T
thetruthhurts
Fri Feb 22, 11:48 PM ET
SEATTLE - A federal judge said Friday that consumers may go ahead with
a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. over the way it
advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the
Vista operating system.
The lawsuit said Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista
Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not
powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the
much-touted "Aero" user interface.
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but
whittled down its scope to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's
"Vista Capable" labels created artificial demand for computers during
the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers
that couldn't be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which
was released at the end of January 2007.
Neither of the two people who filed the original lawsuit participated
in a program Microsoft devised to help people who bought new computers
before Vista's launch upgrade later to the new operating system, but
they argued nonetheless that people who bought "Vista Capable"
computers were harmed because they could only run a basic version of
Vista.
The judge said if they added a named plaintiff who did take part in
Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" program, they could pursue that claim as
well.
Microsoft said it was reviewing the ruling.
SEATTLE - A federal judge said Friday that consumers may go ahead with
a class action lawsuit against Microsoft Corp. over the way it
advertised computers loaded with Windows XP as capable of running the
Vista operating system.
The lawsuit said Microsoft's labeling of some PCs as "Windows Vista
Capable" was misleading because many of those computers were not
powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, including the
much-touted "Aero" user interface.
U.S. District Judge Marsha Pechman certified the class action suit but
whittled down its scope to focus primarily on whether Microsoft's
"Vista Capable" labels created artificial demand for computers during
the 2006 holiday shopping season, and inflated prices for computers
that couldn't be upgraded to the full-featured version of Vista, which
was released at the end of January 2007.
Neither of the two people who filed the original lawsuit participated
in a program Microsoft devised to help people who bought new computers
before Vista's launch upgrade later to the new operating system, but
they argued nonetheless that people who bought "Vista Capable"
computers were harmed because they could only run a basic version of
Vista.
The judge said if they added a named plaintiff who did take part in
Microsoft's "Express Upgrade" program, they could pursue that claim as
well.
Microsoft said it was reviewing the ruling.