User:Ian Wolfman/sandbox

The Mojave Experiment is an advertising campaign by Microsoft for the Windows Vista operating system. The campaign was part of Microsoft's efforts to change what it felt was an unfair negative consumer perception of the operating system. Mojave spanned a series of advertisements that consisted of individuals being shown a demonstration of Windows Vista by Microsoft; however, the operating system was actually rebranded in disquise as a new version of Windows codenamed "Mojave"—a fact not revealed during the demonstration.

Prior to the demonstration, participants generally gave a negative assessment of Windows Vista. In contrast, reviews for "Mojave" were positive, with participants stating that they intended to use or purchase the operating system for themselves; the same participants were astonished when they were told that "Mojave" was actually Windows Vista. The campain implied that negative consumer perception was largely the result of preconceived notions about the operating system.

History
After the launch of Windows Vista, the operating system had gardered a series of negative assessments. Microsoft, while acknowledging application compatibility issues as a result of Windows Vista's security improvements, attributed the negative assessments to a notable series of advertisements by Apple for its Get a Mac campaign; preconceived notions held by consumers; and negative opinions held by journalists and perpetuated within the blogosphere. The Get a Mac campaign criticized various aspects of Windows Vista, including its User Account Control feature for producing what was believed to be too many prompts (a sentiment that was shared by early adopters and reviewers ); its extensive product edition lineup; hardware and software compatibility issues; and its protracted development period. Microsoft acknowledged that Apple's campaign had a negative impact on Windows Vista adoption and deployment. As a result, Service Pack 1 included improvements to address compatibility issues, and User Account Control was modified to produce fewer prompts while creating or modifying folders within a protected location.

The Mojave Experiment began in 2008 in an effort to address the negative consumer perception of Windows Vista.

Overview
The hardware used for the demonstration was a HP Pavilion DV 2000 with 2GB of RAM.

Critical reception
Reception to the Mojave Experiment were generally mixed.