Fifty families from seven countries lived with Windows Vista for nearly two years as part of the largest-scale consumer research program Microsoft had ever undertaken before a Windows launch. In that time, participants say, life was good.

�Windows Vista has taken the whole concept of a computer and expanded it to something you can take out of the computer room and put in the family room,� says Thuy Shimizu, a Bellevue, Wash., resident who was asked to participate in the �Life with Windows Vista� program along with her husband, Brandon. �It�s not just an operating system; it�s a family entertainment system. I never thought that I would be taking my computer into my personal life. I�ve always associated computers with my work life. Not anymore.�

Microsoft credits the Shimizus and the other families � who were selected from focus groups and through various marketing methods � for helping design a system that is user friendly for all ages. Life with Windows Vista participants also helped identify more than 800 bugs during the two-year program, in addition to helping shape the software into what it is today by discovering and testing features that worked and didn�t work for them personally.

That feedback, says Trish Miner, research manager for the �Life with Windows Vista� program for Microsoft, was the point of their participation and critical to the development process.

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