Editor's Note: Put as many people who've switched before me as you'd like, Apple is still Apple. Not that Windows is great -- but I'll stick with a PC, thank you.

CUPERTINO, Calif. (Reuters) - Apple Computer Inc. AAPL.O on Monday launched an advertising campaign targeting Microsoft Corp.MSFT.O Windows users with testimonials from "switchers" who abandoned Windows-powered PCs for Macintoshes.

The campaign is Apple's largest since its "Think Different" series launched in 1998, the company said in a statement.

The move was also an aggressive bid to win over what Apple -- with around 5 percent of the U.S. market -- calls "the other 95 percent" of personal computer owners who use competing systems, almost exclusively Windows.

Apple did not detail how much it would spend on its "Real People" campaign, including magazine ads and television spots.

"More people are interested in switching from PCs to Macs than ever before, and we hope that hearing these successful switchers tell their story will help others make the jump," Steve Jobs, Apple's chief executive, said in a statement.

In one of the ads, writer Sarah Whistler, standing against a white background, tells the camera: "I get it. And I don't get the PC. I never did." She calls the PC a "horrid little machine."

Apple's market share has shown signs of stabilizing in the last year and a half as it rolled out a series of well-received, sharply designed computers, revamped its operating system and opened a national chain of stores.

That has restored some of the reputation it built in 1984 with the original, easy-to-use Macintosh that introduced the mouse and a what-you-see-is-what-you-get screen strong on graphics. Its products were less well received in the mid-1990s.

Apple also has increasingly turned its focus toward winning over PC users in addition to convincing fans to buy a new Mac.

"Apple has had very limited success persuading Windows users to move to the Apple platform," said analyst Charles Smulders of technology researcher Gartner Inc.

Apple's U.S. market share was steady at 3.8 percent in 2001 and 2000, and down from 4.4 percent in 1999.

Globally, Apple's share fell dropped to 2.5 percent in 2001 from 2.8 percent in 2000.

But Smulders attributed that contraction to relatively slow sales of its desktop computers, which Apple refreshed this year with its iMac consumer desktop, a table-lamp-shaped computer with a swinging flat panel display, and the eMac, a cheaper consumer desktop that is essentially a souped-up version of the previous iMac design.

"With its iMac and eMac introductions, Apple hopes to stem the market share losses it has suffered in the desktop market," Smulders said. "Apple is in a better position to gain share in 2002 than 2001."

Shares of Apple were up 8 cents, or 0.37 percent, to $21.48 on the Nasdaq at the close.