I wouldn't describe Microsoft advertising as misleading. Just really bad, and yes, typically unrelated to Microsoft.
I'm no anti-MS trollish Linux zealot, though I am a fan of free UNIX-like operating systems, and do loathe most every "product" to come out of Redmond. I don't spell Microsoft with a dollar sign, and while I sometimes refer to Windows as Windoze or WinDOS, I have no problem with its general existance, just so long as I don't use it. But Microsoft's ads just don't make sense.
I don't remember any older MS ads. I think I can very vaguely remember seeing Office and Windows ads in magazines in the mid 1990s, but it's all a blur to me; I don't remember any content. But they generally made more sense than the ones today.
The ones currently being played on television in the United States are scary. Especially the ones for MSN. Like that one with an Asian family and their daughter's boyfriend, assuming that's who he was. For those of you who haven't seen it, it's kind of hard to explain. There's this little Asian hut stereotype and odd Eastern-sounding music. This girl brings a guy to her family, and they seem to disapprove of him. So then the guy goes to the computer, and checks his stock quotes on MSN, and the elderly Asian man (presumably father) lets out a loud scream of approval. I don't get it.
Then there are those MTV's-Real-World-style DotComGuy-ish ads they used to play, where they had a bunch of people who've probably never used a computer in their life share a house with MSN... Umm, nice try, but it's not funny.
And the Windows 2000 commercials with the relatively-monotone voice talking about Windows having no emotion, with a static picture of a server room.
I think
advertising in
general has declined, not just
Microsoft's. Advertising has declined with the
intelligence of your average
American. All advertising is
stupid these days.