Critics hail Windows 7

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By Jessica Mintz ASSOCIATED PRESS

REDMOND, Wash. | Although no one waits in long lines for a new edition of Windows anymore, the debut of Microsoft's latest software that runs PCs is part of why buying a computer is starting to feel fun for the first time in years.

Windows 7 is expected to work better than its predecessor, Vista. At the same time, Microsoft's marketing has gotten savvier and PC makers have followed Apple Inc.'s lead by improving hardware design. Computers with the Windows operating system suddenly seem a lot less utilitarian.

"If you line up the six or seven most interesting PC designs, people will say, 'Wow. I didn't know all of that could be done with a PC,' " Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in an interview.

Windows 7, which became available Thursday, is designed to look cleaner than Vista, streamlining the ways people can get to work, with fewer clicks and fewer annoying notifications. Setting up home networking to share photos and music won't require an advanced degree in information technology. Plugging in a new device won't set off a mad hunt online for driver software, which tells the equipment how to work with an operating system.

Making a version of Windows that people like, rather than tolerate, is critical for Microsoft. Most people don't choose Windows as much as they end up with it, because it's familiar and affordable. But it's conceivable Microsoft will have to work harder to win people over, thanks to a small but growing threat from Apple's Macs and a forthcoming PC operating system from Web search nemesis Google Inc.

Vista fell flat because it didn't work with many existing programs and hardware. Microsoft fixed many of Vista's flaws but didn't spread the word, instead allowing Apple to attack with ads that pit a dorky office stiff (PC) against a casual creative type (Mac) and paint Vista PCs as unjustifiably complex.

It took a while, but Microsoft finally fired back. It hired Crispin Porter + Bogusky, a hip advertising firm, and set aside $300 million to portray Windows as warm and human. The "I'm a PC" campaign that emerged isn't universally well-liked, but the ads have arguably transformed the face of Windows from a pasty nerd to an adorable little girl named Kylie who e-mails pictures of her pet fish to her family without help from a grown-up.

Windows 7 also arrived in the early days of a golden age for PC design.

For years, Apple has been making computers for people willing to pay a premium for design: sleek, metal-encased laptops with brilliant screens; swanlike iMacs that stash the workings of the computer behind an enormous flat monitor, perched atop a minimalist base; the MacBook Air notebook, thin enough to fit in a manila envelope. Meanwhile, the most notable shifts in PCs have been from beige plastic to black, or from chunky square notebooks to ones with slightly rounded edges.

Now, PC makers are starting to experiment with size, shape and color at all price levels.

Netbooks, the tiny, inexpensive, low-powered laptops that have been the PC industry's saving grace through the recession, are no longer just shrunken corporate PCs. To entice people to slip them into a purse and carry them everywhere, netbooks are made in a rainbow of colors and array of textures. Microsoft stumbled by making Vista too lumbering to run on netbooks, but even premium versions of Windows 7 will work on the little devices.

Even mid-range notebooks, costing $500 to $800, now have enormous screens and custom covers. At the higher end, PC makers have adopted Apple's thin-and-light concept and etched patterns into sleek metal cases.

Windows 7 feeds into this design craze in part by adding deeper support for touch-screen controls, leading such PC makers as Dell Inc. and Hewlett-Packard Co. to add "multitouch" screens that respond to finger gestures.

The plummeting cost of memory and computing power make this shift possible.