Ballmer Ordered To Testify In 'Vista Capable' Case 235
alphadogg writes "A federal judge in Seattle has ordered Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer to testify in a class action lawsuit against Microsoft that alleges the company misled consumers in a marketing campaign for its Windows Vista operating system in which computers sold with an older Microsoft OS were labeled 'Vista Capable' when in fact they could only run a basic version of Vista. Ballmer has unique personal knowledge of facts surrounding the case, therefore he must face questioning, Judge Marsha Pechman of the US District Court for the Western District of Washington at Seattle ruled, according to court documents released late Friday."
So? (Score:4, Interesting)
Because people feel like Aero was a major selling feature? And that without Aero, Vista is not distinguisable from XP? I'd say that the difference is major, and is very much public knowledge, much to Microsoft's chagrin.
So what's the argument? That MS's ad campaign led you to believe anything over the "vista-sucks" hype? I don't think so.
Re:Hmm (Score:3, Interesting)
My laptop with 2GB RAM has no issues with Vista Ultimate x64. It does have an AMD64 Turion dual core though.
It came with Vista Home Basic pre-installed which DID run dog slow during everything. I'm pretty sure Microsoft, for whatever reason, purposely crippled the lower versions. Lord knows I've seen similar things happen when people misconfigure their GPO settings or make bad Registry changes manually.
Re:Hmm (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you used one of these? (Score:3, Interesting)
My sister has an Acer laptop which is Vista Capable - it came with Vista Basic installed. It's the lowest end Acer laptop you can purchase (not sure of model.)
I used the thing the day she got it, before she had a chance to bloat it with stuff. The thing is gawd awefully slow. I'm remembering back in the 386 days when I got Windows 95 to run on an old PC. You click on START and within 30-120 seconds, the start menu appears. You click on the submenu, and within about 30 seconds it appears. You click on an icon, and between 30-200 seconds the application will actually load.
It works. It runs Vista. Is this a usable computer, in your opinion? You should see how slow it is now that she has software installed on it.
Re:So? (Score:4, Interesting)
It's a bit of a game. If Aero wasn't such a resource hog, the nicer graphics would have made the now mostly hated interface changes more palatable. This is the first time anyone had to deal with graphics being an extra pay-for feature. Imagine having to do that for an FPS.
Mac OS X has changed what the expectations for interface graphics are. I'm sure a lot of People thought Aero would be something similar to Quartz and such.
Own worst enemy (Score:1, Interesting)
I know it's off topic, but I thought I'd share. After reading all this about Vista Capable computers I thought I'd take a look at Vista. I'll freely admit I've never used it, though I have avoided it like the plague because of the bad press. Actually, I've not had much to do with Windows in about 3 years... anyway, I just bought myself a shiny new HP laptop. It came without an OS, so of course the first thing I did was shove Linux on. It's apparently capable of running Vista, so I thought - what the hell, why not have a look. After all, it's only fair. However, I don't want to shell out $xx.xx for a copy without knowing if a) it works b) it's worth the cash, so I thought maybe Microsoft had a limited trial version on their website. 30 days, for example. If I liked it, I'd buy it. But nope, no trial version at all. And I can't install a bought copy and return it if I don't like it either. Consumer rights my ass. But there's hope - there's an on-line tour... that, however, only works if you have an active-x capable machine, i.e. windows. So if I want to try Microsoft software, I have to have a Microsoft operating system. Really selling me on the interoperability there guys. Seriously. No wonder people get pissed at Microsoft. The customer's really just an unflushed turd as far as they're concerned. I hope they lose this case, get a hefty fine and buck up their ideas. (I've said that before, alas)