Windows and Me | The Coffeehouse

What's this new website about? Is it a competition to Channel 10 or something completely different? Is it again a "new cool site" or something that will stay? The description is very vague.

Seems like it has been created by Microsoft India (click the about us link)... Lovely that they still use Flash for the animations on the front page... the logo would probably also need some tweaking, it looks a little bit strange at the bottom (the text looks weird).

It's also not using the Windows Live account system...

To me it looks like a marketing company did this for Microsoft... or is it even a hoax?

GoddersUK

Interesting. I think tbh I didn't find the content has high quality as c10. What I don't understand is why they don't create the page in Indian, because you can tell that the person who did it doesn't have English as their mother tongue. Also I think some of the content is a bit risky - they're promoting Ultimate only features (such as bitlocker, shadow copy), without mentioning them as ultimate only. I could see a court case over that.

blowdart

In reply to GoddersUK

#Jun 28th @ 9:28 AM

Domain registration isn't a typical MS one;

 Registrant: 
    NetCarrots.com Pvt. Ltd. 
    Registered through: GoDaddy.com  Inc. http://www.godaddy.com

Nor is hosting on Rackspace.

Although the privacy policy lists MS India.

GoddersUK

In reply to blowdart

#Jun 28th @ 9:37 AM

netcarrots.com appears to be some kind of marketing firm.

EDIT: with a website that breaks as soon as I try and navigate away from the homepage Perplexed

EDIT 2: aha... it's one of those "Designed for Internet Explorer" sites Tongue Out

DukeNukem

REMOVE THE SITE

People will think it has something to do with Mobile Me

Typhoon87

Over on neowin they are trying to figure out if this is real. I am weary as the site does not support live id.

http://neowin.net/news/main/08/06/28/microsoft-launches-new-website--windowsandme

GoddersUK

In reply to DukeNukem

#Jun 28th @ 10:26 AM

or Windows ME! Big Smile

GoddersUK

In reply to Typhoon87

#Jun 28th @ 12:48 PM

also there is not one single g.microsoft.com (or whatever they are) link.

GoddersUK

Well I've fired off an email to MS UK PR to ask if they can verify the authenticity of this website. So let's see if I get a reply.

turrican

If this is from MS... oh, for love of... Not another "cool" website! They should stick to windows.microsoft.com or something. It's like the fat kid on the block trying to be cool. You are Microsoft, not "cool". You can't be cool, ever. Stop it. Be yourself. We love you as you are. Seriously. I don't want Microsoft to become "cool google".

Edit : Proof :

( Note to Microsoft : That is NOT cool. Maybe weird, but NOT cool. )

: )

Or this :

http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/images/press/2004/03-22MSNMLB_l.jpg

I saw one of these "things" once a couple of years ago, I almost paniced and ran.

Bas

In reply to turrican

#Jun 28th @ 3:41 PM

Are you kidding? Blue butterfly/human hybrids handing out CD's? That so weird that it becomes genious! It's even better than the walking Microsoft Mouse and Live OneCare package.

jamie

In reply to turrican

#Jun 28th @ 3:41 PM

it's barrack obutterfly! Change! (hey...ill take it)

re: "They should stick to windows.microsoft.com"

or hey why not windows.com / google.com / yahoo.com

give it some OOMPH - come at the competion with with your biggest (hidden) brand...

full on.

(i like to dream...)

mVPstar

In reply to jamie

#Jun 28th @ 4:07 PM

It's supposed to be an MS site and they couldn't get high quality versions of the Windows and MS logos (okay, maybe the ones on MS.com aren't exactly high-high-quality, but still).

I mean, it's clear they ripped some logo from MS.com as the flair is only present in the logo image and not the background.

Windows and Me

turrican

In reply to mVPstar

#Jun 28th @ 4:46 PM

heh... if it isn't a site by MS, I'm guessing it'll be getting a nice note from the lawyers soon. o.O

GoddersUK

In reply to mVPstar

#Jun 28th @ 4:46 PM

Quite a fail really as anyone can get them here: http://www.microsoft.com/Presspass/gallery/ms-logos.mspx

mVPstar

In reply to GoddersUK

#Jun 29th @ 5:36 AM

Except, it's clear they didn't use the ones from the presspack. The press pack logos are by default black text on white background. They needed white on blue, and it was clear they didn't just take one of those images and change the colors (for the end result would have been high quality), but instead just copied an image off of an existing site (note the flair in the logo that doesn't actually blend with anything).

If you squint your eyes, you can notice other elements of the design that don't seem to blend well with the background.

And no, I wasn't insinuating that this isn't an official site (though, I'm not accepting that it is either). I was just wondering why the site looks the way it does given various resources (like the presspack site you linked to) they could have used to blend the design more.

littleguru

The website is real... Sad

This isn't the best that Microsoft produced, isn't it? Sad

sad...

jason818_253.33

In reply to littleguru

#Jul 1st @ 3:00 PM

ah, your just jealouse because your not one of thier Gurus Smiley

what makes you think the site is done poorly?

littleguru

In reply to littleguru

#Jul 1st @ 3:00 PM

Hehe... Enjoy your Windows Smiley

littleguru

In reply to jason818_253.33

#Jul 1st @ 3:08 PM

I'm not jealous... not at all; I don't need to do everything Wink

Just there are a lot of different things that don't look properly done. And the sum of them makes it look like something that somebody needed to do but didn't spend any love in it.

jason818_253.33

In reply to littleguru

#Jul 1st @ 3:08 PM

do you have to sign in to enjoy your windows or can you just... enjoy it?

littleguru

In reply to jason818_253.33

#Jul 1st @ 3:10 PM

I don't know... I don't even know what the difference between "remember me" and "keep me signed in on this pc" is...

DCMonkey

In reply to littleguru

#Jul 1st @ 3:12 PM

Since we're still picking on these guys:

I noticed that they seem to have a case of puzzled possessives.

A most of the menus and content use "your" with have phrases like "Your PC" and "With your memories", yet there is also a menu item titled "My World", and of course the name of the site: "Windows and Me". Shouldn't it be called "Windows and You" and "Your World"?

And the whole site definitely needs a once over by a native english speaker.

Beta or not, somebody "drop[ped] the DVD" on this one.

mVPstar

In reply to DCMonkey

#Jul 1st @ 3:44 PM

and of course the name of the site: "Windows and Me". Shouldn't it be called "Windows and You"

I was actually thinking that, grammatically (though I'm not sure what the convention is overseas), shouldn't it be "Windows and I"?

"Windows and I produced this work of art"
"Windows and I are friends now"

As it is written, it's more like

"Something happened to Windows and Me today...OMG"
"A BSOD threw itself upon Windows and Me"

Bass

Maybe this is part of Microsoft's new $300 million "Windows is my friend"-type advertisement campain.