What's a Wow moment? And does the fact that the Windows Vista Wow is dead qualify as a Wow moment? But the fact of the matter is that the Wow has expired. Long live the 404! Windows Vista, Microsoft's latest operating system was marketed under the "the Wow starts now" umbrella. Designed to illustrate an instinctive reaction associated with the first experience of the "amazing, the incredible, the exhilarating" Windows Vista, the Wow was broadcast around the world in all forms of media. No less than $500 million worth of Wow saturated markets worldwide.

"Of course, a huge milestone for the industry is when we come up with a major new version of Windows. That was true for Windows 95, Windows NT, Windows XP, and it's perhaps most true of the breadth of things that we did in Windows Vista. Getting that out, launched the consumer version in January, was the most visible software introduction ever. We had over 3,000 broadcast and print stories. We had an ad campaign with the theme of "Wow." It ran in over 20 countries. And so for us it was record-breaking in every way. We got into 39,000 stores in 700 countries for the launch, and a lot of you participated in that, and we want to thank you for all the work in making that a reality," revealed Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates during his speech at the Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) 2007 in Los Angeles in May.

Gates is also the author of an invitation put forward before the operating system was delivered to the general public. In early January 2007, Microsoft launched the "Show Us Your Wow" website, designed to bring a global web-based competition to Vista fans. Gates wanted users to share their own Wow, life-changing moments. But no more. As you are able to see from the screenshot included at the bottom, or from visiting the "Show Us Your Wow" website, the Wow returns a 404 error: "page not found." Microsoft has quietly taken down the Windows Vista Wow...