15 Years of Windows 7 - Exploring the Bizarre House Party Pack
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 พ.ย. 2024
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Back before Windows 7 launched, Microsoft started a bizarre marketing campaign for their new OS: house parties. If you were chosen as a host, you'd be sent a box full of Windows 7-themed party accessories as well as a full copy of the OS. The best part? It was free! So to celebrate Windows 7's 15th anniversary, we're gonna see... what exactly the point of this was.
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#MichaelMJD #Windows7 #Microsoft
Today we celebrate the one week anniversary of a 15th anniversary. Yeah... I was visiting Europe last week so I missed the actual date 😅
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1 like and no reply?? Bro rlly fell off
@@mastralhassani fr
Damn the house party would have been better if i could invite p diddy
Pov: u commented before mjd
@@MichaelMJD did you bring back anything cool or was it just a vacation
Not signing up for the Windows 7 party pack when I knew about it is unironically a huge regret of mine 😔 me and my friends totally would have done it for the meme lol
hi
NOOO
We did it for the lols, it was fun. We had Facebook up and were posting punny posed pics periodically. We wanted Microsoft to see our social media support and make us famous or maybe give us some gear.
Nese 7 is also similar to Windows 7 and also released on January 4, 2024
Hi this joe
I was selected for this. My (now) wife and I threw a big party for all our friends. We hung up the stuff and I connected my computer to the big screen, but mostly we played beer pong and video games. We still laugh about it, so I’d say the campaign was pretty good.
did you was winning stuff ?
Pics link
Need the pictures 😂
what if we kissed at the Windows 7 House Party?
❤
"No-Windows 7 minutes in heaven" (it happens in a closet)
What happens at the Windows 7 House Party stays at the Windows 7 House Party
Under the windows 7 mistletoe disc?
We must come to terms with the fact, there is entirely a possibility, a child may have been conceived *during* a Windows 7 house party.
Throwing a party for an operating system release? Sounds like the kind of thing only Linux users would do...
I use Arch, by the way.
Me too btw. @@commentarysheep
@@commentarysheep I use Ubuntu, by the way.
@@commentarysheepI use arch btw
mint here
15 years ago when I was working as a Genius at the Apple Store we threw a windows 7 launch party with this kit! We got drunk and assembled the puzzle while watching their cheesy accompanying video and I still use the tote bag
Me too the tote bag
Dude, you should have documented it on video.
Ironic that an apple employee got the House Party pack
15 years ago when I bought the iPhone 3GS the Apple Store had to run a Windows XP VM on a few of their Macs because Apple only sold the iPhone subsidized and Swisscom required an ActiveX plugin to complete the subscription process which only worked in IE 6. Was such a fun time.
@@fuseegeleeit released in the early Intel Mac era, so a Mac owner could certainly install Windows 7 on his computer
Peak Microsoft, IMO - maybe the best example of their "hey there, fellow humans!" personality. Glad to see someone revive the laughs after all this time.
It was time when Microsoft actually cared about making solid os it's crazy how after 7 the greed started to show given not to say they didn't do dumb stuff before 7 but they at least fixed their mistakes now and days you be lucky if update doesn't kill your pc or something
I disagree, Windows 7 was the direct successor to Vista and it was accompanied by a big wave of people switching to Mac and Linux. Vista was so badly adopted that all manufacturers kept providing support for XP for all the shelf life of Vista. Windows 7 was Microsoft desperately and somewhat successfully clawing back and regretting everything.
I would say peak Microsoft was from 1996 until 2001 while Apple was almost going bankrupt, the workstations like UltraSparc, SGI Irix and OS/2 went into a niche, every web page was made for Internet Explorer, Java was a novelty and Microsoft successfully transitioned to a new GUI paradigm with Windows 95 that is still used 20 years later. The best OS by Microsoft was Windows 2000. At that time, Microsoft had a large portfolio of Windows only applications like Encarta, AutoRoute (or Streets and Trips), Games like Age of Empires and Flight Simulator together with a large base of third party developers, exclusively creating Windows applications. By the time Windows 7 came out, most things were already done on the web or were cross-platform for many applications.
How do you do, fellow hoomans? 🖖👽
@@braedonsrantsmore2482 they never cared about anything other than money and also i would never ever go back to using windows 7 or xp because those were so vulnerable at least the xp was. People seems to have forgotten that kinda stuff.
@@gentuxable
Finally someone who agrees with me.... 2000 was definitely the best MS OS.
The only reason I switched straight to XP was that XP fixed a multi-CPU issue where 2000 would pause threads while moving them between CPUs to balance the load... Interrupting games or DVDs for around 50ms every minute or 2. I would have stayed on 2000 if I wasn't using a multi-socket system.
The puzzle race against the Windows install process was surprisingly tense and engaging.
I installed Windows 7 32-bit on 15 computers today, I did not expect to see the W7 install process for a 16th time.
The computers I installed it on had SSDs, so I wouldn't've been able to finish that puzzle before it installed. They boot so fast that the W7 boot animation doesn't have time to finish.
@@bibasik7 why would u install w7?
@@meirin5316 That's what the customer wants. These are industrial computers, so there's probably some piece of software that only runs on W7.
You gotta appreciate the sophistication they put into this. They even made a puzzle that takes exactly as long as the Windows setup!
this must've been the geekiest nerdiest house party ever and I'm absolutely here for it, i'd even host the darn thing
I would probably have brought the manuals and done some quizzes about them XD
I remember signing up for it, thinking I would never be chosen for it as a college freshman, but lo and behold I was shipped an entire party pack along with a copy of Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition!
...I may have then forged responses from my so called 'party attendants' and was likely marked from hosting any future parties, but it was 100% worth it
I also hosted one, as did my workmate. Good times. A drink up more than a party.LOL
do you still have it?
I still have some of it, but not CIB. I know I have the napkins floating around somewhere along with I believe the 64-bit version of the disc in the case, not sure what happened to the 32-bit disc. There is no difference between the looks of the two discs, outside of the marking of which revision of the OS it is.
AINT NO PARTY LIKE A WINDOWS PARTY 🔥🔥🗣️🗣️💯💯
ain't no party like a windows party
Cause a windows party doesn’t work
1000 copies of Windows 7 Ultimate
@@1994CivicGLi "We don't sell any copies of Windows 7 here" - Costco
free Diddy tho
I was one of the ones chosen for the house party, it was pretty sweet getting Windows 7 for free before release day. Had some friends over, we did actually discuss Windows 7, then we played Halo lol.
its so funny when people do videos on the party packs because the girl in blue in the video is my grandma who was an actor, she had no idea what she was talking about lmao. I always bring to up to her when someone does a video on it telling her it still floats around.
If 7 came back it would probably be worth a party these days
With blackjack and hookers!
:( We miss you Windows 7... (Also XP, 2000, and yes, even Vista.)
@@arnox4554 Vista was really great. It just didn't match the hardware market very well. Booting a machine with 2 GB of RAM was a nightmare.
@@codeman99-dev Well... It was more than that. Vista RTM was also HELLA buggy. With that said though, after Service Pack 1, the bugs, were mostly worked out, and without the massive foundation that Vista laid, we would never have had 7. And finally, as a fun little fact, Vista actually, in my arrogant opinion, had the best taskbar layout/design and one of the best Start menus.
fuckn n suckn
Back in the days I actually ordered myself the House Party Pack (I am from germany) and I was a teenager, lived at my parents home and was a trainee. I was so nervous when the Package from FedEx came to my home in germany all the way from the US. My grandma has one of the Shopping bags to this day ^^
I still use my Windows 7 House Party shopping bags.
And no, I never actually held the party. And most of the invitees were my own alternate email addresses.
The shopping bags, deck of cards, and Ultimate Signature are the only pieces I still know where they are.
I did the same thing, no party 😂 and I also still use the shopping bags lmao
& as far as I know still have all of it, including the original box lol
@ Sadly, my box got wet in a basement leak a few years ago.
The Vista party pack included a tote bag with holes in it, exploding decorations, a puzzle which did not fit together, and a free Vista disc. If you were lucky, the Vista disc was already damaged so it would not even install. Also, if you won the $750 PC from the Vista party pack, that PC did not meet the system requirements to run Vista's Aero theme.
I had a friend at the time who was visually impaired and had a PC with Vista. It was given to her by Services for the Blind. Considering how difficult Vista was, it didn’t seem to help her very much. I tried to fix it for her, but to no avail.
I signed up for this back in the day, and had friends that ironically wanted to attend the party, but I wasn't chosen. I was so bummed out, but we still got together and had a party.
For me, the most interesting marketing move by Microsoft for the launch of Windows 7 will always be when they chose an small town called "Sietes" (similar to Seven in Spanish) in the region of Asturias in Spain to film an advertisement, the small town had around 40 inhabitants in 2009. There was actually a campaign for promoting Linux in the same region in response to that event.
I cannot even imagine how strange that must have been for the people living there. Incomprehensible vibes. On the bright side, all 40 of them now have a good response for “tell us a fun fact about yourself” icebreakers.
Microsoft thinking people would throw parties, where people just set time limits on their computers, is peak Steve Baumer Microsoft.
How drunk was he, lol.
permanently, A LOT.@@smalltime0
@@smalltime0developers developers developers developers developers developers developers developers
Coked up, you mean
I would've thought he would throw DEVLOPER Parties.
The fact that this it wasn't "how can Windows improve your house party" but instead it's "let's have a house party about Windows" is the kind of unhinged marketing that I miss.
"How long do you think people are going to want to sit around a computer watching you do stuff with Windows 7?"
Umm about 18:13 I think.
Even more than that if you think about all of his videos 😂
2:01 We've devolved from "Make it yours" to "We'll make it as we want and you can't change a thing"
Oh what a world we live in with Windows right now…
@@courtneymertz4596what if I overtake Satya Nadella and revert back 15 years?
@@Emayeahyou might have some trouble with that, but go ahead 😁
The realm of Linux is the ultimate "make it yours" these days. I suppose it always has been. But Linux in the past few years have made major strides to be actually usable for the commoner.
@@Jojje94 except lately with the foundation drinking the cool aid and getting political. Torvalds removed the Russian mainteiners who were a work horse, while keeping the huawei employees. And Debian made a post that was some racist shit.
Oof 15 years old? my back hurts and I feel old af now. I remember back in 2010 we were still Windows XP, as much as our computer instructor wanted to migrate to Windows 7. Our school computers weren't able to handle the minimum requirements it needed. We only started to use Windows 7 in 2012 cause we needed to use a 64bit version in order to be able to use more than 4GB of RAM. (kind of a late transition I know but either that or it's nothing) Windows 7 and Windows XP will forever be the OG GOAT OS for me haha.
My dad was one of the people selected, he got it just to get the Win7 disc and license. He just took the 64-bit disc out, then put the party box and everything else on a shelf for a decade before giving it to me later, so as far as I know all of the box's contents are mint except the discs. Always thought it was a neat artifact from a bygone age of progress and hope in OS development. This video is already up, but I could get some photos of its other contents, if they might be useful.
Microsoft was genuinely cool back then, even their poorly received products like the Zune were amazing, Xbox 360 and Windows 7 were excellent.
I love how modern the Zune UI looks by today’s standards. The first time I saw it was a couple years ago, and I couldn’t believe how closely it matched Microsoft’s current design language
Zune's UI has not aged a bit. Also, isn't that puzzle from some of those weird Zune wallpapers?
I got a house party kit for Windows 7. Got the box with all the goods and that ultimate edition. I dragged my old HP Computer into my kitchen, and used the Windows Media Center to play music and music videos while we all sat around and had just a normal friends hangout. I never submitted pictures or anything like they asked, and, like you said, at the end of the day, I got a free copy of Windows 7 Ultimate!
Windows 7 is that old? I think I need to go take my back medicine now
Ironically funny I'm reading your comment while stuck in bed because I pulled my back from sneezing too hard earlier and now I can barely walk... I'm in my thirties...
@@Candisa I'm 25 and have a bad back. I hope you make a swift recovery
@@ozzie_goat I hope you make a swift recovery
Get off my lawn you noisy kids!
It's the same age I was when I used Windows 7 😵💫
It's the Windows 7 Tupperware Party or Windows 7 Pyramid Scheme edition 😆
Windows 7 masque.... er... never-mind.
"House Party", should have been a HOUSE LAN with Windows 7 stuff hung up. Now that would be cool. Imagine the photos haha, Quake being played late into the night on your new Win 7 installs with some buds over pizza and beer. Now that's the life, aint it?
You finishing the Windows 7 puzzle before the Windows 7 install is done-ish is absolutely amazing, even with the time-wasted camera setup
The race between you doing the puzzle and the installation was way more engaging than I ever expected. Such a nail-biter!
4:55 - Oh gosh, even knowing that Microsoft even for this time mostly was corporate. Even those words kinda make me sad. Because you don't see any warm words from their products anymore..
Free copy? You paid with your dignity.
I really liked Windows 7 since I was very little, I liked the aero themes and using programs to do something. also I own one of the windows 7 signature edition copies... except I bought it used from ebay back in 2023 and installed it on my HP Computer. Happy birthday Windows 7.
Windows 7: House Party was a good content pack but I think Windows 7: Hot Date was more fun to play
I remember the Windows 7 launch like it was yesterday. Doesn't feel like 15 years ago.
And I remember watching the House Party promo back then and thinking it was a joke, but sure enough it was an actual thing MS did!
i never heard about that anywhere up until this video michael
looks like a fever dream of marketing department at redmond to both promote and push marketing onto customers and a sort of corporate approach to what did ubuntu back in these days with their free live cds distribution. knowing how windows was and still is perceived i cannot imagine hosting a dedicated "party" to it...
still, i believe that nothing will beat "wow is now" campaign for windows vista when it comes to weirdness - it was indeed a shape of things to come for this company.
So much arm during the puzzle assembly. 😮 That might be the most I've ever seen of Michael.
Lots of ARM for a product that ran on Intel.
I was one of those hosts(it was a flop) but I still have the signed version of windows 7 ultimate!
It's crazy to think that social media has replaced the idea of throwing a party to show your friends/family something. I don't get invited to MLM parties anymore, I just get crypto scam ads instead :(
I anyways was a silent child, and grew up mostly socially anxious. so I rarely even hang out let alone parties :(
Happy Anniversary Windows 7! You will forever be in my memory for being my first OS that I used when I was like 5. You are the BEST OS! Love WINDOWS 7!!!!!
Ain't no party like a windows 7 house party
beat me to it
I was a recipient of this party pack. I still have most of it in box.
Whoa talk about a blast from the past! I have one of these packs, unused. I mainly got it for the free copy of Windows 7. I didn’t know if anyone else still remembered them.
I could absolutely see Michael hosting a Windows 7 house party.
Microsoft basically took the MLM marketing strategy and applied it here, short of making hosts sell at least 10 copies of Windows 7 at the party, and recruiting at least 3 guests to also host their own party (and on and on)
I got selected for a windows 7 house party box I still have everything in the box it was sent to me in. I did have a windows 7 party but I used the pub I worked at plugged my pc into the giant projector and we played games and got drunk. I am still using the signature edition of windows I got with that its just been upgraded to windows 11 now.
That puzzle solve during the exact amount of time to install was incredible!!
I was one of those who took advantage of this opportunity. I neglected to inform Microsoft at the time that my guest list included; primarily; my wife, our five cats, a number of tropical fish (all named, there were three Steve's (Balmer, Jobs and Woznick), a Bill (you guess?)a Larry (Ellison), a Chris (Curry) a Clive (Sinclair) and guest of honour Alan (Turing) a particularly large albino rainbow red tailed shark. Each as required received appropriate emails and replied confirming their intent to attend, excepting Bill, who had a previous engagement. I held on the goody pack for many years, losing in during a move in 2019. The party was a riot, with the consumption of almost a whole bottle of gin (that that was about average for a Friday at the time), much kit and kabodle, and a fair amount of dried blood worms. Sadly, I am the only survivor, not as a result of the party, but merely due to the passage of time. However Microsoft did get their money's worth, I must have purchased at least a dozen copies of Windows 7 as a private individual and a couple of hundred professionally.
please host your own launch party. 15 years late is better then never
It was with regret that I waved goodbye to my faithful Windows 7 computer earlier this year. The CPU blew up. I held a wake with wine and cheese as I took the thing apart to rescue my Hard Drives. I now have a Windows 11 machine with which some of my older software and hardware will not cooperate. I have been tempted to find an old, unloved machine on which to install Windows 7 for the sake of nostalgia.
Imagine one of these launch parties hosted by Steve Ballmer himself: _Developers! 👏 Developers! 👏 Developers! 👏 Developers!_ 👏
Incredibly sweaty Ballmer chanting "developers" has not left my subconscious for decades
Not even speed can make you go as nuts as Steve Ballmer
0:45 Notice how Madobe Nanami isn't here
Interesting. I don't remember anything about this specifically, but I do remember the commercials with the "Windows 7 was my idea" catchphrase. It really ticked me off at the time because I didn't personally give any input to its development.
I signed up and got this party kit years ago, got the entire kit and ended up framing the puzzle.
But I completely forgot about this entire kit. Thanks for the flashback!
The PDF being basically Spongebob's Plan Your Own Party Kit is pretty funny
Windows 7 was just a different time. I guess XP was the first OS I used on a PC, when I got into college and needed a PC. Vista came, and I skipped that, we know the story there. But there was so much hype for 7, with everyone scrambling for leaked builds (6801, 7000, the RC 7100, the RTM)--and I still have 6801 as well as 7000 on one of my drives. I remember hearing all about these house parties, and I guess it was understandable at the time.
I remember that. Did most of the beta and RC testing programs leading up to launch day.
The house party pack also came with 4 different color streamers representing the colors of the windows logo. Overall, it was a great kit but they did make a bold assumption that as a computer nerd, you actually had friends. 😂
This is when M$ was pushing "the social"
Mid to late 2000's "social" media took off and everyone pushing 'human face', 'community', 'social' and other crap left and right.
Imagine Windows 7 or Vista installed while saying « Welcome to the Social »
zune installer
welcome to the social
@@regav62To be fair, they tried, and it was not cringe.
0:18 This is really how corporations think regular people act.
As great as Windows 7 was (being the last version of Windows that was actually decent), this seems like the sort of party where the punch bowl will inevitably be spiked and people will end up just playing PlayStation.
I love the group photo at 13:50. It looks like the guy on the left is showing a shock site to his buddies. It would be very 2009.
It's meatspin.
Yes! At that time I signed up for the House Party for Win 7. I got to photograph my friends posing with the puzzle, the bag, the DVD!
It was fun and I got the signed edition which can only be activated once. I still have it and I tried last month to activate it again but it won't.
Fun times!
15th anniversary to Winows 7 and Server 2008 R2.
Windows thought fondue parties were still a thing in 2007 🤦♂️
Well, they've been doing BASIC, DOS and various OSs since 1979 so, when they last left the house, they were.
14:01 Exactly what I did. Thanks MSFT for the free product key that lasted me so surprisingly long. I think there were some balloons or something in the kit too
I couldn't think of anything farther from a house party than spreadsheets and database software. 😎
Maybe when Windows 2000 turns 25 next year, maybe he'll do a development history video.
Would be awesome considering we haven't gotten a scripted video in years.
Would be cool
Actually, 2000 came out at December 15, 1999, so less than two months left before that.
@@commentarysheep December 15, 1999 was the release-to-manufacturing date. February 17, 2000 is the actual release date.
This party stunt tells you how out of touch Microsoft has been with their core audience for longer than we think.
Hi from an original Windows 7 house party host! A buddy and i both got selected, so we combined it into a Win7 Lan Party at our local church. Pretty sure i've got some pics of it still. I do still have the puzzle, couple of bags, and still sealed napkins as well.
This is exactly the kind of thing Bizarro Jerry and his friends would do
Lol wtf that's an insane marketing scheme. Love the video. They do not need to all follow the same format
11:30 absolutely killed me
I remember this! My friend signed up for this in college, mostly for that copy of 7 Ultimate of course. Was such a weird idea from Microsoft to think that anyone would throw an actual party with it. A few of us gathered at his dorm to see what was in that silly pack but that certainly wasn't a party!
Happy birthday, Windows 7! 🎂🥳
I just installed win7 like 2 days ago on an older laptop. Updates works, old software works, everything is just fine.
OMG, 15 years. I..... am getting real old. I remember I was planing to do one of these as a joke. There's always 18 years!🥳
1:49 ughhh i need that bag IT LOOKS SO COOL
same with the poster,,, i love the poster fr
RIP Vista. 7, 8 and 8.1 were the Windows versions I skipped for a Linux only route.
But damn! Did I always find those Windows packages to look cool! Be it for XP, Vista or 7.
There's always a way for windows 7 to come back to life and support modern hardware, never perish. Happy late 15th anniversary to windows 7 and so long to it, I had lots of amazing memories with it and my family.
Microsoft wants so much for its userbase to be as fanatic as the linux userbase
A Microsoft Tupperware party? I'm in!
I had that turtle as my wallpaper for a while, such a weird and interesting wallpaper to include with Windows.
I got one of these in high school! I remember flexing it to all my friends in computer class since it came about a week before the official launch lol. Ive still got both the 32 and 64bit discs and all the party pack stuff! One of my favorite collectors items i own.
4:00 32bit os is all you need
Still using Windows 7 on my living room PC.
13:25 that reminded me of the scene from the office where it was like "IT IS YOUR BIRTHDAY"
Wow... My buddy got this party package. I still have some of the stuff laying around in my parents' house 😂
I remember these House Party things.
I got a pack back in the day (though I don't even remember how anymore) and needless to say, I never threw a party.
A party that was just me and my girlfriend seemed kinda useless. But, it was great marketing from MS.
I remember when they announced it, I tried to get one, but was not selected. Thanks for covering it!
I am using Windows 7 right now. Still feels very moderns in 2024 for me.
Wow, I have never seen those cool things before! I like the Windows 7 Characters wallpaper jigsaw puzzle in this video as it looks very cool. Nice work!
This is marketing at another level. Multiple even.
WINDOWS 7 is the one of the best os of all the time 😢
2:30 That ad transition was smooth as gravel 🤦♂️
Im so sick of ads. Put them at the end of the video
"Welcome to the party" Just like "It is your birthday." 😂
This reminds me of Sponge Bobs House Party. About to talk about windows 7 but gets locked out of the house. Then the guests all trash the house.
I got in on that. I invited no one. I was in high school. A bunch of free windows 7 merch and a free key for windows 7 ultimate. I still have some of the tote bags haha