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Microsoft distances self from IE 8 puke ads

Windows 7 family pack grounded?

Apparently, puking about porn was too much for Microsoft's delicate sensibilities on Internet Explorer 8.

Microsoft has distanced itself from an ad fronted by TV's ex-Superman Dean Cain that featured a woman vomiting over her partner after she discovered the porn stash hidden in his browser history.

The ad has been pulled from Microsoft's official Better Browser web site and its IE 8 channel on YouTube. You can still catch the ad on the rest of YouTube here or below.

Microsoft told CNET's Chris Matyszczyk: "While much of the feedback to this particular piece of creative was positive, some of our customers found it offensive, so we have removed it."

The ad was one of four in Microsoft's Better Browser campaign of spoof 1950s informercials, and the point was to promote IE 8's private browsing feature.

While the ad featured a questionable quantity of hurl - even for one of the characters involved - it grabbed the attention. The ads as a whole, meanwhile, have played well online. They are a departure from Microsoft's usual dancing-like-your-dad attempts to be cool or beating you around the head until you get the message that we've seen in its efforts on sell Bing, Windows Vista, Vista-cum-Mojave, and lap-top-hunters.

Bootnote

Meanwhile, Microsoft refused to comment on reports it's planning an Apple-style family pack for home users installing the forthcoming Windows 7 on their domestic PCs.

The subject surfaced after it was found the software license terms of a leaked copy of Windows 7 Home Premium said 'qualified' family pack users could install one copy of the software marked as "Family Pack" on three computers in a house for people that live there.

Windows 7 Home Premium will be priced at $199.99 for a new copy and $119.99 for an upgrade, under Microsoft's pricing announced last week. Apple offers a family pack for OS X Leopard priced at $199 that can be installed on five machines, but that - in reality - is not limited, so it can be installed on more than five devices.

A Microsoft spokeswoman told The Reg: "We will continue to work with our partners and expect to have other great offers in the future as we lead up to and beyond general availability. We have nothing to announce at this time." ®

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