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"Vista Capable" Lawsuit Is Now a Class Action
An anonymous reader notes an update in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reporting that the lawsuit against Microsoft's "Windows Vista Capable" marketing campaign has been granted class-action status. We discussed the company's internal misgivings with this campaign a while back. The suit alleges that "...Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as 'Windows Vista Capable' even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called 'Vista Home Basic.'" In the 2006 pre-holiday season, Microsoft had placed "Windows Vista Capable" stickers on machines to keep the sale of Windows XP machines going after Vista was delayed. Microsoft didn't lose out totally in the recent ruling — the article notes that the judge "narrowed the basis on which plaintiffs could move forward with their claims."
Since when is Microsoft selling PC's? Or did they send someone around to go put those stickers on the machines?
I'd have thought the hardware manufacturers would be the ones who didn't want sales to fall.
I remember the same sort of campaign when XP came out. The laptop I bought then had an "XP capable" (or something that sounded similar) sticker on the box, even though it came with ME installed and with a voucher for a cheap XP Home upgrade when it came out. After having upgraded it and having seen the performance under XP, I reformatted it and downgraded. Not to ME, but to Win2000, which it still runs fine.
I hate class action suits. They do next to no good for the consumer save for putting a couple (literally) bucks in the pocket, benefit lawyers almost exclusively and in the end make products cost more. I hate Vista, and I don't care for (and therefor do not use the products produced by) Microsoft but this is going to do little good in the long run.
AH! This explains the claim that Vista is faster than XP. All this time I thought it was just marketing nonsense.
Judge granted a class action status to a lawsuit of customers against a company selling an "under a thousand dollars" TV for $999.95
1. Honey, should we buy a new computer now?
2. No, Vista is about to come out, we should wait.
3. But this computer over here says "Vista Capable" on it.. we can upgrade when Vista comes out.
4. Ok, let's trust the advertising and buy now.
5. [time passes]
6. [more time passes]
7. [yet, MORE time passes]
8. Honey, Vista has finally come out.
9. You're fucking with me.
10. No really! Let's upgrade.
11. Ok, which of the 400 versions of Vista should we upgrade to?
12. Oh, seems that our machine can only run Vista Basic.
13. Those bastards!! Call the lawyers.
14. Meanwhile, the rest of the world makes it blatantly obvious that *all* version of Vista blow, not just Basic.
15. ???
16. Profit.
This did not really happen.
How we know is more important than what we know.
So people shouldn't be able to make manufacturers and vendors live up to their promises? Of ot saus "Vista Capable", with no limitations, no "fine print", no disclaimers, then it should be capable of running Vista - not some crippled version.
Recently bought a laptop that came with vita home premium. Look at the "Windows Experience Index", and am getting about 60 percent of what I could be. Brand new laptop, meets all recommended requirements (except video card) for vista ultimate, and I still only get a 60%. I also see computers that are less than a quarter as powerful as that laptop being sold with vista on them. There should be at least a minimum spec increase to certify the hardware as vista enabled. Like you can run XP Pro on as low as a 233 MHz core, with 128 Mb ram, and 1.5 GB of hard drive. It will run, just about as fast as the mold growing in Antarctica. It runs, but you can't do more than idle without it freezing up on you. Therefore, in my opinion, you should change the minimum system requirements so that you could at least open notepad within 5 minutes.
He's just a little sore from having to post quickly between crashes.
There are so many things in this world that fall into this similar pattern, but it's always (mostly) MS that gets hit with it. It annoys me, because the judges that OK these lawsuits don't have a clue about technology (mostly) and are making decisions based on guesses and their 'gut feeling' that day. It scares me because these same judges are dismissing real law, or not allowing things into the courtroom, arbitrarily (and again, depending on their mood)... As an example, I recently purchased a car stereo. It states clearly on the box that it's HD Radio Ready. It doesn't mention that I have to purchase equipment from the same manufacturer, which costs at least 50% more. It's also iPod capable (I don't own an iPod, and haven't tested this feature), but the cable is sold seperately. Another example would be car manufacturers...I've never tested whether my vehicle does 0-60 in 9 seconds, but no one would dream of taking Chrysler, Chevrolet or any of them to task for their obvious failings. I have to admit that I prefer MS products to any of the other OS flavors out there, so I may be a little biased. I just wish everyone would go about their business and leave the lawyers to find new jobs!!
But it is "Vista capable", just not "Full Vista-with-all-eye-candy-features capable".
As much as I dislike Microsoft products, I can't see how they have a basis for this law suit.
Is the machine incapable of running Vista? No, just the flashy bits that aren't a requirement of the OS. Did Microsoft have a separate designation for machines that could run Vista better? Yes, it was "Premium Ready". Is Vista completely unusable because of their system specs? No (or not any more than normal).
It isn't as if they've been sold a "High Def capable TV" that only has 640x480 res, they've been sold the equivalent of a 720i/p TV - it is capable of what is classed as "High Def", just not the really high HD because it is only "capable" of some minimum requirement to be called what it is called.
As a similar situation: Am I capable of running a marathon? Probably. Would I do very good at it? No, because I'm not ready, not trained and not fit enough.
People need to get a dictionary and learn the definition of the word "capable".
I have one of these "Vista Capable" computers. To be honest, I bought it because I knew what the sticker meant. Of course my intention was to run Linux (which it does, thank you very much). I mean, it was extremely cheap and that was the sole reason to buy it.
That's not why I posted this. The box did came with fine print (added later as a sticker), and I am still pissed that I didn't copy the whole text because it really basically said: "Don't run Vista on me".
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
No, but they do expect to be able to use all features. My laptop is Vista Capable (bought it because of the sticker, but not for the reasons you might think), but it cannot run Aero. Hence, it cannot run Vista Ultimate with all features on, hence you can't really call it "Vista Capable".
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
The whole point of me (and maybe some of us) searching for alternatives (OS/2 etc.) and eventually come to know and use Linux is that I (and perhaps others) find "Windows capable" a lie -- not just Vista.
How many did not feel frustrated remembering an old computer could do things a Windows one could not? How many didn't feel restrained by having a tumor-growth-like GUI posing as OS? In which you have to use an entire application to change OS settings? In which capabilities are not available on a system-wide basis but only in a few special apps? In which implementations were weak because no developer could have access to "undocumented" (i.e., secret) features? In which there were taps permitting eavesdropping by some foreign (i.e. American) institution? In which one had to forcefully pirate an app, not because of money but because there was simply NO simple way of paying (paypal and credit card buying didn't exist then)?
And the most evil one: one situation where one does not want to pirate -- that is, violate copyrights -- and everybody does it, because the software maker clearly benefits from the net marketing, and so the one who wants to abide by the law is actually deemed a fool.
It has been argued over and over that a new Windows version is a way of pushing newer hardware onto customers thus effectively sucking their pocket's money. And you know what?
I think I myself warned about these things a thousand times -- only to be scorned. Now Microsoft could walk free from this, IMO, because they can safely say everyone has been warned about all that.
If you were fooled and misled, it's all your fault. Don't blame the lion if you get into its jail and put your head into his mouth. I actually get angry at those people who complain about Vista; I think it's only fair that they lose their money -- no, they should be fined for wasting public money by using justice after choosing themselves to believe in vendor propaganda while calling us "zealots".
That is moderated insightful?
This Slashdot story is part of the complaining about Microsoft's abusiveness, and so is the class-action lawsuit. At present, Windows 2000 will be completely killed on 7/13/2010. However, that is only because people complained intensely. The original death date for Windows 2000 Professional was 2007. That's why it is so important to complain.
See a quote from this comment on an earlier Slashdot story: "Microsoft's customers were forced to upgrade to Windows XP because Windows 98 had an unstable file system, an unstable registry, and lots of problems with "DLL Hell" and the "Blue Screen of Death"." There were things that could have been done to make the FAT file system more stable, and Microsoft didn't do that.
Windows 2000 Professional represents a plateau of usefulness. However, most corporations moved from Windows 95 or Windows 98 to Windows XP.
Later in the thread mentioned above, there is another comment with a quote from a December 2003 Seclists article about corporate Windows users: "Inventory data of more than 372,000 PCs - from some 670 companies with between 10 and 49,000 employees - found that more than 80 percent of these companies were still using Windows 98 and/or Windows 95."
The Slashdot moderation system allows moderation only from those who have no interest in participating in the conversation about a story. That brings a lot of moderators to stories in which they have no interest. They simply look for a place to unload their moderation points. Moderators are likely to be ignorant about the issues being discussed.
I don't actually have the Crysis box but every game I seen with a minimum set of requirements on it ALSO listed a recommended spec.
MS with this Vista advertising campaign made a simple mistake, they designed a sticker that was not clear enough about what was promised.
With PC games, a reasonable person would assume that if you see who different specs then it is obvious that this means that the game will look perform less well on this lower hardware. You would only expect it to run well on the recommended spec.
MS left this out, they basically said "This PC can run Vista". No further explenation was given. It is clear how unclear this was by the fact that MS later added extra information on its website to explain what it meant.
Basically MS screwed up. Now it is for the legal to decide wether people should have known better, wether this is all just a simple misunderstanding or wether MS is guilty of false advertising. Considering MS own people have had doubts during the development of this campaign I think MS has a case to answer.
Advertisers always push the truth as far as it can go. Remember the claims that linux can run on a 386? Why sure it can. The kernel. Run a full distro on it and prepare for slideshow hell. Run windows on the minimum amount of memory? Sure you can, just hope you never have to anything remotely tasking.
It is possible that MS marketting went to far in this case. They could have put on the sticker "This PC is Vista Basic ready". They didn't. They didn't for the simple reason that this would have been less attractive to consumers. Personally I think truth is important, yes "The PC is Vista ready" is the truth, but "This PC is Vista Basic ready" is the greater truth. Sometimes even when you are telling the truth you can be lying.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I bought a computer with a "Vista Capable" sticker, which had only 512 MB of RAM. Now, according to Dell, such a configuration is "Great for... Booting the Operating System, without running applications or games".
Which, incidentally, was pretty much all I could do.
Quidquid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Well, that's just shows that the problem is their version policy, isn't it? The fact that "Vista" is an encompassing brandname for a whole bunch of different OSes with different capabilities makes it extremely hard to say what "Vista" is. As anyone, I'd expect it to meet the requirements to run "Vista Ultimate" with everything on, because it's "Vista".
It's not "just marketing", it is plainly misleading... that's the whole problem. I run Linux on mine anyway, and that was the reason I bought it. The sticker to me meant, "Cheap computer where I can run Linux on". ;-)
Ahhh...the great dumpster continuum. Many a free computer will be found there. -- sowth (748135)
Give it time, Google is already paying for work on getting Photoshop to run better in it. You might also check out Xen or VMware. Having helped a number of friends and customers migrate to SuSE (now pre-installed by Lenovo) and Ubuntu (now pre-installed by Dell), I'm impressed at the advances being made in desktop GNU/Linux.
Back to the main topic, though, at least for a moment: Personally, I'm glad to hear that the class action status was approved; Microsoft needs to be smacked into not deliberately misleading customers into thinking a product will do ____ when it clearly won't. (See also PlaysForSure on Zune.) I only know one person who actually seems to like Vista, and it's mostly because he doesn't realize that his >$900 laptop doesn't need to run like Gnome on a sub-600MHz Pentium.
Reminds me of Microsoft Works
Murphey's fighting Occam, and we're in the stands.
Not too long ago, I decided to install MacOS 10.4 on a crappy little test machine at work, an old 400mhz G4. I was expecting very cut-down graphics and little-to-no effects, but the ancient thing actually picked up my widescreen LCD's native resolution (something Windows still struggles with), and all the smooth eye-candy was intact. Windows slide and fade in and out of view, transparency works like a charm, even the dashboard runs pretty smoothly (slight stuttering during the fade, but nothing terrible).
So why is it that a stinky old 400mhz dinosaur running MacOS can run smoother than a bleeding-edge quad-core dual-graphics beast running Vista ? My graphics cards' pixel shaders could probably emulate that 400mhz Mac faster than real-time.
Microsoft really screwed up with Aero Glass. Vista itself might eventually become a decent shell, just like XP did after SP1/2, but Aero Glass will always suck.
Teenagers in the 90's were writing slicker graphics demos on 486'es than what Vista does on a C2Quad.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
... that the judge orders Microsoft to do all testing for all versions of Vista and all versions of the next OS they market on these computers they identify as "Vista Capable".
It would never happen. Microsoft will test the next OS home version on dual-socket octal-core 4-GHz 64-bit processesors with 16-GB RAM and 4-way RAID-0 SATA-6 drive arrays.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
It's just the old blame-shifting game: if anybody is deceived by msft, it is the fault of the deceived for being stupid. It is never msft's fault.
Sure, the stickers only mentioned Vista. Nothing about Basic. Never mind that the FTC had ordered msft in 2001 not to engage in such deceptive practices.
Honesty is too much to expect from msft. Any msft shill will tell you that. Msft advocates seem to believe that msft should be allowed to lie. According the msft advocates, that is just good 'ol American capitalism. Anybody who objects to msft's standard behavior of lying, cheating, ballot-stuffing, bribing, legal-system abusing, bogus patent filing, FUDding, and so on; is obviously an a commie, anti-American, anti-capitalism, and so on.