Online videos that Microsoft posted at MojaveExperiment.com to combat negative perceptions of its Vista operating system.

Deserved or not, the Windows Vista operating system gets a bad rap. But Microsoft’s recent effort to repair Vista’s reputation did not win any rave reviews, either .
Last week Microsoft posted videos at MojaveExperiment.com of a test involving about 140 randomly chosen computer users who had low opinions of Vista. These users had no experience with it, so they were shown what was said to be the company’s new operating system, called Mojave. In nearly all the cases, they liked what they saw .
At the end, they were told that Mojave was really Vista.
The videos show the shocked reaction .
‘‘Wow, really?’’ many of them sa id .
On theWeb, however, many technology bloggers had a different reaction .
‘‘Microsoft thinks you’re stupid’’ was the heading of a blog entry on the site of the Canadian magazine Maclean’s .
The blogger, Colin Campbell, wrote that ‘‘Microsoft seems to be shifting blame for its bad PR problems over to their customers.’’ Like a blind taste test for coffee or soft drinks, the Mojave Experiment is ‘‘a clever test that demonstrates nothi ng,’’ said Bob Garfield, a columnist for Advertising Age magazine and host of ‘‘On the Media’’ on National Public Rad io .
If a product has a bad reputation, it is not because of faulty perceptions, Garfield said. It is because of a faulty product. Vista, halfway through its planned three-year life cycle, has drawn more scorn than most major software products do. People have found it hard to set up. Users have complained that it saps memory and that installing drivers or applications is too diff icult .
Microsoft executives have been telling reporters in recent weeks how much Vista has improved. The company says that with 140 million copies sold, it is Microsoft’s fastest-selling operating system .
According to Microsoft’s internal research, 89 percent of users say they are ‘‘very satisfied’’ or ‘‘somewhat satisf ied’’ with the product. Nevertheless, many bloggers had problems with how the Mojave Experiment was conducted .
The main complaint was: Is 10 minutes of watching an expert demonstrate Vista a valid basis on which to assess it? One problem with the videos is that many of Vista’s problems have involved setting it up and installing drivers and applications. But in the Mojave Experiment, the software was preloaded, so that aspect of Vista was not tested at all .
The site showed ‘‘no videos of connecting new devices, attempting to get on a Wi-Fi network, or tunneling into wo rk ’s VPN,’’ or virtual private network, noted Adam DuVander of Webmonkey, a developers’ s i te .
All these complaints are based on misunderstandings of the Mojave Experi ment’s purpose, said Ben Carlson, the chief strategy officer for Bradley & Montgomery, the branding company Online videos that Microsoft posted at MojaveExperiment.com to combat negative perceptions of its Vista operating system .
that conducted the experiment. ‘‘It ’s not about saying Vista is perfect, or that all these people fell in love with it,’’ he said. It was meant to show that ‘‘w h at people have heard about Vista is different from the reality.’’ The 10-minute demonstration was ‘‘a fair representation of the operating sy s te m , ’’ he said, though he did agree that ‘‘an operating system is something you live with.’’ He also said the videos were not the end of the story. ‘‘A lot of what people have complained about will be addressed as it evolves,’’ he said. ‘‘The experiment will continue.’’ Microsoft itself declined to comment.