David Flynn26 May 2009, 9:00 AM
A leaked PowerPoint deck reveals part of Microsoft’s marketing playbook as it gears up for Windows 7. Plus: Beta 1 installs will go into ‘two-hour shutdown mode’ from this Monday.
Not only is that lens-flared
Windows 7 logo legit, but Microsoft is cooking up a few hundred ways to get it into your face.
The
UX Evangelist site has unearthed a copy of Redmond’s Windows 7 Core Presentation Deck, which is a PowerPoint guide to – among other things – creating
more PowerPoint decks to spruik the delights of Windows 7.
Hey kids! Now you can create your very own Windows 7 presentations and
pretend you're Steve Balmer! (Throwable chair not included)
UX Evangelist’s Stephen Chapman has dug into the deck and posted several of the ‘master slides’ which will guide the ‘Softies in creating identikit presentations which all conform to Microsoft’s Windows 7 branding and messaging – complete with approved slide layouts, backgrounds, fonts, tables and charts.
Every presentation must use these fonts, these colours and include photos of Happy People.
(Bonus points for Hip Young People and racial diversity.)Microsoft's marketing mantra for Windows 7 will be built around four core ideas: cool, I want, easy and works.
Besides providing a fascinating insight into what goes on behind the scenes in the lead-up to this launch, Chapman also reveals a mock-up of a Windows 7 ‘retail kiosk’ which Microsoft proposes using as an in-store focal point for the OS as well as hardware which runs it.
This blurry low-res capure of the mock-up retail kiosk could soon become a reality at your local PC store.
Meanwhile, if you’re still running Windows 7 Beta 1, prepare for frustration: as of Monday your PC will shut down every two hours. These are the ‘death throes’ of the Beta 1 build once your PC’s clock clicks over to June 1, 2009. Eight weeks later, on August 1, the Beta will expire and you’ll be unable to boot your test system at all.
The obvious fix is to download and install the far superior Windows 7 Release Candidate (well, either that or set your PC’s clock back a month). RC1 will take you through until March 1, 2010, when it’ll begin the same two-hour twitch until expiring on June 1, 2010 – by which time you really should have ponied up for a legit copy of Windows 7.