of the big $300 million dollar ad campaign! It's just something that someone on the Vista marketing team came up with...which impresses me. Microsoft often struggles to execute on internal ideas...