Offline, however, the product introduction may have stumbled in trying to generate excitement with midnight store openings for Vista. Recently, the introduction of game consoles like Nintendo Wii and Sony PlayStation 3 drew crowds to stores for a day or more before the consoles went on sale. But within 40 minutes of selling Vista for the first time, CompUSA on Fifth Avenue in New York already saw its line wane to a trickle.  Long lines for new products can have a positive effect on sales by generating news coverage that persuades consumers that they, too, should rush out to buy something. Consumers are more likely to buy based on product mentions in news content than on advertising, said Steven J. Farella, president and chief executive of TargetCast, an ad agency in New York.  Many marketers have bolstered their public relations efforts in recent years and replaced some of their traditional advertising with events or stunts that the press is likely to cover, like Bill Gates’s appearance on Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show With Jon Stewart.” This reflects a shift in mentality from a top-down approach to a groundswell strategy, Mr. Farella said.  This time around, Microsoft also faced consumers who spend their free time with a vastly different array of media and entertainment devices.  “It’s harder to get people’s attention now because of media fragmentation and audience distraction, and it’s easier for people to ignore you,” said Chuck Porter, the chairman of Crispin Porter + Bogusky. “Mass media to a degree doesn’t exist anymore.”  Mr. Porter said many advertisers now focus on finding prime customers rather than blitzing all consumers.  In the online aspects of its campaign, Microsoft took a narrow approach. The company focused on three groups of Internet users with different interactive campaigns.  For young consumers who like to spend time on social networking sites, Vista introduced a Web site featuring the comedian Demetri Martin. Young people online did take a liking to Mr. Martin — his MySpace.com page lists more than 80,000 friends. Microsoft also sponsored a tour for Mr. Martin and a special on Comedy Central.  For more technically minded consumers, Microsoft created a puzzle game called Vanishing Point with online and offline events and clues; 90,000 people played the game, Mr. Williams of Microsoft said.  For a broader audience, Microsoft created a site for people to post photos and videos of amazing moments — or as Microsoft called it, “Wow” moments. About 20,000 people did so.  Retail analysts said they were not worried about Vista sales in the long run, despite the lack of apparent excitement. For one, they said, Vista is available in large quantities whereas the sought-out game consoles were produced in limited supply.  Also, Vista was available at 39,000 store locations last Tuesday, while Windows 95 was introduced at far fewer stores, which made crowds at any given location bigger, said Christopher Swenson, director of software and industry analysis for the NPD Group.  Mr. Swenson also said that thousands of people ordered Vista through Amazon.  “People can get it overnighted to them and delivered to their office,” Mr. Swenson said. “Why would anybody go out in the freezing cold to a retailer?”  A version of this article appears in print on , on Page C3 of the New York edition with the headline: Microsoft’s Vista Debut Wasn’t Nearly So ‘Wow’. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
The Vista release did not generate anything close to the excitement created 12 years ago when Windows 95 was introduced.