Vista Capable Lawsuit Looming?
February 14, 2008 – 9:35 am
While I knew my GE Microwave wasn’t really Vista capable as we set fire attempting to reheat coffee in an MS Partner branded mug, I did believe my new $1500 laptop was. It took me 6 months to get all the hardware to work correctly in Vista Ultimate. Am I alone? Apparently not, as CRN reports.
Kevin McLaughlin (whom has always quoted me fairly in past articles) has quoted some big names in our industry when
releasing this story yesterday, with co-writer Steven Burke, on an apparent deception perpetrated by Microsoft against consumers. The alleged deception centers around Microsoft’s minimum system requirement for a machine to receive the notorious Vista Capable sticker at the system builder’s office.
My opinion (I assume that is why you read this) is that MS needs to stop using minimum system requirement that are completely unrealistic for real word production environments. Having worked on several MS Exams in the past few months I cringe as we discuss the testing of minimum system requirements. We actually laugh when we see what the product team recommends! This is what MS specified as Vista Capable system requirement as of December 2006:
-800 MHZ Processor
-512 MB of RAM
-A graphics card that is DirectX 9 compatible
-20 GB of hard drive space
I think Jeff Middleton summed it up pretty well in the CRN article when he said: “The Vista Capable stickers always reminded me of the warning sticker on a hot cup of coffee,” said Middleton. “If you’re going to order a product before it’s shipped, you really have to be in a ‘buyer beware’ mindset.”