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Microsoft Businesses Government The Courts News Hardware

Microsoft Had Doubts About the 'Vista Capable' Label 484

Posted by Zonk from the marketing-will-make-it-all-better dept.
dionysus writes "Last April, Microsoft was sued over its 'Vista Capable' labeling, and in hearing last week, attorneys for the plaintiffs presented evidence that Microsoft employees were skeptical about the 'Vista Capable' marketing. Some of the most damning evidence comes from Microsoft executives: 'Mike Nash, currently a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an e-mail, "I PERSONALLY got burnt ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine." Jim Allchin, then the co-president of Microsoft's Platforms and Services Division, wrote in another e-mail, "We really botched this ... You guys have to do a better job with our customers."' The judge in the case is currently considering the plaintiffs' request to make it a class-action lawsuit."
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Microsoft Had Doubts About the 'Vista Capable' Label More

Microsoft Had Doubts About the 'Vista Capable' Label

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  • What happens... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gravesb ( 967413 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:43PM (#22394242) Homepage
    when marketing gets primacy over engineers....

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by macmaniac ( 734596 )
      Shoot, the Compaq I have which _shipped_ with Vista Home Premium is barely "Vista Capable" in any real sense... what on earth would possess them BESIDES marketing logic over engineers to claim anything less to be "Vista Capable"?

      • Re:What happens... (Score:4, Informative)

        by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:55PM (#22394424) Journal
        Indeed, I just got a replacement HP laptop for one that died. The old one had Windows XP and 1gb and ran like a charm, the new one is actually a faster machine, but with Vista and just 1gb is a horrible sloth. I'm bumping the RAM up naturally, though I'd much prefer to downgrade to XP since I don't like feeding the memory-hungry monster that Vista is, but apparently downgrading this model to XP is fraught with troubles.

        I'd go to Ubuntu, but I can't get it up and running either.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by omeomi ( 675045 )
          I'd go to Ubuntu, but I can't get it up and running either.

          Really? Ubuntu is usually a breeze to install. What doesn't work?
          • It doesn't want to touch the NVidia video card. I haven't tried it in safe graphics mode yet, mind you, but it does get basic graphics up to the video confirmation screen, but if I just press "Continue" it cuts out on me.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by B3ryllium ( 571199 )
              I would keep trying; I use XP at home, but I used Ubuntu at work for six months. My only Vista experience has been when I borrow my GF's laptop, but that's been enough to make me think that I'd rather use Ubuntu than Vista. :)
            • Do you know what driver it's using?

            • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

              by aaronl ( 43811 )
              I had the same trouble with my Thinkpad T61p. Get the alternate install disc and use that to install. Then you have to get the latest beta driver off the NVIDIA site, and install it by hand. Text mode will be your friend for this. I found the easiest way was to get sshd up and running and do it remotely. Hope this helps!

              • Re:What happens... (Score:5, Insightful)

                by Adams4President ( 849082 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:50PM (#22395184) Homepage
                At first I thought this post was meant to be funny (I actually laughed). Certainly, I and most /.ers are capable of doing this. But you can see by that post why Microsoft still has nothing to fear from Linux...even "user-friendly" Ubuntu. "get the latest beta driver"?? "install by hand in text mode"?? "start sshd and do it remotely"?? You might as well ask the typical user to perform brain surgery on himself.

                • Re:What happens... (Score:5, Insightful)

                  by msuarezalvarez ( 667058 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:56PM (#22395246)

                  The typical user does not install the OS he uses.

                  • Re:What happens... (Score:4, Insightful)

                    by skiingyac ( 262641 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @03:05PM (#22395374)
                    The typical user does not install the *Windows* OS. The typical user buys a computer with Windows pre-loaded, and must install linux OS themselves. If >90% of desktops/laptops come with linux pre-installed, then these type of problems are not important. Right now, they are.

                    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

                      by Kreigaffe ( 765218 )
                      I'm fully capable of buying a new graphics card and installing it in my windows machine, and it runs all nice and shiny.. heck, I've even formatted and reinstalled windows in the past. But install something by hand? Text mode? Now my eyes are glazing over.

                • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

                  by Knuckles ( 8964 )
                  Every time someone reports Linux installation trouble there is a new idiot coming up with this. So here it is again:
                  1. Buy a laptop with some Linux distro preinstalled and there won't be problems, same as with Windows
                  2. If you install stock Windows (not a recovery disc) to a laptop, you can easily run into the same problems

                • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

                  by Runefox ( 905204 )
                  First of all, Windows has only recently gotten a GUI setup. When you go to install XP, you're greeted with... Text-based setup, on a very drab blue/gray scheme in a low resolution, which looks very ominous. Most of the time, even this is too much for typical users, since it's unfamiliar, looks nothing like what they're used to seeing, and has no mouse, nor buttons to click. I know I sound condescending, but nobody is taught these days to use the keyboard to prompt things along, even if it is on the screen.

                  T
            • I'm using PCLinuxOS and it comes with nVidia drivers. No, wait, you have to download them via synaptic. But the thing is that it's working.

          • Oh no! Careful!! (Score:4, Funny)

            by XanC ( 644172 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:24PM (#22394830)
            You're likely to cause a rant by UbuntuDupe.... Nobody wants that.

        • I'd much prefer to downgrade to XP


          I no longer use the words "upgrade" and "downgrade" when discussing software. These are marketing euphemisms, used to convince the customer that the newer version of a piece of software is better by default. While that may be the case in most instances, I reserve the right to judge whether migrating to a different version is an "upgrade" or not.

    • Or maybe.. (Score:3, Funny)

      by mpapet ( 761907 )
      When management is completely disconnected from how their company creates value.

      Hopefully nothing changes though. That would be the best case scenario for the entire industry.

    • Re:What happens... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Blakey Rat ( 99501 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:16PM (#22394734)
      Without some level of marketing, Engineers build products that people simply don't want and/or won't sell.

  • A $2100 email machine? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by RetroRichie ( 259581 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:46PM (#22394286)
    Uh, no. What you've got is a $2100 PC that runs just dandy with Windows XP. You know, what you were using before Vista slowed it to a crawl. These guys are buffoons.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by thewils ( 463314 )
      Man that would probably be a sweet Linux box, too!

    • Re:A $2100 email machine? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by CFTM ( 513264 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:57PM (#22394444)
      And that's the sound of the point that the VP was attempting to make flying over your head.

    • Re:A $2100 email machine? (Score:5, Informative)

      by UnknowingFool ( 672806 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:30PM (#22394914)

      He was just trying to make a point. A MS VP bought a "Vista Capable" machine that was installed with XP. His understanding was that when Vista came out, he could upgrade to Vista Premium with no problems. Unfortunately in his case, even though he bought a fairly decent machine, it couldn't run Vista Premium reasonably. He gets none of the features of Vista Premium and his machine is slower than dirt. He can only really do email and maybe surf the web now and then for $2100. If he works for MS and got this experience, what are the experiences of normal customers?

      He was speaking for the customers. Their understanding when they bought the machine was that it could be upgraded. They could have waited but they were reassured that buying then didn't matter as opposed to buying later. It did matter. Now, what are they supposed to do after an upgrade? If XP was already installed by the manufacturer, sometimes all they get is a Restore XP disc which formats the HD and erases all their files and settings. Very few may have actually bought the retail version of XP which gives more options.

    • uhuh, and my 486 SX33 is a Turing machine - so it's Vista capable too.

  • Sweet, sweet justice (Score:3, Interesting)

    by peipas ( 809350 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:46PM (#22394290)
    It makes me feel really good to hear about Microsoft getting pissed at Microsoft. I've always wondered about this and what a relief. The frustration I've run into over the years, especially regarding design decisions, finally feels worth something.

  • correction ;) (Score:5, Funny)

    by Gorphrim ( 11654 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:47PM (#22394292)
    'Mike Nash, formerly a corporate vice president for Windows product management, wrote in an e-mail, "I PERSONALLY got burnt ... Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? ... I now have a $2,100 e-mail machine."

  • Vista = dogfooding? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by WolfTheWerewolf ( 84066 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:49PM (#22394334)
    Perhaps they should have forced it upon employees for more "real-world" testing first?

    • Re:Vista = dogfooding? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by jimicus ( 737525 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @03:02PM (#22395326)
      You know something? I bet they did.

      But Microsoft have a reputation for not only encouraging their developers to run the latest and greatest version, but also giving them the best hardware with which to do it.

      I wonder how many developers actually had easy access to a laptop with less than 1GB of RAM to run Vista on, let alone tried it.

      Wild speculation, so mod me how you like.

  • How interesting.. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by moogied ( 1175879 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:49PM (#22394340)
    Putting "Vista Capable" on a machine is much like saying E85 capable on GM trucks.. while it may indeed be able to use it, no one in there right mind ever should..

  • Another class action (Score:4, Insightful)

    by KlomDark ( 6370 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:50PM (#22394344) Homepage Journal
    I'm curious how long until a class action suit fires up over all the companies out there selling 64bit machines with 32bit versions of Vista. That's complete shit. Why even sell a 64bit machine if they're going to hobble it to 32 bit operation?

    Imagine buying a 12 cylinder Lamborghini, getting it home, and then realizing it's only firing on 6 cylinders.

    • Re:Another class action (Score:5, Funny)

      by AutopsyReport ( 856852 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:39PM (#22395058)
      Imagine buying a 12 cylinder Lamborghini, getting it home, and then realizing it's only firing on 6 cylinders.

      So, you're married too?

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by kalirion ( 728907 )
      Imagine buying a 12 cylinder Lamborguini, getting on a highway, and then realizing that if its speed drops below 55mph it will explode.

    • Re:Another class action (Score:5, Funny)

      by mysticgoat ( 582871 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @03:09PM (#22395428) Homepage Journal

      Why even sell a 64bit machine if they're going to hobble it to 32 bit operation?

      Because they can?

      In a related matter, is this quote from an earlier day still appropriate?
      Windows is a 32-bit shell for a 16-bit extension to an 8-bit operating system designed for a 4-bit microprocessor by a 2-bit company that can't stand one bit of competition.

  • Vista Capable label (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:50PM (#22394356)
    The first thing I did on receipt of my XP notebook with the Windows Vista Capable sticker was to remove it and put it in its correct place: on my bin.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by Kjella ( 173770 )

      The first thing I did on receipt of my XP notebook with the Windows Vista Capable sticker was to remove it and put it in its correct place: on my bin.
      Are you sure it won't need an upgrade? I heard Vista was huge.

    • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

      by TheGratefulNet ( 143330 )
      I had a friend who worked at AMD in texas (many years ago). someone there got hold of a whole roll of 'intel inside' stickers.

      I think the bathroom janitors had their work cut out for the next weeks, peeling off all the stickers that 'found' their way to the urinals and stalls ;)

  • Is it wrong that... (Score:3, Informative)

    by log0n ( 18224 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @01:52PM (#22394374)
    I'm starting to like Vista?

    Like may be too strong. Rather, it's not bugging me or keeping me from working - and it's even growing on me. My work bought me a new Dell 530 desktop with Vista Business, seems to work fine (I actually kind of like Office 2007 too - Visual Studio 2008 Express is pretty cool as well). Probably just due to being forced to use it regularly.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by everphilski ( 877346 )
      Yeah, I bought a $300 laptop with Vista Home on it, just to dink around on (we have one home computer and my wife's been getting into video games) for dissertation research, and it's been great. Actually the first thing I did was dual boot XP, but after running a few comparisons side by side over the first month I shredded the XP partition, it wasn't much if any faster than Vista for what I did (programming/writing/simulating).

      The only "trick" to vista is RAM. If you have less than a gig, stick another gi

    • Re:Is it wrong that... (Score:5, Funny)

      by jejones ( 115979 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:16PM (#22394724) Journal
      > Probably just due to being forced to use it regularly.

      Maybe it's Stockholm syndrome [wikipedia.org]?

  • I don't understand how he could buy a computer for $2100 even a year ago and call it an e-mail machine while running Vista. I bought my computer in February 2007 for $2085.42 (just checked the receipt) and it works well on Vista and gaming. Either he was scammed, or just speaking REALLY metaphorically.

    Having said that, XP owns Vista.
    • Welcome to corporate procurement, where box of 10 reams of paper costs the company $100 of which $26 goes to the vendor, and $74 gets split amongst the collection of individuals who brought the vendor in as kickbacks.

      Where a $1500 computer we could purchase from newegg is $3000 from lenovo simply because it has a three year warranty.

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by n0dna ( 939092 )
      Depends, it could easily be a laptop with an inadequate video card, or perhaps an unsupported bios due to an older power management scheme.

      I have a Toshiba that by all accounts (including the Vista adviser) should run Vista just fine without Aero, but it won't even install because of the bios power manager.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by SeattleGameboy ( 641456 )
      That's easy. He probably bought a laptop.

      Unless you buy a laptop with a really good video card (NVidia 7400 or better with dedicated memory), you are going to have a hard time getting decent performance out of it, no matter how much memory or processor speed you have.

      Most of the laptops I looked at last year were being sold with integrated Intel or NVidia GPU's which really cannot run Vista very well.

      If you are planning to purchase a laptop for Vista, getting the highest end video card you can get is

  • They're just individuals with their own opinions. Personally they can think one thing but as a company they can think another.

    This really isn't much of a story; more like looking for a story.

    Crappy to release that type branding with their own beliefs in doubt? Sure, but don't hold it against the entire company. That's just what I think but then again I'm just some random guy on the internet.

  • Let this be a lesson for beta testers (Score:5, Informative)

    by Toreo asesino ( 951231 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:00PM (#22394496) Journal
    ...otherwise known as early adopters.

    To be fair Vista introduced to an unsuspecting IT world the shocking concept that's been around in *nix that "You don't have root level access as a norm!" (Gasp!). This alone caused issues for the majority of Windows software, and is probably the cause of the majority UAC complaints too. Remember too that, this type of security really isn't appreciated by your average Joe, who honestly couldn't give two shits if someone has rooted his box. He'll care when he can't write documents, send emails and check the football results on-line (even if it does require closing various popups)...but a Windows SUDO was long overdue.

    Also, Vista is the first iteration of Windows that's seriously supported 64 bit...XP does I know, but it's something of a stop-gap in my opinion, and very rare to see. The 64-bit shift was too, on it's own, bound to cause upgrade havoc, much like the "good old days" of Win95 not running legacy 16bit apps too well.

    Finally, Vista does overhaul other areas of Windows that has been for the better in the long-run, but a world of hurts in the short-run. Check out the propaganda here - http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/vista/kernel-en.mspx [microsoft.com]

    There's a tonne of reasons why Vista has been a painful upgrade, but these reasons above I feel are the most prominent, and not so much fault of Microsoft either in my opinion. Yeah, security should've "not sucked", the tech is still very new (many will say 'too' new), and the 64-bit switch-over is unavoidable at some point, but frankly Vista's getting better every day (for instance, just today this was released - http://support.microsoft.com/?scid=kb%3Ben-us%3B943899&x=14&y=11 [microsoft.com]) but much of Vista's problems have been blown up bigger than they are by people that quite frankly, just want to see Microsoft fail, die, whatever...and are willing to "stretch the truth" if it helps that happen....

    Hang on; I've just realised where I'm posting.
    • What bothers me the most is that when Vista came out, there were still tons of applications that required Admin access for no good reason. Those applications are broken on Vista due to UAC, but the amazing and shocking thing is that these applications were also broken on XP and 2000:

      1) Anybody who logged in as a non-admin wouldn't be able to run your program for no good reason
      2) Your program would break miserably on a computer with Fast User Switching enabled
      3) It would also break in many corporate environm
      • I DO blame Microsoft for making XP default to Admin. The reason developers never fixed their broken software is because for 90% of users, who use the defaults, it WASN'T broken. It still worked, just like it did in Win9X.
        • I DO blame Microsoft for making XP default to Admin. The reason developers never fixed their broken software is because for 90% of users, who use the defaults, it WASN'T broken. It still worked, just like it did in Win9X.

          Bullshit.

          Windows also defaults to having Internet Explorer as the system web browser, does that mean it's perfectly acceptable for XP software to break if I set Firefox to the default? That's what you're saying, in a nutshell.

          If you're going to write software for Windows XP, you need to tes

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Pop69 ( 700500 )
      You did read the notes for that KB/patch that you posted didn't you ?

      "Hard disk drives may not be recognized after update 943899 is applied. Certain SATA hard disk drives are not recognized after a computer resumes from sleep or hibernation when v1.0 of update 934899 has been applied. The drives are sent incorrect data, and the data changes several hard disk settings. One of these settings is "power up on standby mode." This behavior keeps the hard disk from spinning, and the system will not start."

  • Too many editions! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Midnight Thunder ( 17205 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:01PM (#22394506) Homepage Journal
    How many versions of the same system do you really need? Having created over six versions of the same operating system, Microsoft should have been aware that there would be confusion. Are people in the company so oblivious to the "Keep it Simple" approach? Generally a desktop and a server edition should suffice, and anything being marked a 'ready' should be indicating the expected experience and not the rationed experience.

    A computer allowing me to experience 10% of what the new OS can provide me, is not ready in any shape or form. Games labelling gets this right, why shouldn't hardware? Are we dealing with crooks or incompetence?

  • endemic (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mugnyte ( 203225 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:10PM (#22394648) Journal
    Anyone inside the project teams on the vista push knew many of the work patterns were B-A-D. teams had a top-down requirement change almost daily. they fought for changes via up-one-flagpole-down-another. The schedule cut all kinds of scope while the new features were "must haves". the security initiative, the team patterns, the scope dictation and the requirements "volleyball" were terrible at ever "finishing" a concept. Each team with any kind of pull would demand all others conform to the request they wanted, and the winning concept were decided in the mgmt level, not knowing the real impact of their decisions until afterwards.

      Add in ideas that nobody had really tackled before, like the secure channel for content, driver signing, legacy app security rights vs. UAC, etc and you're bound to have a lot of latent problems that demand a longer period of testing. But this was after the 1st "scrap" so there really wasn't time to push the market off any longer, MS's ability to deliver was already in question.

    it had many flavors of dysfunctional. but they've changed a lot and are starting differently with the next gen OS.

    • it had many flavors of dysfunctional. but they've changed a lot and are starting differently with the next gen OS.
      So Vista really is the next version of ME.

  • Editions (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Phroggy ( 441 ) <slashdot3@@@phroggy...com> on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:17PM (#22394746) Homepage

    One thing is certain: the choice to have many editions of Vista differentiated sometimes by key features is causing Microsoft quite a bit of trouble. Had Microsoft enabled or disabled features like Aero Glass based on a machine's capabilities rather than the version of the OS in use, this suit would have likely been avoided.
    Interesting. To be sure, Microsoft has faced criticism for its confusing number of editions [microsoft.com]. Here's a quick rundown:

    • Home Basic - cannot join a domain and does not include Media Center; equivalent to XP Home Edition
    • Home Premium - cannot join a domain but does include Media Center; equivalent to XP Media Center Edition
    • Business - can join a domain but does not include Media Center; equivalent to XP Professional Edition
    • Ultimate - can join a domain and includes Media Center; no XP equivalent exists

    Home Basic also does not include the Aero Glass UI, tablet PC support, Mobility Center, Meeting Space, SideShow, or Scheduled Backup. In addition to the ability to join a domain, Business and Ultimate include Complete PC Backup and Restore, Fax and Scan, Remote Desktop, and the ability to save your password when connecting to an SMB share. That's right, in Home Basic/Premium, the "save password" checkbox on the authentication dialog is missing (and command-line alternatives are broken). Finally, only Ultimate Edition includes BitLocker drive encryption.

    I can understand why they might want to have two editions of the OS: Home and Professional, like they had originally with XP. The networking capabilities of Business/Ultimate really are integrated into the OS and can't be added on by a separate package. Plenty of small business users need these features, but they order new PCs for their employees without realizing which flavor of Windows is included, so they wind up buying an extra copy at retail, which makes Microsoft more money. It's evil, but from a business perspective it makes sense.

    However, apart from Media Center, the features of Home Premium over Home Basic are things nobody would ever pay extra for. It makes absolutely no sense to me that Media Center should require its own OS version. Media Center should be a separate product, just as Microsoft Office is a separate product. Advertise PCs that bundle it as having "Windows Vista Home Edition with Media Center" instead of "Windows Vista Home Premium Edition". Let customers who bought PCs without Media Center go buy it, just like customers who bought PCs without Office can go buy it. Media Center is something that a lot of people do see value in and are willing to pay for. Let them do that.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Prophet of Nixon ( 842081 )
      Neither of the Home editions has the rather important group policy snap-in to set up a local security policy. Neither will even allow it to be run if you get the file. Can't speak for the other editions, though I've heard its in Ultimate. Have been considering upgrading to Ultimate (I've the disc) if it will let me do a delta install and not format everything.

  • Under promise over deliver. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by headkase ( 533448 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:20PM (#22394786)
    Heres [arstechnica.com] and interesting quote over at Ars Technica:

    One thing is certain: the choice to have many editions of Vista differentiated sometimes by key features is causing Microsoft quite a bit of trouble. Had Microsoft enabled or disabled features like Aero Glass based on a machine's capabilities rather than the version of the OS in use, this suit would have likely been avoided.

    So basically if they had based a machines capabilities at run-time based on it's hardware they wouldn't have been culpable but because it was done through marketing they may have mislead consumers.
  • I love it! I'll present that quote to whoever says "I don't understand all the furore around Vista: I installed it and it runs quite fine". Haha.
  • How about Handi-capable [urbandictionary.com]?

  • Back in '95 (an advertising anecdote) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by malkavian ( 9512 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @02:59PM (#22395280)
    I was sysadmin for the Ad company that had the Microsoft account in the UK.
    One of the things I was asked was 'Will it run inside these specs', which I think was 2MB RAM, and not much disk at all..
    The answer I gave was that yes it would, if you left it to boot up for a good 10 minutes, and didn't want to run any applications on top of it. Or install anything else either.
    The resounding answer to that was "Great, we CAN advertise that it'll run on those specs". Even if I point blank told them it'd be useless, and to never advocate running it like that.
    The point is that Advertising is all about pushing how far you can bend the truth (or lack of it) without crossing the line of blatant lying that'll get you sued or fined.
    The "Vista Ready" sticker is an advertising token as much as anything. Yes, you can install Vista on it. Yes, it'll run Vista. Doesn't say anything about doing anything else with it (hey, it never said it'd run the latest greatest game, or even load your word processor!).

    • There's Your Problem (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Greyfox ( 87712 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @03:44PM (#22395902) Homepage Journal
      Engineers like to qualify stuff like that. It's very Dilbert-esque. The correct answer is "NO!" You have to keep in mind who you're talking to.

      This may help; when they ask you will it run in that configuration, assume that if you say yes they're going to make you use it in that configuration. Then give your answer. It's a lot easier to just tell them "NO!" then.

  • This has been a problem for Intel, too... (Score:5, Informative)

    by Josh Bancroft ( 1003656 ) <jabancroft@gmail.com> on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @03:01PM (#22395296) Homepage

    I run the blogs over on Intel Software Network, and this has been a hot topic of, erm, "discussion" there. People are REALLY mad when they buy a new laptop that says "Vista Capable", and find out later that it really meant "Sorry, you can't run the Aero theme eye candy, DVD Maker, or Movie Maker, because your Intel 915 integrated graphics chip doesn't qualify for a WDDM driver." Somehow explaining that they should have bought a machine that was "Vista Premium Ready" doesn't make them feel better.

    Seriously, between the two blog posts (one with video!) on the topic that I've done, there are over 800 comments (by FAR the most visited and commented on posts on the whole blog), most of them mad at Intel for not providing a WDDM driver for 915 graphics chipsets. Problem is, we can't. It doesn't meet the WDDM spec, which is controlled by Microsoft.

    Here are the posts in question:

    Video: Why Intel 915 graphics don't have a WDDM driver for Vista [intel.com]

    Update on the 915 Graphics WDDM Vista Driver Issue [intel.com]

    I'm actually relieved to see this news story come out, not that it makes me happy to point the finger at Microsoft (it doesn't), but to at least point all those angry blog commenters at a 3rd party source that sheds some light on the problem. I maintain my naive hope that it will educate and placate them all, and they'll stop emailing me and calling my cell phone. ;-)

  • Blending Vista (Score:3, Funny)

    by stu_coates ( 156061 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @03:01PM (#22395298)

    At least there's one very useful Vista capable machine.

    Thank you BlendTech [youtube.com]

  • Please no, not a Class Action (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PingXao ( 153057 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @03:07PM (#22395400)
    Class Actions are almost worthless unless you're one of the lawyers involved. You get a $10 discount coupon you can use on your next purchase from Microsoft. The lawyers pocket millions. I wish there was a better way of dealing with rogue corporations' transgressions.

  • Internal Emails (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Workaphobia ( 931620 ) on Tuesday February 12, 2008 @05:27PM (#22397638) Journal
    Not that this comment will be read so late in the game, but it irks me that internal Microsoft emails were revealed through the legal system. All companies look like crap when you make their most candid discussions public. I find it unsettling that these messages can be used against them in such a way, because it would seem to lead us to a state where marketing BS invades internal technical discussions, creating a sort of double-think / no-privacy situation in the workplace. I just think that private thoughts deserve protection.

    Flame on.

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