Microsoft releases barely visible logos

Update: Microsoft has now updated the Windows Vista logo to a higher resolution. But screws up the Office 2007 logos.

Microsoft is following in Paul Thurrott‘s footsteps of quality preservation, and has released some new logos to their image gallery, showcasing the adverse effects of image compression even better than YouTube videos taken with a camera phone.

Microsoft logo low quality

It’s even hard to tell if this logo is registered or not. What’s that blurry spot in the bottom right corner? This comes from a portion of the “Windows Horizontal” 320DPI TIF logo at 100% without scaling. The 72DPI JPG doesn’t even load.The 72DPI version has been uploaded, but are tiny. And Microsoft expects publishers to use this in print? I think someone just took the 72DPI version and scaled it up with Paint.

But for the sake of not being sued, Microsoft, Windows and the (barely visible) Windows logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries.

Update: Upon further investigation, all the post-XP era logos have the same low quality 320DPI version. Only the XP logos are crystal clear in 320DPI.

6 insightful thoughts

  1. I bet they’d hate that the only tiff viewer on my computer is Apples Quick Time…

    They’ve probably uploaded these so they can boast about the quality of Microsofts upcoming technology release: 320DBI Vista Edition!

  2. I agree with you here, Long. Note that MS used to have vector logos on their “Image Gallery” website. Once they put up the Vista Logo a while ago, they changed all the others to these crappy formats.

    Also note that if you search Google for PDFs with MS logos, you can find them in vector format their. Ultimate quality, baby!

  3. lol yeah how ironic (was opening it up at work’s PC and it opened up in Apple’s Quicktime

  4. Once was enough, Long. No more posts about bad quality Jpegs.

    How about, say, some Vista RTM screencasts with sound?

    Kthx.

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