Vista attacked for "misleading" customers

[John Altenmueller]

The latest lawsuit against Vista, so it seems, is now attacking the marketing methods that Microsoft used to sell PCs. The prosecutors claim that Microsoft mislead customers by allowing PC manufacturers to place stickers on the machine that said "Vista capable", when in fact many of the PCs sold were only capable of running the scaled-down edition of Vista, Home Basic. It seeks 5 million dollars, and is filed as a class-action lawsuit.

Well excuse me people, but is there something wrong here? I most certainly think so. There are 5 editions of Vista: Home Basic, Home Premium, Business, Ultimate and Enterprise. I am so sorry that the cheap PC you just bought seems to run "Ultimate" rather sluggishly. :rolleyes: Aside from the fact that the people who bought these lousy PCs in the first place are probably computer-illiterate, does Microsoft have any obligation to make all "Vista capable" computers run a certain edition of Vista? As far as I am concerned, the editions I listed previously are all types of Vista, and saying it's "Vista capable" is saying exactly that: it supports at least one of the editions.

Does your new PC run at least one edition of Vista? As far as I know, the sticker means it does. But it does NOT say which edition it supports! Maybe it's a clever marketing tactic by Microsoft not to say the edition, but that still doesn't matter. Vista is Vista.

People are also complaining that the advertising schemes were deceptive, that they somehow believed that their new PC could support the edition of Vista that was demonstrated in the ad. Well sorry, misinformation is one thing, ignorance is quite another. I'm sure Microsoft stated in the ads on TV what edition of Vista you needed to get those features, and if you were sleeping through the fine print, that's your own fault. If you want to upgrade your PC to some new operating system, go ahead and download one of the many-available distributions of Linux out there. If that scares you, suck it up and buy the basic version of Vista. Tough luck for you.

[lasher511]

I think the stickers should have at least stated the version of vista that it could run. It is ok for people like us to be expected to know the difference but we do not really make up the majority of computer users. The fact is most of your standard users would not know what version of vista they could run on their new laptop especially when all the information that they have been given is "windows vista compatible" clever marketing or not it is still misleading.

[Sturm]

if the truth be known, no pc's are "vista capable":mrgreen: . Actually it would be more accurate to say that vista is not "computer compatible"

[jwenting]

It's not Microsoft who put those stickers on PCs, it's the hardware manufacturers.

But of course Microsoft has more money to extort from them than does the local computer shop so they're the ones get sued...

[andymack]

But also whe those stickers came out on machines Vista was still very much in progress. The "public" betas came after stickers appeared so how on earth are you supposed to know which version you can run. Plus even if it runs slowely, it still runs. It never said anywhere runs well or fast! Clever marketing? Maybe. But then again, labels are confusing. Just look at HD (High Def) TVs here in the UK. You have HD Ready and HD Go. And to be honest there really isnt a proper HD Specification at the moment! Its very misleading and a shambles to be honest! BUT this is Microsoft were talking about here. And "no-one likes Microsoft." "All their stuff is bad". Well excuse me but you dont become that popular and be s***. They've done at least SOMEthing right somewhere and I have to say I enjoy Vista. It takes getting used to and without updates, I'd rather try running freeBSD. However along with updates has come a usable operating system. Its very diferent and such and has its own problems - no open GL support and Direct X 10 isnt available to the masses, but it was the same with XP. and 2000 before it. and Millenium (although that WAS a bad product). anyways, im off topic now but the point is, other people wouldnt be sued. And technically, Microsoft never lied.

[Phaelax]

So why is Microsoft being sued? As far as I'm concerned, they had nothing to do with which machines the stickers went on. The customers should be comparing the specs of their machine and the OS they want before purchasing it anyway. This is almost as dumb as spilling coffee on yourself and sueing someone else for it.

[hamooihamoo]

i gotta say microsoft tried too hard to make vista too easy but in doing so, i think they over did it and vista needs some getting used to and some of its new features are really annoying like the way they have made the file lists appearance on windows. Also i think the button for closing,maximizing and minimizing the windows are small i mean its unlike XP. XP is really good to use and i miss it already

[Infarction]

All the stickers I've seen had 3 levels of compatibility: not compatible, Vista compatible, and Vista Ultimate compatible (or something similar, I forget the exact words). IMHO this case should be thrown out...