Vista Capable Lawsuit Loses Class-Action Status 172
nandemoari writes "The long-running 'Vista Capable' lawsuit challenging Microsoft's marketing of PCs capable of running only the most basic version of the Windows Vista operating system has reportedly lost its class-action status. Federal judge Marsha Pechman decertified the class-action lawsuit, saying that plaintiffs had failed to show that consumers paid more for PCs with the 'Vista Capable' label than they would have otherwise."
Whats the point? (Score:2, Interesting)
I was part of one of the previous class action suits. After years of waiting all I got was a coupon for a $15 discount on windows or office.
Re:Missing the point? (Score:3, Interesting)
The complaint in the court of public opinion is that when Vista is marketed they talk about all the great shit it does on the highest end hardware and make it seem like you get that stuff if you get Vista. Lots of machines were sold as "Vista Capable" that couldn't do a bunch of that shit and on which Vista ran like a squashed turd (arguably it ran like that on anything without a special disk AND a special USB stick AND at least 4GB of memory until SP1 and now it's only a round turd so it can at least roll, in Windows 7 they made it into a sphere and it can roll in any direction) and people are upset that they fell for the marketing hype and now they want some free money. They can still run the same Vista-requiring programs, and the programs themselves have requirements on the box, which haven't changed. If there's no Vista requirements on the box, then perhaps you need to contact your vendor, and it's not Microsoft's fault.
Obviously I have my own opinion about this lawsuit. On one hand, as a marketing tactic it's kind of sleazy. On the other hand, the OEMs begged and pleaded with Microsoft to allow them to put the "Vista Ready" sticker on machines which don't support the full Vista "experience" (choke) and they eventually gave in; The OEMs deserve at least as much blame as the evil empire. On the gripping hand, the specifications of the machines and the requirements for Aero were made available to customers before purchase, and no fraudulent claims were made. Caveat Emptor, motherfuckers! Read the fucking specifications. Just because an operating system will run on your hardware, it doesn't mean you have access to all its features, and it never has. Windows Movie Maker might let you capture video, but if you don't have any video capture hardware, you probably can't use that feature.
People too stupid to read computer specifications and compare them to the required specifications should be given an Etch-a-Sketch and if they complain about its limitations, give them a fucking Speak and Spell. That ought to keep them busy for a while. I don't even expect them to understand what they're reading. Why do we expect a commercial to provide us with a full education on a product? The vendor in this case made available more than enough information for you to figure out whether you'd get the experience you were looking for out of given hardware. You might have to actually visit their site to gain an education though, and I could understand how all that clicking and reading could be too much for the average bozo to comprehend.
Re:Or just marketing run amok (Score:3, Interesting)
The only sane explanation was that some marketer figured out they'd sell more of them with that extra claim.
Sort of. "Sell more of them" actually meant "Sell any of them, to corporate and organizational customers with brainless hard-and-fast Y2K compliance requirements."
Yes, I am a Y2K remediation survivor. I saw many companies, and many government agencies, implement no-exceptions, no-tailoring, mandatory, 100% applicable standards that looked like: "Any computer acquisition (hardware, software, or services) procured by purchase or lease must be certified Y2K compliant."
Is network cabling computer hardware? Yes? Then it has to be Y2K compliant.
Thankfully, that's easy to prove. Just point out the Y2K compliance certification from the manufacturer, and the "Y2K Compliant" sticker on the packaging.
What, no sticker? We can't buy that. Find it from a vendor which did put a sticker on their packaging.
And you, Mr. Computer Cable Marketer, lose a sale. Or lots of sales.
This is a bureaucratic response to a bureaucratic requirement. I hope you didn't lose much sleep or sanity over it.
Re:Monitors (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm confused -- I had assumed it was the other way around.
That is, I'd assumed that hardware vendors would want their hardware to be known as compatible, thus resulting in higher sales. And that to obtain such status, they would have to follow Microsoft's standards -- implying that if anything, they'd be paying Microsoft for the privilege, not the other way around.