back to article Microsoft soothes Vista pain with Bossploitation flick

Microsoft may not excel at delivering software on-time, but it does make one hell of a lame video. Witness an internal promotional flick about the firm's Vista operating system which turned up on YouTube. Those crazy cats from Redmond have mocked The Boss in the video in which some Microsoft employees perform as Bruce …

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  1. Marc Lawrence
    Gates Horns

    Spot the Mac

    After wondering if this was a Windows Geuine Article... my colleague realised there was a mac at 2:11... the cringing bit-locker scene...

    It sure looks like an Apple to us... oh yeah... I wonder if it is on SP1

    Now I have to take a cold shower with a Penguin...

  2. Franco Milazzo
    Gates Horns

    More like Dancing In The Dark

    It looks too polished to be anything but an unaccidentally leaked promo piece for Vista SP1.

    Bill - because I trust Microsoft about as far as I can throw the real Boss.

  3. James
    Stop

    GET IT OFF, GET IT OFF

    OMG, wtf was that

  4. goggyturk
    Thumb Down

    Welcome to the vomitarium

    This kind of tat is sure sign of a company that lost touch with reality (or even any part of the outside world) a long, long time ago.

    I last saw something like this in my previous place of work, when some colleagues decided to 'celebrate' our regional reorganisation by doing a cover of 'We are the World', with lyrics from the strategy roadmap / group business principles / whatever piece of corporate obfuscationspeak they could find.

  5. Ash
    Thumb Up

    New lyrics

    "Why am I always waiting?

    File copying keeps failing :(

    Boot up time is debilitating

    And your latest patch has been disabling

    YOUUUUU ESSSSS BEEEEE!"

  6. Chris Byers
    Stop

    Would you work for them?

    If I worked for a company that made such a nausia inducing piece of corprate 'feel good' tat just for me, I'd start looking for another job.

  7. Stan Pons

    Wrong Business

    microsoft is in the wrong business. Their videos are better then their software. LOOK OUT MTV!!!!

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Our Ecosystem Rocks.....

    Our OS sucks cocks...

    Paris - needs no explanation

  9. Joe
    Alert

    I feel slightly ill!

    Proof, if proof be need be, that Microsoft has too much money.

    Are you sure this isn't an Al-Qaeda recruitment video? I can't imagine a better reason to target the bourgeoise West than this!

  10. N

    What utter bilge

    Whenever I want to vomit uncontrollably...

    Ill watch it

  11. This post has been deleted by its author

  12. Aaron

    LOL

    The sad thing is some people will take this seriously, I thinking those "features" mentioned in the song are something good or that you couldnt have with XP. I hope Microsoft get themselves sorted soon and put vista on the same pile as copies of microsoft Bob and ME.

  13. Darren B
    Flame

    Folks! Folks!

    I hate this word, to me it implies we are all old people or some sort of cult group.

    For folks sake!!!!

    AAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggghhhhhhhhhh

  14. Stone Fox
    Dead Vulture

    @marc laurence

    Omg! How did you make it to 2:11? Some form nausea supressing drugs?

    By 30 seconds I was trembling and sweating uncontrollably, 16 seconds after that the vomiting started...!

    Swiched off before a minute.

  15. chris
    Heart

    it's almost sad................. almost

    Microsoft at one time could release an OS and not have to worry about public opinion. Now they're viral marketing an MTV video about a failed product that took 5 years to make. My OH my have the times changed.

    ............... obviously for the better since the public is realizing that their product is not nearly as good as they make it seem.

    the heart ----- cause this just makes me happy :-)

  16. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    A tangled skein of mixed emotions weaves for me this cloak of uncertain disposition.

    There is always something disturbingly revealing when organisations - particularly ones so accustomed to adopting a siege mentality - try to be wittily self referential. There is something almost SeaOrg about it.. or perhaps WP:ARBCOM.

    No matter. It is almost as if by trying to prove to themselves how casual and normal they are they merely prove how disconnected from the real world they've become.

    Pity them. They are locked away in a bunker in Redmond awaiting the end times when their guiding morality - Moores Law - will crumble under the weight of heretic physics and in the cataclysmic twisting of space-time that will follow, release schedules will stretch beyond all measurable time becoming infinite and features lists will collapse towards singularity. Already Escheresque EULAs will fold in on themselves over and over and over until they become a moebius strip of recursive clauses and cryptic poetry.

    The end time. The great EOL. Unless of course you believe in the second coming of the Service Pack, but most people are pretty skeptical about the first coming. They dont think it was the real Service Pack, rather just a regular, imperfect, patch cluster that some people CLAIMED was the Service Pack.

    Regardless, with all that going on in your cube farm, you'd make an arse of yourself too....

  17. foof

    OMG

    They actually think they are still relevant.

  18. Steve
    Thumb Down

    Cobblers!

    Pity they didn't put as much time, effort and money into Vista. They may have got it right!

  19. dervheid
    Paris Hilton

    Who the Phuck...

    still takes Microsoft seriously these days anyway?

    Cos it's a better vid by FAR!

  20. TrishaD

    Heart of Darkness

    The Horror, the Horror ......

  21. Peyton

    wow...

    I could've gone my entire life without seeing that.

    However, as a side effect of watching, somehow Microsoft and the Church of Scientology are now linked in my mind...

  22. Greg

    It's not as bad...

    ...as the W-W-W-Windows, Windows, 386 advert.

    Visit this URL if you dare. 80s hair and horrors await.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGO2hVA3P58

  23. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    The best advertisement for apple I've seen

    nuff said

  24. Greg

    Oh, and my arse it was an accident

    They didn't release this by accident. Oh look, a song about SP1 making Vista better....all over YouTube...just as SP1 comes out.

  25. Anonymous Coward
    Paris Hilton

    Nothing changes

    A little reminder of how uncool Microsoft have *always* been: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGvHNNOLnCk

    Paris, because she's so uncool that she probably uses Vista.

  26. Matt Thornton
    Gates Horns

    Where was the NSFA warning?

    Not Safe For Anyone.

    Maybe if they spent more time building their software instead of tat like this, they wouldn't need to make these things in the first place. Kinda paradoxical, no?

  27. ben

    That ROCKED!!!

    the foundations of a huge multinational corporation.

    Shutdown and don't restart.

  28. pctechxp
    Coat

    Micro-SHAFT!

    to the tune of Shaft

    "Oh who leaves your Vista system in sht after a major service pack fix?

    Micro-SHAFT!

    Damn right!

    Can you dig it?"

    Coat > Door > TAXI!

  29. Anonymous Coward
    Gates Halo

    Vista - (Still)Born in the USA

    Are they still making these cheesy, lame vids in Redmond that they then inflict on the subs around the world? It's Kevin 'Walmart' Turners appearance at the end to suggest rocking in the Vista sales 'aisles' that makes me think they may need to redo the stocktake. At least in my MS days, the internal movies were self-consciously naff (e.g. BillG in the Matrix).

    (BillG - for wisely having no cameo).

  30. John Imrie
    Dead Vulture

    I was going to post ...

    something witty and original, but I seam to have lost the will to live

  31. J
    Dead Vulture

    Re:It's not as bad...

    Aww darn, I didn't heed the advice not to watch the crappy video, I feel dirty now. But I wonder which Mac they used to make it. :-)

    Oh, man... That 80's one was actually even worse, you're right...

    Now, look at this, is that really Ballmer?

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GL4hyATkQ74

  32. Mobius

    Burn the recycle bin

    I deleted my eyes

  33. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    Lessons to be learned

    Intra office humour never looks good from the outside in any major organisation so some leak policy needs to accompany these flicks.

    That said Ive always respected MS's ability to laugh at itself with Gates last keynote a much better example than this rubbish.

    Apple and Linux could learn alot from MS in this regard, theres nothing worse than making fun of others when you can't laugh at yourself first.

  34. heystoopid
    Alert

    Oh well

    Oh well , that explains much why the bulk of all new laptops purchased by corporate and business uses is still Windoze XP and a large majority of business users have refused to migrate from shock horror the older Windoze 2000 too in the main office networked desk stations !

    Lol , love the infamous Toyota Car Ad Sales leap at 21 seconds , now that has to be classic of piracy at work at M$ , heaven forbid not them too , oh no run for the hills !

  35. RK
    Stop

    if you ever wondered

    why people buy Macs, i think you have your answer.

    it's gonna take weeks to get the stain out of my eyes from the Ballmer one. someone should have sterilized him before he had a chance to inflict little Ballmer clones on the world.

  36. Anonymous Coward
    Thumb Up

    Brought tears to my eyes

    From laughing so hard

  37. Anonymous Coward
    Dead Vulture

    "Microsoft sales team rocks"

    Oh GOD I fill dirty typing that but I think everyone is missing something. Microsoft spews out the shit that is their software and their salesmen translate it into billions of dollars of revenue. Microsoft's "sales team" know they are the best in the world and this is them rubbing everyones nose in it.

    @It's not as bad...

    I will always hate you for posting that link.

    <-- The bird is vomiting blood, just like me.

  38. Charles Manning

    Bleeding eyes?

    Didn't the tampon help?

  39. Andy

    History repeating?

    Didn't the band keep playing whilst the Titanic was going down?

  40. James O'Brien
    Coat

    *twitch*

    . . . . . . I never thought I would say this but I am absolutely dumbfounded and have no idea what to say.

    No wait sorry I know the inspiration hit me as I saw the "BitLocker" superhero part. . .Reg can I borrow a laptop and a can of liquid nitrogen?

    /mines the one with the special data cable in it.

  41. Tim Bates
    Thumb Down

    So who managed....

    to watch it all the way through?

    I made it all the way. Can't say I laughed... I did groan in disgust once or twice.

    Also, are they implying that BitLocker will somehow return your data untouched? What a load of crap. Stolen laptops rarely return.

  42. Anonymous Coward
    Jobs Halo

    Viral marketing

    viral marketing, of course it's real marketing and was released internally with the full knowledge that it would "leak". They know that all the tech guys in NOC's around the world are looking at it and are hoping that a few CEO's are looking over their shoulders.. "maybe ms isn't so bad after all, lets give vista a shot"

  43. Karl Lattimer

    Oh come on!

    Does anyone really believe this was an "internal" gag? Its called viral marketing people...

  44. John Lodge

    Unbluddiebelievable

    I have never been a fan of Micro$oft, always thought that DR got the mucky end of the stick but this is a new low, just when I thought they couldn't get lower - what on earth are they thinking - celebrating a service pack release with an embarrasingly cringworthy awful video. "OK guys,the release wasn 't perfect but we've now fixed all the problems with this massive pile of patches. Any self respecting software co would issue this is a nice, quiet, polite manner.

  45. NB
    Boffin

    where did I leave my...

    will to live? I'm sure I had with me before I started watching that video... Where could it possibly have got to? OH! There it is! Hiding behind that cute penguin in the corner..

  46. b4k4
    Unhappy

    I watched it

    all. It was disturbing.

    The truth is in there - the sales team rocks, not the software.

    What cringe worthily rubbish lyrics.

    They spent a fair bit putting that together, but if they really wanted advertising, surely they would have just bought the Rolling Stones again, like they did for win95?

  47. Lukin Brewer

    Another song parody (apologies to Dire Straits)

    I want to, I want to, I want to, keep XP…

    I want to, I want to, I want to, keep XP…

    Look at all those yoyos working out in Redmond,

    Hacking Vista for the next SP,

    It ain’t working, (not the way they do it!)

    A hiding to nothing with no USB.

    We’ve got to install enterprise systems, failsafe platform delivery-y-y-y-y-y,

    We’ve gotta move to Linux servers, we’ve gotta move to BSD.

  48. pctechxp
    Flame

    poor dire straits

    Lukin

    You've just murdered money for nothing, how could you?

    Mind you I did post some lyrics to the tune of Shaft but that track is nowhere near the Dire Straits masterpiece, that track really does rock!

  49. Michael
    Pirate

    we need a linux version..

    Would suggest Rammstein (Feuer Frei) or Dope (Die MF Die)

    Any other suggestions?

  50. Vic
    Gates Horns

    Oh Mobius

    It was so funny, so funny. I tried to delete the recycle bin like you asked but I started to laugh but it hurts so much and tastes really nasty....

  51. kit
    Jobs Horns

    Really creative

    The song is much more creative than Microsoft.s products. MS should enter show business rather than software industry.

  52. Raymond Turner
    Paris Hilton

    That actually physically painful to watch.

    If that video is still haunting me in 15 minutes then I'm geting my porn collection watching something good and pure that reminds me of what the internet is really for then using a soldering iron on my eyes to ensure I never see things such as that Vista sales team video ever again.

    Paris because she knows what the girls I'll be watching will be doing.

    Forget the soldering iron I think just the porn will do.

  53. Rissa

    I made it all the way through

    and I feel very, very ill.

    I wonder if Anonymous would fancy a crack at THIS brainwashing cult?

  54. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    from Futurama

    You watched it.

    You can't unwatch it.

  55. Dana W
    Thumb Down

    This one hurt.

    I didn't know I had any innocence left to lose. That was incredibly painful. If I hadn't already switched to OSX/Linux, I would have after that. Even for internal consumption this is repugnant. It boggles the mind.

    What kind of cooperate kiss-ups make crap like this? And who actually PAYS them?

    Indie Mac fans working for free make better promo videos, this just looks dated and silly. I can see some suit saying "Kids Like that Bruce Springsteen, right?" Just picture them watching this at Redmond and all looking at each other and seeing if they are supposed to laugh or not.

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