One cannot say that Microsoft has not tried some rather – unorthodox – marketing techniques since the launch of their latest operating system Windows 7. The latest to join the ranks is called Experience Windows.
This allows Windows7 and Windows Messenger users customize a theme along with their own custom avatar and screensaver.
Here is how it works. The Windows Experience website contains a start now button which will start the Windows 7 theme customization. All of the customization can be done online. The website is compatible not only with Internet Explorer but also other popular web browsers such as Firefox or Google chrome.
It begins by selecting one of four available destinations which will be used as the themes’ setting. Available choices are the beach, a safari, the city and mountains.
Wallpapers are displayed that fit into the selected setting. Selecting the beach setting will for instance display three different beach wallpapers of which the user can select one.
The avatar photo can be uploaded in the next step after selecting either the male or female avatar. Recommended is a portrait as only the face is used to customize the avatar. It is possible to define the borders of the face which is important to make it look “real”.
It takes a while to select the right borders for the face. The next step is a “girl’s dream come true”. The avatar can be personalized with different outfits and gadgets. Those items differ depending on the choice of the setting and gender of the avatar.
The theme is created in the next step and offered for download
The installation dialog tries to set Bing as the default search engine, MSN as the homepage and to save the avatar to the desktop to use it on social networking sites. All of these settings are optional.
The theme is provided as an executable that simple needs to be double-clicked after the download to install it. The custom theme will be added to the available themes in the Windows 7 operating system. The theme is installed just fine but some elements that are downloaded afterwards require a Windows Live account. Users who only want the theme can cancel the action at this point.
