Tech Break

The box is colorful but nothing out of the ordinary. No, you can't know where I live without asking me first.

Here's what the box looked like when I first opened it. That's my bed by the way, in case you were wondering.

This is all of the smaller stuff in the package, as I got it, plastic wrap (iff applicable) intact.

The white thing at left is the rather large Windows 7 poster. The colorful thing on the right is, as it turns out, party bags.

Here's the poster. To give you an idea of the scale, its length is nearly the width of my twin-sized bed.

Here's the poster, horizontally.

Here are all the various promo fliers that came in the package. Ten each. This picture shows all possible sides of the promo cards (front, back and inside for the Corel one).

Same thing, but with flash. Maybe this one's more readable if you want to read exactly what the fliers say.

As I said, there were ten of each item. Ten Windows 7 promo cards, ten Corel cards...

...ten Norton promo cards, ten Kaspersky proo cards, ten Zune promo cards...

So here you've got balloons (three red, FOUR yellow, three blue, three green), some balloon tie thingies (?) and ten Nero cards. Yes, some are upside-down; it's not just you.

Here you have ten psychadelic-looking Windows 7 party favor bags. Hey, at least they're roomy enough to be used s a grocery bag...oh wait, nobody would do that. Or would they?

Three jokers, poker rules and larger-than-usual graphics. Otherwise the deck of cards isn't out of the ordinary (Steve Ballmer is NOT the ace of spades or the king of hearts).

The front of the card box is semi-glossy, as you can see by the reflection of my camera in the picture. Also, the backs of the playing cards are just as crazy as the design on the handbags. And, if you so choose, on your Windows 7 desktop.

Unfortunately, this shot is too also too blurry to read the poker sheet (cool idea, not unique to this since it's just a Bicycle deck). The back of the card box has the same back-of-card image on it. The 64-bit CD has "GENUINE" and "Microsoft" holographics on it. Steve Ballmer's signature is slightly embossed, but definitely just a copy.

You know the X-shaped foldy thingies you have on restaurant tables? That's what is at the top of this picture. The next picture shows the opposite side of the right card. The left card is the same on both sides.

This picture doesn't show it, ut both of the items shown (not the newspaper) are on the glossy side. That's the back of the Windows 7 Signature Edition package by the way.

Centerpiece. That's what you call that thing. Anyway, here it is assembled, with the 64-bit Windows 7 install disc.

Here are the two Windows 7 discs side-by-side. 32-bit was/is in the Signature Edition holder. As if the disc actually mattered...I'm betting Windows 7 will be ofered for download when it comes out.

Here's what it looks like inside the Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition DVD holder. The photo was taken from my desk, about three inches away from my iMac, which will get a copy of Win7 installed soon enough. No, you can't have my key.