Thanks, I hadn't seen this, not having TV. I found it funny, in an off-kilter way. Are there other ads (I assume there's a series of ads) which talk more explicitly about Vista? Gates is looking pretty old, though I probably am too. I don't like his haircut.

This was the first one, aired last night. I wonder if the other ones will make it funnier. There are more ads coming, clearly.

C'mon, the richest guy in the world, being sold discount shoes in the mall by the richest commedian in the world, and eating churros as if they were "common" people? Gates, normally a rather stiff guy, wiggling his ass? What's not to like? Maybe not as funny as that "wazzup" beer commercial, but not bad.

Microsoft has a pretty dismal history in the advertising department, this may be as good as it gets.

It had a dreamlike quality to it, and since I was hopped up on cough medicine and half asleep, I had to lean over to my husband (who caught it as he was flipping through the channels) to ask if I was awake. Not only was it weird, there was something vaguely threatening about it. Like Bill Gates (El Conquistador, I presume) was gonna grow fangs and rip Jerry's head off.

Not that I'm the first to point this out, but the very notion of using Jerry Seinfeld to promote Microsoft products is so bizarre, given that Seinfeld (the show) was almost certainly the most high-profile display of Macintosh computers throughout the 90s. I guess that says more about the set dressers than him, but still, odd.

Microsoft has never had good advertising, and now they're trying to compete against an consistently strong campaign by Apple. It's a weird tack that they're taking, the whole "See, we can be off-beat and funny too!" approach, given that their continued success depends primarily on non-creative businesses using their products.

Still, not a bad commercial. But I've owned eight Macs in my life, and zero PCs. There's very little they could do to win me over, even though I'm growing pretty tired of Apple as a brand.

Maybe this was Seinfeld's way to strike back at Steve Jobs after Pixar passed on Bee Movie. (I have know idea if this actually happened.)

I'm with DarkForest, I think this is supposed to be funny; I guess it is but not LOL.

I bet this will be a kind of running joke through several commercials - Vista isn't that difficult/hard to use. Or, the commercial has little to do with the product and just hammers home the everyman feeling (eroding the notion that MS is taking advantage of EVERYONE). I wonder if Gates will be in all of them.

I have a lot of problems with this ad. First off, I know I'm not Jerry Seinfeld, but I'm pretty sure I'd feel guilty for getting 10 mil for that piece of crap. Churros joke = not funny. Showering with clothes on = not funny, and stupid (did Seinfeld write that joke? I hope not). That they shop at Shoe Circus = didn't buy it. NONE of the jokes worked. It just came across as mocking and smarmy. Also, I guess they're going for the Latino demographic with the Churros and the window people and the Conquistadors. Also, I don't really even associate Bill Gates with Microsoft anymore. I thought he quit to run humanitarian organizations?

If this commercial had a face, I would've punched it.

Wasn't there a Mac on Jerry's desk in his apartment on Seinfeld? Just sayin'...

Does Seinfeld get 10 million for just this one commercial, or for the whole series (assuming more) to come?

Dear Mr. Gates, you are richer than god himself so honestly, wtf is up with that haircut?

ahahahaha! macrumors just posted this on their front page and it already has about 750 comments all essentially saying ... huh?

MS is also running an online commercial (maybe it's on TV, I don't know) dubbed the Mojave Project (or some such) where they show users a new OS on a laptop and ask them for their judgment, positive of course. Then they announce that it is actually Vista.

I told my son, "What that's really saying is that MS finally found a laptop that can run Vista."

I really like your son. Sharp tack. He's a keeper!

i've been wondering about this commercial for a bit now, and my current conclusion is that it's suppose to show that no matter how rich you are, you want a cheap deal.

"PC, because it's cheaper."

He's no Hodgman.