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Microsoft Sued Over Vista Marketing
daviddennis writes "According to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, a lawsuit alleges that Microsoft engaged in deceptive practices by letting PC makers promote hardware as 'Windows Vista Capable' even though they knew it could not run most of Vista's widely-promoted features. Microsoft responds by saying that the differences have been promoted with one of the most extensive marketing pushes in company history. 'In sum, Microsoft engaged in bait and switch -- assuring consumers they were purchasing Vista Capable machines when, in fact, they could obtain only a stripped-down operating system lacking the functionality and features that Microsoft advertised as Vista ... As a result, the suit said, people were buying machines that couldn't run the real Vista.'"
MS gouging its customers?? Say it ain't so...
1 GB ram is the minimum for a responsive experience with windows .. especially with the required anti-virus running.
The should start off at 1GB. PC makers lose credibility selling systems with less than that because the experience is going to suck.
Vista Home Basic includes the "core experience," which means Microsoft admits that the rest is useless window dressing.
Hey... which version comes without the DRM feature?
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
Uh, the only 'feature' less powerful PC's won't be able to take advantage of is the eye candy...big fucking deal...I suppose they're going to go after game makers too for all the games where machines meet the recommended requirements but can't run the games with everything maxed out?
Yeah, again, 640k will be enough for everyone.
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
The fact is that the vast majority of users don't need a hog like Vista for anything they don't already use XP for, making an incentive to upgrade almost nonexistent aside from having the latest Shiny New Thing(tm). Making Vista seem more attractive would be the only way to get grandma to pay $500 just to be able to send the same emails at the same speed.
I think that Microsoft is being wrongly sued in this, and I bet the suit will be thrown out quickly enough.
Basically, what it seems to be is a consumer thought that "Windows Vista Capable" meant that the computer would be able to do all the pretty things that Microsoft portrayed in ads.
To me, this is a little bit like suing because even after buying a bag of chocolate chips, you couldn't make cookies that look as nice as the ones on the package. Or even, for that matter, that even after buying an SUV, you are not suddenly scaling mountains in the wilderness.
I don't think that Microsoft was concealing anything. They were advertising a product with its niftiest features, but I think that about 15 minutes of research would have let someone know that they couldn't use the Aero interface. Microsoft used marketing and advertising to make their product look the best, that isn't the same as cheating someone.
Hopefully I didn't put any [] around my words.
That's what happens when you market stripped down versions and feature full versions at the same time. It's like being promised a BMW and getting a Honda instead. Most average users don't understand all these differences and the sales person happily told them "Vista will run on it" to make a sale.
Microsoft may or may not win this one but regardless, the damage is done as far as end users are concerned.
Just look at the features that were promised for it that were later dropped.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
Can everyone please just stop suing everyone?
I am so sick of lawyers.
I'm a big tall mofo.
Look, I hate Windows.
...but the core of an OS is NOT the graphical fluff. They didn't mislead the customers with the "Vista Capable" stickers, the machine IS. If you applied this standard to -any- software it would be in trouble. Take games, for example. "Runs best on ATI"? "System Requirements"? If I ran most FPS games with the bare minimum, my gaming experience with them would be, say, about the same as the users buying stripped down PCs to run Vista. You don't buy a cheap 4-banger and expect a race car, and although the cheaper car can go 70mph, it's not going to feel as nice as a Ferrari doing the same thing.
I run Linux exclusively and in general throw punches at Microsoft when they're valid.....
This is total stupidity. Most software dictates a "minimum hardware requirement", thus any computer that meets it will run the software. Will it run it in Maximum resolution with max framerate with best sound and video quality? Nope, but it will run it.
.... which makes it Vista capable" I'm sure PC Manufacturers were more then happy to slap a "Windows Vista Capable" sticker on anything that met the minimum to increase sales.
Once Microsoft said "OK, minimum specs for Vista are
If there is fault I don't see it as being Microsoft's fault anyway, how many software vendors put out a minimum hardware requirement that won't run the software adequately? Do we get to sue them too?
should be enough to hurt MS!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
This one, but it's not done yet.
When you let stupid people buy computers.
You see a product with 7 different versions. One is named ULTIMATE, one is named BASIC.
Now really, if you buy the cheapest PC possible is it gonna run the most expensive software NO!
Now, on the other hand, Vista is looking more and more like a piece of bloated shite and I'm seriously looking at Apple. Now, before I'm accused of drinking the fanboy Kool-Aid, I'd like to point out that "Consumer Reports" lists Apple as the number one PC and laptop maker every year. Why? Quality of hardware is matched by Toshiba and HP (I don't know about now) BUT, Apple's customer service/support blows the doors off of everybody.
A recently helped my girlfriends uncle buy a new laptop since he's on the road a lot. We went the normal consumer route and went around town looking for the best deal. As a big Toshiba fan I kept my eye on those. To my surprise everywhere we went offered ONLY vista installed. Problem being when we took the machine home and booted, the machine is dead slow. It's a 2ghz machine with 1gig memory. (Not bad I run my own desktop with less, though I run linux) Just to boot this thing takes 5-10 minutes, and the user experience just blows. I dont blame Toshiba as I've seen and used many of their laptops and never had a problem. Just wish they would let you have XP instead of Vista if you wanted.
I've got a Toshiba Tecra notebook computer that proudly exclaims "Vista Capable". I'm not planning to put Vista on it but I ran the update advisor anyway. It warned me not to install Vista on it because it would be incompatible with my BIOS and I should get an update from the manufacturer.
All well and good, but who was making those stickers in the first place? As I recall, it was Microsoft offering them to manufacturers last year as compromise for Vista being late. As of today Toshiba still doesn't have an update for my machine (as far as I'm concerned, no Vista for me means it ain't broke).
Now whether Microsoft should be to blame instead of manufacturers slapping those stickers on everything leaving the factory is perhaps a better discussion.
More Twoson than Cupertino
Anyone been keeping tabs on the laptops at say BestBuy, CompUSA and Fry's and noting that the same old laptops seem to be there, but now they have vister blister AND sporting a price increase? Or, are they keeping the price unchanged, but hoping to move inventory?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I bought a monitor that has a "Works with Windows Vista" sticker on it but my Packard Bell still isn't cooperating.
Installing Vista Toaster Premium is a real smooth process - the DVD fits just fine in the slot. Unfortunately, my toaster manufacturer hasn't come out with updated drivers yet, so trying to eject the disc after the installation cycle is over is a real pain.
I know most (if not all) of /. is technologically inclined so it's unlikely a /. reader would be tricked in that fashion. Still though I think it is part of the customers responsibility to do a little research. Especially if you plan to drop $500+ on a new PC. Again though as it's been pointed out Aero!= Vista. It's a feature, "window dressing" as it was mentioned. It interacts with the OS about as much as Minesweeper does. It's not like this is the first time Microsoft has done something along these lines.
Shame on the customers for being uninformed.
Shame on microsoft for using "questionable" marketing.
-NJT
~Vexed and loving it!
..... Microsoft employees should be on the lookout for flying chairs.
This is my opinion. To make sure you don't steal it, it's covered by the DMCA.
It's what lawyers do, their sole function. (At least, professionally.) As such, it's in their vested financial interest to make sure that people sue each other as much as possible, even if that means for totally silly reasons.
As long as they continue to make lots and lots of money for doing so, and as long as our legislators continue to be disproportionately of that profession, it's not likely to change.
:-(
There is another aspect that the lawsuit is most likely going to cover and that is the crippling DRM built into the system. You have people buying supposed HD-ready machines with HD-DVD players and a nice big screen HD Screen and they plug it all up, put in a HD-DVD and...lookie..nothing. If I were to buy a big "Vista Ready" system that one of its main features is to play HD content, and then I find that Vista won't allow it, I would sue too.
So let's keep users like the one mentioned in TFA using Windows. We don't want them touching Linux. No siree. Not in any way, shape or form.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
I'm all for making Microsoft follow the rules, but at what point does this cross the line from "buyer beware" to "deceptive advertising"?
Car analogy time!
Car companies use phrases like "starting at $22,900" all the time in their commercials, when we know damn well that if you want power windows, A/C, a CD player, and a decent sized engine, you will be paying significantly more than that price. The "starting at" price is always the most basic model. I don't see any difference between this and advertising "Windows Vista Capable" and only being able to run basic version of Windows Vista. The computer is, in fact, capable of running Windows Vista.
"But wait!" TFA exclaims. "It can't run ALL of Vista, at least not all the features that Microsoft advertised as being in Vista!"
So? That same car commercial has the car making hairpin mountain pass turns at 65 miles an hour, probably with custom tires, a beefy engine, and a specially trained driver. Do those things come with the $22,900 car? Certainly not. Why then are these same people not filing suits about the Ford Edge not being able to climb buildings and park on walls?
I can't see this suit going anywhere. There is a fine line between letting a company advertise their products and forcing them to tell everyone how shitty their stuff is, and this suit crosses it.
For security, the MD5 hash of this message and sig is 09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0.
Is there such a thing as a reverse class-action suit? 'Cause if they're going to sue M$ for this, then they need to include the developers of every PC game ever made!
Everyone knows that trying to play a game on the minimum hardware is an excercise in frustration and futility. You need at least the recommended specs to run the game decently in most cases.
Even more to the point, modern games turn off resource-intensive features when running on older PCs; and since much of the hype around the latest FPS is centered on the advanced (read: resource-intensive) graphics, anyone playing "Half-Quake of Doom 37" on an older PC is missing much of the advertised experience. Micro$oft is simply copying the 3D game developers' design/business model, just as they copied the 3D idea itself.
All the Linux evangelizers who boast about how low the specs are to run a system on Linux. But then if you want something like, say, any kind of serious DB pushing (SQL), or number crunching suddenly the specs go up?
Advertising is all about making the most out of the least. If a version of Vista will run on a system, no matter how stripped down, then you get to call it Vista capable.
By the same point I am , to the best of my knowledge, marathon capable.
My car is baja rally capable.
My weenie dog is "burglar killing" capable. (Although the burglar in question would probably have to lay down very still, and rub meat juice on his neck or something)
Mildly deceptive? probably. Lawsuit worthy? no.
I'm a fiscal conservative, it's a pity we don't have a political party anymore
You know, now that you mention it, going after the game makers has merits.
No, I'm not saying it should run with everything _maxxed_. But I can think of games which are anywhere from completely unplayable (as in, crash), to a slideshow, to having to be downgraded to a pityful joke, on machines which meet the minimum advertised specs. Sometimes even on machines which meet the _recommended_ specs. And that I don't really find ok.
I can think of games which were launched with some advertised spec, but then some mandatory patch turned them into a graphics orgy that outright crashes the game or machine of someone who did previously meet the specs. One example is COH. When the graphics upgrade happened that put COH graphics on par with COV. I know at least one person whose (admittedly crap) laptop started to just crash to desktop when that graphics update hit. In spite of having previously been perfectly good to play COH, and still being perfectly good to play WoW. (And, you know, because it's a MMO you can't refuse to install a patch.)
I can think of games which were hyped for their supposed great graphics, except _no_ machine at the time of release could actually display the advertised graphics as more than a frame per second. (E.g., EQ2. It was launched at a time when the 9800 passed for the top end graphics card, and sorry, it wasn't anywhere near enough to play other than at a massively reduced graphics quality. And by massively reduced, I mean that even at a point blank range all detail on a piece of armour was turned into a blurred smear.) I'm sorry, I know that not all machines are created equal, but if _no_ computer exists at the time which can actually display those graphics, then don't fucking advertise it with the max quality screenshots.
Briefly, some truth in avertising would be a welcome change with the game publishers too, you know? Those specs on the box are rarely more than a joke pulled out of the ass by marketting. It has nothing to do with what computers run the game adequately, it just has to do with how big a slice of the market does the marketting department want to market to.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
This just in. Buying beer will not attract hot girls. Should we sue brewers? How about cosmetic companies? The makers of weight loss pills? Movie studios for making me pay $20 to see crap?
UNIX/Linux Consulting
This suit is silly and will probably be thrown out. The best result I can hope for is that hopefully in the future a few of the people bitten by this will be a bit more wary of marketing promises in general and Microsoft in particular.
25% Funny, 25% Insightful, 25% Informative, 25% Troll
Cars have different models, just like Vista. So when you see a car commercial, what do they do? They have fine print that says "Model shown is Base + All Options". Microsoft's commercials do not mention any "versions" of Vista. Just "Vista". So I can kind of see where theses guys are coming from, but still, quite frivolous, even for this MS hater :)
AirSpeak - http://itunes.com/apps/AirSpeak
What kind of new (or 1 year old) computer can't run all Vista features? For fuck's sake, Aero works fine on Intel GMA graphics chips! 512 megs of RAM will also be enough for most day to day tasks like office work or web browsing. And they don't even make processors as slow as the one I ran Vista on (with all features), a 2.6 @ 2.8 Ghz Northwood P4.
So... if the plaintiffs claim that the computers were advertised as being able to run Vista with all features, then I'm 99.99% sure the computer can run Vista with all features enabled and they're full of it. If, on the other hand, they claim that by "Vista capable" the ad meant that the computer will come with the highest, fully featured version of Vista, then they fail at comprehension and should STFU.
As much as I'd like to see MS suffer due grief over things like this, as long as one of the many flavors of VISTA isn't actually named 'The Real Vista'; 'Vista: The Real Enchilada'; 'The Real Chocolate, Anatomically Correct Vista'; 'The One True Vista'; 'Vista... The One You Want, The One You Need, The One You Can Buy Once and Never Have to Buy Again Until We Run It Into The Ground and Come Looking For Your Digital Wallet All Over Again'...no judge, jury or 1st tier retailer in the country is going to be interested.
You see, the 'consumer' can always take advantage of something called an 'upgrade'. 'Ready' doesn't mean what you or I or your naked partner thinks it means... if MS puts it in print, it means what MS says, and in this case, 'upgrade ready' is something MS can argue is one word too many for the hapless user to ponder.
Buy what works, not what is promised to work sometime in the future. Before you buy something do a little research. Does it satisfy your needs? If yes. Buy it. If not, then don't buy it.
If you want a computer that runs "real" Vista, and if Vista is not available at that time, then don't buy a fricken computer! Wait until someone is selling a Vista computer that suits your needs and then buy it!
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Consiering that Vista is really based on DirectX 10 graphics, and the only card that pretends to have it (Nvidia G8800) has virtually unusable Vista drivers, can any system claim to be full Vista Ready?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Matters are further complicated by the fact that what Vista actually is, isn't what they marketed. At least not initially, when they were marketing the beta for apparent years before the actual release. WinFS? And all those other features that'd have made Vista functional? Yeah, they don't exist.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I think the article was making the point, not about requiring turbo charged hardware, but about the dearth of drivers available for Vista. The lawsuit may have merits based on this because the operating system does have to work and support the hardware it is designed to support. Now, that isn't entirely Microsoft's fault as some manufacturers have dragged their feet. However, when your leading graphics chip manufacturers' drivers aren't really ready and your system is heavily dependent upon graphics, well, it stands to reason that a delay is necessary. This merit is, however slim.
I'd like to point out that Microsoft *did* in fact have "Vista Version X Compatible" stickers - just not in so many words. There was a "Vista Capable" sticker, as well as a "Vista Premium Ready" sticker, where the former indicated that the system would run Vista Home Basic, and the latter indicated that it could run Home Premium (with Aero) and higher. On that basis alone, this lawsuit doesn't hold much water, since MS did indicate to consumers which version was supported.
http://www.downloadsquad.com/2007/02/25/installing -windows-xp-pro-on-8mhz-pc-with-20mb-ram/
This machine is capable of running XP...but I wouldn't want to. Microsoft will probably win on the technicalities, but (IMO) ethically, they're in the wrong.
Stasis is death. Embrace change.
"Go for Linux, it runs on a 386 w/4mb RAM" ... and they show you Gnome or KDE running OpenOffice.
Take a quick look at this picture : http://flickr.com/photos/orbitrix/445285479/... Check out the benefits of owning a "Windows Vista Capable" machine. Pretty sweet, unless you want to, umm, use an application.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
...but car manufacturers do the exact same thing.
You will NEVER see the bare-bones no power-windows model being advertised in a car commercial. You will see the tricked out wipes-your-ass-for-you version. Sure, there is always a little thing in the corner of the screen that says "as shown, $30,000" or whatever...but computers are no different. Microsoft hasn't HIDDEN the requirements for Aero-enabled Vista, they just make you look for it a slight bit more (just like the car companies do)
You wouldn't buy a car without investigating it first, and plenty of non-gearheads buy cars every day.
If they are too stupid to do at least a LITTLE research into making their large purchase (in this case, a computer with Vista or a computer that claimed to be Vista-Capable) then too bad for them.
Granted, the salespeople at your local Best Buy or wherever might give wrong information as to whether or not a machine can run Vista with Aero enabled and run it smoothly, but that falls on the zit-faced salesperson, not microsoft.
Living With a Nerd
Someone on Slashdot being modded down for slamming MS and praising Apple...
The WORLD IS COMING TO AN END!!!!!
REPENT SINNERS!
What collection of features constitutes "Vista"? Only a full install with every option/feature?
At what point does the removal of features from Vista, is the software no longer "Vista".
I think that Microsoft will win this one because the computer industry has long accepted crippleware.
Crippleware (noun) - the removal the essential features while still claiming it to be a viable product.
Or read the Wiki version: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crippleware
Microsoft's ads make their customers believe that Aero is Vista.
If I advertise a brand of car for sale with a picture of that brand's high end model to a market which knows nothing of the brand's models, but then ship them a broken down beater of the low end model after the customer writes the check, wouldn't that be false advertising? Say my ad is for a brand new Chevy for $30k, and the picture is a 2007 Corevtte Z06... After you write the check, would you be a little pissed when they handed you the keys to an Aveo with only two spark plugs?
Entirely agree - if it runs Vista, it's Vista Compatible.
This would be as silly as saying my laptop is not "Linux Compatible" because, say, the network card doesn't work really well. I can still run Linux.
I fully support open source software, I am running Linux on my laptop as much as I can (and am as I type)... but it seems to have become an acceptable virtue to automatically bash Microsoft at any point possible, whether true or not. Even those that USE Windows because of functionality or compatibility still seem to think it's virtuous to bash it while they use it. That would be, to me, akin to an environmentalist bashing Hummers all the time while driving one. Hypocritical?
All that to say... it's not necessarily deceptive to say that something will run Windows if it will indeed run Windows, just not as well as a newer computer. That's to be expected. I can't expect my 2 year old computer to run Half-Life 2 as well as my new computer, at the highest settings. Actually, some settings simply won't be supported, because of T&L or antiscopic filtering because of hardware limitations - but I can still honestly say that my computer WILL run Half-Life. And nobody would accuse me of lying. Unless I was Microsoft.
Dress up your favorite penguin and finally stop complaining about MS. Own your PC. Stop leasing it from MS.
Windows Vista may be a worthless suite, but what I think you mean to say is that the legal action appears to be a worthless suit.
However, I'm not convinced by your argument there. While people may have been able to get a Microsoft operating system called "Vista" for a "Vista capable" PC, they could not get the features Microsoft was advertising as the selling points of Vista before it was released (and, therefore, at the time they were buying the "Vista capable" PCs). Whether the misleading effects of those combinations of marketing claims made by Microsoft (not just the "Vista Capable" logo alone, but it in combination with the claims made for Vista) was deceptive under the law is, I think, less clear than you would suggest.
It's capitalism at its finest. As soon as people stop relying on others to think for them, lawyers will have to take real cases.
I feel it has become the unfortunate duty (speaking from experience) of many people in IT sales, to stop trying to explain to their customers what is and isn't worth them buying for their needs and just try to guess it for them in order to achieve maximum satisfaction. Then pressure them to buy it on the basis that you *probably* know better than they do. This sucks because honestly, how often do customers tell the sales guy the whole story?
Censorship is the opposite of education. If neo-darwinism were defensible, people would not need to try and censor ID.
Yeah, no customers means no victims, class or lawsuit. Nothing is selling, ha ha.
They were advertising a product with its niftiest features, but I think that about 15 minutes of research would have let someone know that they couldn't use the Aero interface.
Vista has another feature that anyone might want?
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If a calculator is sold as capable of displaying nine digits, when said ninth digit is actually part of the model number that lines up with the display, you can expect the lawyers to sharpen their knives in mouth-watering anticipation.
If a floating-point unit is sold as capable of dividing two numbers with a certain level of precision, nobody is going to care that it's sold by Intel.
I don't think Microsoft is responsible for all the world's ills (only most of them), but it is totally responsible for misleading advertising. Remember, misleading doesn't mean "totally wrong". Indeed, most things that are totally wrong are NOT misleading. Statements that are totally wrong are usually just mindboggingly stupid and seen to be such. It is the statements that have enough of a grain of truth to not be outright lies that are by far the most dangerous, as those are the ones hardest to filter.
This does not mean Microsoft should be legally culpable, although I wouldn't cry if it was. I would be as far from upset as you could achieve without passing through infinity, if all marketing claims were required to have a very definitive, measurable, provable, minimal level of truth. It would also be the death of the advertising industry, but I'm not so sure I'd miss that, either.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I was pretty sure that Microsoft was creating the OS that ran on these boxes, and not actually producing the computers that users are buying. I can understand that people are angry, but I think that a large part of the responsibility should fall on the shoulders of the OEMs who have been slapping the label onto all of their products. Just as the summary says, the "Vista Capable" branding has been put onto the PC packaging and web advertisements.
A bit of deception all around, but really, what is advertisement if not a bunch of pretty lies and partial truths?
...would be to go to your local best buy/compUSA/frys/ and get a list of the computers they're selling as "Windows Vista Capable". then go home and do some research to see which computers' hardware actually has vista-compatible drivers available. ..hint hint...start with the laptops..specifically ones with geforce go 7 series GPUs..im sure your findings will be interesting...
At the risk of sounding like a conspiracy theorist, I just have to ask the people on this discussion thread: Have you noticed a significant degrading of performance with XP OS and XP Office since Vista became available? Almost immediately after MS released Vista, my PC (which uses XP OS and XP Office) became more unstable, froze more often, started requiring more reboots, etc.
Is this just me or has anyone else noticed this?
Well I would think this has as much if not more to do with the hardware makers as it does MS. They provided the stats to them and the Vista Compatible stickers and the system does live up to the minimum requirements that has always existed on PC software. If one installed XP on the minimum requirements when it came out they would most likely not be entirely happy with it. Many games fall under that too if this goes through what sort of presidence will it set for all future software (sorry but in fear of having a horible lawsuit we require you have the top of the line of everything to play our game or why does the new hot antisipated game look like a N64 game). Bill Gates didn't lie when he said Vista could be upgraded around 100 bucks the people filing this lawsuit are tring to define the features of premium being the OS and many of those are just icing on the cake and really ignore the meat of the OS.
The little sticker says "Vista" not "Vista Home Basic".
All the Linux evangelizers who boast about how low the specs are to run a system on Linux. But then if you want something like, say, any kind of serious DB pushing (SQL), or number crunching suddenly the specs go up?
It's hard to even begin to correct something as wrong as that. I'll make a short list and see if I can pick my jaw off the floor by the time I'm finished.
It's more like this: Vista fails to deliver while free software is running rings around it. The difference is obscene.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
If you buy from Lenovo, formerly IBM's PC division, they still recommend Windows XP professional over Vista, although Vista is selected by default (explain that). Perhaps the "Recommended by Lenovo" has been removed from the XP selection by now, or it only appears on computers without Vista drivers or something, but it's definitely still possible to get them shipped with XP.
You know those car commercials where they show a nice car with the nice engine, rims, heated seats, etc. and when they get to the final screen it shows a price and then in small type in tiny little letters as shown and it is 10 grand more, no different. You can get Vista and run it oh you want to run premium well you need a better system.
J
Basically it's called Vista but it works more like XP on most machines. After billions of dollars in development that's just plain sad.
I've hit this especially with TV tuner cards. They just won't work right, and you'll be transferred to Bangalore and told to (re)install non-working drivers if you ask for support. They have to know that they're selling non-functional machines, but they don't seem to care.
SFAIK, my friend is still waiting for a call-back as to when they'll have working drivers. He called sometime back in February. The machine runs like crap. I wouldn't touch Vista with a 100 ft pole right now.
Sure, we can do that. Just as soon as we work out this whole "social interaction" thing among us humans of different temperaments, talents, and convictions.
Whether you like it or not, our legal system is a fairly good way to work out disagreements. Yes, it has it's flaws like any system. But, on the whole, it is far better than duking it out with guns, gangs, or otherwise. I would much rather hire an attorney than hire an army.
If you think America is violent NOW, imagine what it would be like without any "legal", state-recognized way to work out disagreements. Do you really want to be in a system where the biggest gun wins? You would stand absolutely no chance in a system like that.
The EULA of Vista allows you to "downgrade" to XP. I found this out after I ran into the same problem for company machines. We couldn't find XP boxes to buy. Eventually we did but I later found out I could have just bought Vista and downgraded to XP. But -- I would have also had to install XP myself. That wouldn't work in my case but it might in yours. (sidenote: we bought from HP, specifically, because they offered XP. First time to ever buy from HP)
Take advantage of it and reuse your XP operating system.
http://www.menuetos.net/
someone has to have said this already. If not - spread the word!
doh! I mean the openoffice. MS = souless brainless bloatware so ouch of touch I have to throw up,
Blech! Blech! I hope I don't get hit by Vista at an intersection.
DIE MICROSOFT! DIE!!!!
Let me explain. The problem isn't that it was pixelated, the problem was that the only way to play the game at all (short of having a 512 MB graphics card, which didn't exist back then), was to start at the first or second mip-map where other games would have had the normal texture. Basically even if you bumped your nose into someone's armour, you wouldn't see the expanded armour texture, you'd see the first (1/2 texture size) or second (1/4 texture size) mip-map of it.
The problem there is that mip-maps invariably look like complete shit. They're an ok trade-off when rendering at a distance at which you'd have to reduce it by that factor anyway, but not when starting with them from point blank range.
A texture that's been hand-painted at, say, 512x512 pixels, generally tends to have contrast and edges where it matters. E.g., if my breastplate texture includes an articulated "skirt", the lines between the articulated plates will be crisp. It will actually look like an articulated piece.
A texture that's been painted in 1024x1024, or 2048x2048, and then rendered with all mip-maps bumped +2 (i.e., with the 2'nd mip-map at point blank, 3'rd mip-map where normally the second would be, etc) looks like crap. Now the lines between the same plates are thinner and drawn, basically, to look right in the original resolution. When basically you're first reducing the 2048x2048 texture to a 512x512 mip-map, and then render with that, the same skirt now looks like a smeared piece of crap. All those lines and shadows have been shrunk and filtered into being little more than some blurry gunk on top of a blurry texture.
In EQ2's case that was even worse. All details on armour were coded with shaders, for no obvious reason than to need more GPU power than really necessary... and look like crap on any computer with less than a _future_ graphics card. Armour textures -- and all other textures for that matter -- were some blurry mass-scanned crap to start with, even without the mip-mapping making it even worse, and the shaders pretty much added some detail on top of it. Once you disabled those, and on any machine less than absolute top-end you'd have to, all detail everywhere just disappeared.
To return to what my problem with it is/was: the game was advertised with some futuristic screenshots, featuring a lot more detail and shading than you could actually get on _any_ computer. That's, to my mind, nothing short of deception. People who bought the game based on those screenshots, couldn't _possibly_ get a similar image on their screen. People chose EQ2 over another MMO (take your pick which) based on some "woo, EQ2 screenshots look better" factor, but actually end up with _worse_ image quality than any other MMO on any realistic computer available at the time.
Now I'm not saying that people _should_ buy a game based on screenshots, quite the opposite. But some people do, screenshots sell, and this was nothing short of gaming the system.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
...just a guess
My turnips listen for the soft cry of your love
I personally had to upgrade my video card twice before I could get the aero glass theme. Like others have said, if you don't have at least 1gb of ram (I repeat, at least) then your system is going to run like a snail. MS definitely deserves what it has coming.
"Go through the interactive demo for MS Vista "Wow starts now" and click on the "Easier" link (magnifying glass). Funny how the "3D flip" feature is displayed here without any sort of qualification on the product level or hardware level needed to use it. Even automobile advertisements include a note showing that some features are not "base model". While it may be obvious to advanced computer users that these features will require more system resources, the average PC user is not so educated to understand that the low end Dell they bought can't run the "Wow"."
This is the way MS always tries to pump up the PC manufacturers who make more profits on selling high-end Vista Premium Ultimate systems than Vista Home basic cheapos - sort of the old you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours theory. And yet, you can build an Aero (Vista Ultimate) PC yourself for a little over $500.00 dollars (USD), thus avoiding the hype on buying an expensive OEM system.
Slashdotters could build this in their sleep with a rusty tweezer (although they might decide that building a Vista box would be more like a nightmare).
"Let us raise a standard to which the wise and honest can repair" - George Washington
(if you would) - it's the only post in this thread (so far) that's actually referenced consumer law - which is the issue at hand - and given some background.
Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Because issue lays in capability to run Aero, which requires Shader Model 2.0 in hardware.
If SM 2.0 compatible video card is part of system, any modern hardware with 512MB of RAM would run all Vista features just fine.
However, intel enjoyed dominant market share in integrated graphics segment for years, and did next to nothing to keep up with trends. Until 2006, there was no intel graphics that would support hardware Transform and Lighting (TnL) which is technology from year 2000. Right now, only last generation of intel graphics has some SM 2. support, enough to run Aero.
In result, anybody trying to do anything 3D with intel card was laughed upon. Since regular consumer has no clue what SM 2.0 is, he buys the machine, and then figures there's nothing he can do to run Vista in full glory.
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windows
09:F9:11:02 - 9D:74:E3:5B - D8:41:56:C5 - 63:56:88:C0
"Vista capable" means "will run vista". These machines run a version of vista.
If you're too fucking stupid to realise that your shitbox $500 pc won't run the most advanced software on the market, do the world a favour and don't breed... don't go trying to blame others for your own stupidity. Then again, finding a method of blaming others for your own stupidity seems to be a cornerstone of the US legal system...
(cranky this morning)
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Anybody with half a brain could have read the materials on vista capable and vista prem, it has been out there since well before nov. of last year. if the store didn't display it properly then it is a store issue. And I know as a consumer I research more than the likes of Best Buy (two prices to show the consumer once they are in the store)
Douglas
I think Dell knew this was coming. A few months ago, before Vista was hit general availability, we started getting a new addendum sheet in the literature kits which come with our new Dell PCs at work. It basically was a full page legal disclaimer about how the "Windows Vista Capable" sticker didn't really mean squat. This was one of those sheets they run off and stuff in the kit because they need to add an Important Note in a hurry. If think of how many PCs Dell ships, adding something like that is no small task. So I'm guessing someone somewhere complained loudly, and a Legal Department thought the complaint was legitimate enough to issue a disclaimer.
The question is: Was it Dell's Legal Department that thought it was legitimate, or Microsoft's? That is, did Microsoft issue a warning to all their big OEM customers that these "Vista Capable" stickers were a recipe for trouble?
Inquiring, tin-foil-hat-wearing minds want to know.
dragonhawk@iname.microsoft.com
I do not like Microsoft. Remove them from my email address.
If you're too fucking stupid to realise that your shitbox $500 pc won't run the most advanced software on the market
What does "the most advanced software on the market" have to do with this topic?
I mean, my shitbox $500 pc runs the most advanced software on the market just fine. Not that I've upgraded my old mini to Tiger yet, I'm waiting to see what Leopard has to offer.
The sticker would also explain that some consumer devices (such as cellphones, voice recorders, printers, etc.) will not EVER work with ANY version of Vista and will also have to be replaced. But, of course, that's all part of the getting cored by Vista experience, which is why none of the above (not even the full quote from the parent post) appeared in the "Vista Capable" sticker.
3 things about computers: they're alive, they're self-aware, and they hate your guts.
From TFA: "Anybody who purchased a PC that had the Windows Vista Capable logo got the core experience of Windows Vista"
What would that be? Even more annoying pop-ups and lower performance than they got from XP?
2. Microsoft releases a multi version called Vista, which includes a cheap version.
3. Vendors scramble to make cheap computers so consumers will purchase them. They make hardly any high end models. Because the consumer is cheap.
The point here is that the consumer has been use to seeing those 500 dollar and below specials that the vendors have been spitting at them for years.
Now that Microsoft has made different versions, the vendors want their piece of the pie, and Microsoft wants the product to sell. meanwhile, the consumer is still thinking cheap. On a personal note, it is not Microsoft's fault if the consumer is to too stupid to first, find out the hardware requirements for Vista, and second, make sure the computer meets or succeeds those requirements. In other words... " You lazy good for nothing! You get what you paid for!"
Wow. Another attorney wants a settlement. Woop de do.
Aha, someone got it! Microsoft inadvertently shipped debug builds of Vista as the full release, leaving off all the necessary optimizations!
Thanks for that, now we can re-release Vista!
wow, how stupid are people getting to actually think that Microsofts marketing has ANY resemblance to truth or reality. Well, I guess they COULD have just been born yesterday. :-/
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
that was a laugh and a half when Bill Gates went around the world spewing that load of crap. Talking about misleading the public.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
I recently purchased a laptop with my girlfriend, since they don't sell laptops with XP anymore we got a brand new cheaper vista laptop. I assumed if they were selling a laptop with 512 RAM and vista home basic, the operating system would actually function. I suppose it does if you never need to multitask, but it is impossible to run two things at once. Lets say you want to edit a word document and listen to an mp3, the applications hang so bad switching back and forth that windows tells you they're not responding. If you open more than 4, such as powerpoint, firefox, word, and an mp3 player, the OS stops responding. I mean even with ALL visual effects turned of and NO extra processes running it takes 7 seconds for the right click menu on the desktop to show up.
Not even going to think about running antivirus software of any kind, the OS is "unusable" enough already. I'd love to hear someone say positive things about any version of vista with 512MB of ram, and a new (but slow) laptop harddrive.
IANAL (I am not a laywer), but shouldn't the class action lawsuit be against specific vendors that (unknowingly but anyway falsely) advertised their systems as being Vista Ready when they were not?
[your 233 MHz PII has snappy performing eye candy because] it doesn't run Win32?
That's only half true - Wine or Crossover Office does Win32 just fine, but I have no need for either.
my computer's CPU sits on less than 5% use when i'm just moving windows around. Less than Windows XP. Why? Because the video card is doing the work, not my CPU.
That might be true, thanks to the hardware drivers provided by Nvidia and ATI. I've heard that many of those non free drivers have problems, but you might have one that works. Free accelerated drivers would be nice.
The difference is not enough to make me want non free software, especially when it's such a crap shot to get performance worth the investment. I can watch movies and that's good enough for me. No one ever promissed me better, and those broken promisses are what this article is all about. Free software has done what people told me it would do.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I expect some bias from some people, but the machines said "Vista Capable" because Vista comes in 4 flavors. The specs for Vista were out long before the actual operating system. It can run the most basic flavor of Vista, and if you didn't do your research on the capabilities of the system you're spending your hard earned money on, then shame on you, not Microsoft. Another case of Kwitcherbichen.
You mean it boots!
I think they made a mistake in the pronunciation, it should be Windows Fester.
Bitter and proud of it.
Considering that it has been around for like 10 years, it'll take another 15-20 years before it goes 1.0.
I actually agree with the general concepts here...
As anyone can tell from my posting history, I am quick to step in to correct wrong or ignornant comments about the NT architecture and the Slashdot myths of Vista, as most people really have very little technical understanding of either.
However, Vista Home 'Basic' should NEVER have existed. MS really screwed up here, they should have just made the Business version which doesn't install games and non business features by default and Vista Ultimate for home users. They could have moved their pricing model so that Ultimate was provided at the Home Premium price and not only made more money, but gave users more features and not caused the version confusion that exists.
Businesses usually get the need for a different version, and the Business version of Vista is a good idea as it doesn't install the 'toys' by default. However, home users should not be put in the position of choosing a version, especially when there are 3 versions for the Home Market.
(Home Basic = Vista Core without next gen Video subsystem enabled)
(Home Premium = Vista that meets the needs of 95% of the users) and
(Ultimate = The complete OS with both business domain features and all the home toys, and the toys that used to be part of the Plus Program.)
There is no reason the Ultimate License and the Business license couldn't have been available at a comparable price point, and just not screwed with the other versions.
This is the MS marketing and logic that I refer to as the Steve Ballmer side of thinking, something MS would never have done when he dind't have the control or his mindset in control of things like this.
I can almost understand Vista Home Premium, but Vista Home Basic truly denies users of most of the features that make Vista a true benefit over XP. Sure the kernel is optimized, the caching is brilliant, new audio, new network, the graphic subsystem sees some benefits even in Vista Home Basic, but by not including the accelerated features of the new GUI subsystem 'aka Aero/Glass' they are screwing users as this is a major performance gain even in desktop applications.
And don't forget gaming for DX10 that depends on the WDDM/Aero model. So in theory DX10 games running on Home Basic will probably fail, as DX10 expects the full GPU scheduling and GPU memory sharing that is what makes Vista a next generation OS for Gaming and Graphics.
Sadly one of the desgin goals and beauty of the NT code base was the unified structure for all classes of users and business from the home desktop to the massive servers, all sharing a common modular kernel and code base.
MS still has this, but their marketing and business idiots screw this up by disecting Vista into 5 versions for just the desktop. Why even keep a common code base, especially if you are going to turn off features in Home Basic that are 'architectural' in nature?
I hope MS loses and they re-consider the whole Vista versioning mess and at the very least pull Home Basic from ever being sold again.
Attention Everyone:
Anyone out there that is actually considering a new computer with Vista installed, DO NOT BUY a computer with anything less than Vista Home Premium installed. PERIOD.
Fortunately, most of the computers and laptops you find that have Vista preinstalled at places like BestBuy are using Vista Home Premimum.
It does seem the market has already spoken quite loudly about Home Basic and MFRs and retailers are getting the hint to not even bother with Home Basic already.
and other OEM's.
It's the shiny new crappy Dell box that says it's "Vista Capable" when it's Dells job to make the sticker say "Vista Basic Capable" or "Vista Ultimate Capable".
The OEM's are the ones misleading not MS. MS website clearly states the differences between versions. Vista ads are (of course) going to show "best of", find me an ad campaign that shows "worst of".
Vista has features built into it that makes use of un-used memory. Personally I have 2 gigs of ram and my system is usually using 40% of it while idling, it could be 99%, I could care less its not like I need it. I know you were making a joke about using 'so much' memory while doing nothing, but do your homework on how Vista makes use of unused memory.
I would also sue Microsoft if they successfully marketed Vista to me.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
sorry cant cough up any mod points for you but very well said...
and I hate vista with a passion
-- I am the NRA, enough said...
When the Apple people wanted their free Mac system, they got to work and BAM OS X happened. When the Unix people wanted a free Unix, they got to work and BAM, GNU-Linux-BSD happened. Open Solaris, FreeDOS, Haiku the free BeOS, even AROS the free Amiga. Yet, with all the Windows users complaining about their platform and the high cost and how they're forced to use Windows and don't like it, to this day there is just one computer platform without its free equivalent.
.NET that, who spend all their time bragging about how they're such 1337 programmers that the sun bows down to them, the ReactOS project after ELEVEN YEARS is STILL sitting there at alpha 0.3, no help, no donations, not even any publicity. Every time I tell a Windows user about it, they've never heard of it before.
In spite of all the Windows users of Visual Blah-blah and
You know why, Windows users? Because you're all (think of a five-letter slang term for "cat")!
Linux users lay YOU
Make SELinux enforcing again!
"The customer is always right?" IANAL, but I am a business student, and from Day 1 I have been told that "you must always assume the customer has no idea and has done no research about your product or service. All they know is what you have advertised or shown them." Store return policies are built around this premise - look at where Best Buy has their return policy stated: on large, easily-spotted signs written in big, bold letters at the front of the store over the main doors. Retailers are demanded by law to do this, or some version of this, so that they cannot intentionally mislead the customer. To use a (somewhat) similar example of a good 'return policy', this evening I was in Applebees and ordered one of their 'new chef items' off of the menu. The food takes longer than usual to be served, and the manager brings it out and comments that this isn't exactly what I ordered (apparently they lost the recipe). If I wanted it, I could take the dish and the house would eat the cost of my meal, or I could order anything else off of the menu for half price and it would be out right away.
Why would it be so hard to hold Microsoft, one of the biggest commercial and personal OS producer/manufacturer in the world, accountable for this terrible, shoddy advertising? My own horrid Vista experience aside (not to mention their customer support), I can easily see how Joe User looks at all the pretty Vista commercials, spies a "Vista Capable!" sticker on that nice new computer he wants to buy, and gets totally screwed in the process because Joe User does not understand the difference between the versions, because Microsoft has not advertised that there is any difference between the versions on their TV ads. The car analogy is a great example, and I hope that the courts see this advertising for what it is: false.
During the time the Vista Capable stickers were being initially promoted, no one I know knew that there would be something better called "Premium Ready" or the term "core experience". I bought Sony's most expensive notebook that was marked "Vista Capable" and it is too short on video ram to do the premium job. I'm screwed.
What the hell are you talking about. Movies don't cost $20. Beer is one of the best things to attract hot girls in the right social situation -- which I suspect does not include being behind the keyboard posting Slashdot.
"Wow, where tf are the eye candies??"
"Wow, why tf the basic interface is so SLOW??"
"Wow, it used 500 out of 512MB of RAM?? the machine is trashing!"
"Wow, this Vista-Capable machine don't have DX9 GPU and 1GB ram, no Aero!"
"Wow, I think i am ripped off by macroshit propaganda again."
I'm pretty sure I would get the WOW, as in ...
WOW Bill, this thing is defective !
I was the recipient of part of a "settlement" in an class action suit against AT&T a number of years ago, and the settlement I got was an AT&T calling card with free minutes on their service.
My mom always said, "Jim, you're 1 in a million." Given the current population, there are 7000 of me. God help us all!
Sueing microsoft over windows vista capable stickers on machines not truely capable is like sueing an auto manufacturer over advertising an automobile as being forward motion cabable and then sueing the manufacturer because the car has a max speed of 10 miles an hour and doesnt have any brakes.
The "wow" ends now!
Pardon my ignorance but Microsoft makes Vista, afaik they don't do the marketing for dell; hp; any-other pc maker you can think of; so they can hardly be expected to say in their adds
.... *base model may not support all features as advertised"
"oh I'm sorry Mr. Doe that computer you just ordered online won't be able to run all of Vistas advanced time saving, innovative new features".
Its up to the people selling the computers to say "vista compatible*
Not that I go out of my way too support them, but Microsoft is in the clear as far as I can see. If you must sue the guys that mislead/mis-sold you're pc.
How's this one?
From Creative.com
"The Vista audio architecture disables DirectSound 3D hardware acceleration; resulting in legacy DirectSound based EAX game titles not working as they did in XP.
Issues that may be encountered:
Could range from loss of EAX functionality in EAX enabled games to a complete game incompatibility, depending on how the game title was authored. This would only happen with games that render 3D audio using DirectSound, it should not affect games that render 3D audio using OpenAL.
Status:
These issues cannot be addressed by the Creative audio driver, because the functionality was purposely removed by the operating system. We look forward to game titles moving away from DirectSound and toward OpenAL for fully optimized Creative 3D audio hardware and technology support."
Search support for Vista and EAX on their site to find this.
The issue is that hardware acceleration of sound leaves the audio exposed to easy recording, bypassing DRM. Great solution MS.
Not to smirk but I have three different Creative Audigy soundcards and am not worried about losing compatibility. What's my secret?
Steve