Microsoft Wins Windows XP Downgrade Lawsuit

CWmike writes "A federal judge has dismissed a year-old lawsuit against Microsoft over alleged antitrust violations for the 'downgrade' rules it set for Windows Vista and XP. The order put an end to the lawsuit filed by Emma Alvarado in February 2009. In her original complaint, she accused Microsoft of coercing computer makers into forcing consumers who wanted to run Windows XP to first buy Windows Vista, or later, Windows 7, before they were allowed to downgrade to XP. The judge rejected Alvarado's accusations, saying that the plaintiff had not proved Microsoft benefited from the downgrade practices that it created and that OEMs implemented."

Comments

How?

[leetrout]

I'm not a lawyer but how do you not prove that they benefited by having OEMs sell the newer version of their software before allowing a downgrade path?

Re:Stupid Lawsuit

[wizardforce]

So this lady was suing because of what? Being slightly inconvenienced?

In addition to tying the purchase of Vista to these machines, MS/OEMs charged a significant amount of money to replace Vista with the desired OS (Windows XP) which she claimed raised prices relative to a competitive marketplace which is certainly true.

And Vista wasn't bad at all. Especially with a new machine that had the proper drivers.

That is subjective and further irrelevant because the question is not whether you wanted Vista on the machine but whether the purchaser wants Vista on the machine. To her and millions of others, Vista was very undesirable.