(TheForceField.net ) March 3, 2008 — Microsoft is in a class action lawsuit regarding their "Vista Capable" campaign and they seem to be blowing the whistle on themselves.
The lawsuit filed against Microsoft alleged that the company mislead users by claiming new PCs built with the minimum requirements for Windows Home Basic as Windows Vista Capable when they were not capable of running Windows Home Premium. On February 22 a Seattle Federal judge allowed the lawsuit class action status.
The court unsealed Microsoft internal e-mails February 27. These documents were used by the plaintiffs to support their case against Redmond. The e-mails outlined frustration by Microsoft's executives with Vista as well, particularly in regards to availability of drivers, including graphics drivers.
Microsoft admitted Vista had requirements that were beyond the capabilities of some low end or what the industry refers to as "junk PCs" and Redmond responded to the problem by lowering the requirements for hardware to qualify as Windows Vista Capable, according to the e-mails.
Mike Nash, the Vice President of Windows Product Development posted his own experiences with Vista in an e-mail. "I personally got burned by the Intel 915 chipset issue on a laptop that I PERSONALLY (eg with my own $$$). Are we seeing this from a lot of customers? I know that I chose my laptop (a Sony TX770P) because it had the Vista logo and was pretty disappointed that it not only wouldn't run Glass, but more importantly wouldn't run Movie Maker (I guess that is being addressed). I now have a $2100 email machine.", he wrote.
Others expressed frustration as well. Jon Shirley, former president and member of Microsoft's Board of Directors wrote "I upgraded one of the two machines I use a lot to Vista. The most persistent and so far hardest to fix issues are both with MSN products, Portfolio in MSN Money and Music (downloads that I had bought in the past)."
Shirley also had trouble finding drivers for his Epson printer. "I cannot understand with a product this long in creation why there is such a shortage of drivers", he added.
Jim Allchin, former Co-President, Platform and Services Division, in another email wrote "We really botched this."
The complete set of e-mails can be downloaded here vista_emails.pdf .
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