This desktop now brought to you by Coke.

Microsoft announced on Nov. 13 at the Monaco Media Forum in Monte Carlo the rollout of what it's terming "two new exclusive branding opportunities available on Windows 7": branded desktop wallpapers and gadgets created by the likes of Coke, Ducati and Ferrari.

For the pilot program, which will apparently run until October 2010, Microsoft is allowing only a "handful of brands" to plaster their visuals across Internet Explorer 8 add-ons, Windows 7 and Windows Vista-connected gadgets, Windows 7 backgrounds and borders, and "operating system audio elements."

What brands are on offer? Take a look for yourself by clicking here. I could see sports car fanatics--the same people who can't sleep unless it's beneath a wall-mounted Ferrari flag--being more than happy to affix their favorite logo to every available piece of desktop real estate. But a brand like Coke or Zune may be a far harder sell. I'm amused to see Fox is using the program to promote "Avatar," a little art-house film by some nobody director named James Cameron.

These brands--on top of the others that will likely sign up in months to come--are already plastered over roughly 75 percent of all the Web page banners, newspaper and magazine ad pages, 30-second TV and theater spots, bus-stop shelters, and t-shirt fronts on planet Earth. Good thing they're now invading my desktop, because I wasn't sure that I was exposed quite enough before.

I'm not sure this will work. People regard their PCs, along with their smartphones and portable media players, as very personal objects. They're more than happy to apply interesting skins to applications and wallpapers to desktops, but their willingness to paste a corporate brand onto those heavily individualized spaces extends only so far. Have you ever seen someone hang a Coke ad in the bathroom, or attach the Golden Arches to the roof of a car?

Some of those "Gears of War 2" themes look pretty nifty, though.