News - Vista-Capable lawsuit reveals how Microsoft's shenanigans angered HP

[HEXUS]

The class-action lawsuit filed against Microsoft for labelling systems as "Vista Capable" has kicked up some revealing internal e-mails.

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[Jay]

That is totally disgusting thing for Microsoft to do but its not a suprise. They are so big that they can do anything they want and in the end complaints are just words, HP still spends money with Microsoft and that all Microsoft cares about. HP are big enought to suck up that $7million but what about other, smaller firms?

I wish we had all backed OS2 when it was around, maybe things would have been a little different.

[mercyground]

Zero surprise from me. Intels gfx have sucked for ages. Promised drivers never appeared. Features claimed to be brought in but the hardware could never physically support it.

I'd never buy an intel card/laptop for gaming.

I am currently patiently waiting for a 4850 in a laptop for my gaming. I will not touch nvidia till they sort their act out.

If you read the specs for Vista you KNEW that it was not going to be possible for Intel chipsets to do Aero.

Am glad that Jim did take a stand against it. Shame it wasnt better publicised maybe MS might have been slapped about it.

If they wriggle out of this one without further scantions then the DOJ might as well be retired as a toothless dog.

MS is a proven monopoly. Either fix it or just let them carry on and dont even bother "investigating". It just embarresses the world with the complete farce of the legal system.

[s_kinton]

As pointed out above, this scenario is inevitable whilst MS holds a monopoly over the market. HP can moan above what MS have done, but with no real competition HP have zero leverage.

[aidanjt]

As pointed out above, this scenario is inevitable whilst MS holds a monopoly over the market. HP can moan above what MS have done, but with no real competition HP have zero leverage.

There's plenty of competition. That isn't the problem, the problem is people. And people are ignorant, stupid, and unaware of the competition.

[tvccs]

A less-publicized but equally important issue between Microsoft and HP on Vista was HP's decision, and Microsoft and Intel's complicity, in allowing HP to install Vista 64 on systems not capable of using more than 3GB of RAM, defeating the most attractive feature of Vista 64. I purchased one of the earliest DV9000 series HP laptops (a DV9330CA) with Vista Ultimate 64 as the preload, only to discover after the fact that the included Intel PM945 chipset was incapable of handling 4GB of RAM.

I am a longtime Microsoft Partner, and never imagined (silly me) that Microsoft would allow a 64-bit OS to be installed onto a board designed only for 32-bit. Add to that the fact that the system totally failed during a correctly-done Vista SP1 installation, that Microsoft's senior SP1 supervisor in Redmond promised to send me OEM Vista 64 software to try and rebuild the OS without destroying all the related data after days of conversations with SP1 support, and then did not. The Service Pack 1 installation also helped cause the dreaded NVidia GPU failure (a GeForce 7600) and I am now on motherboard #3 after #2 failed almost immediately after install with the same problem.

HP's answer has been "we never told you the system could take more than 2GB of RAM". How totally, utterly absurd on all their parts, and shame on them all. And class-action suits have already, or are about to be filed, against HP, NVidia, Microsoft and Intel. And with good reason.

[jpellizzari]

Hi. I too have a DV9330CA and am frustrated by the fact that HP sold me a system with x64 that I can't realize the benefit from the extra money I spent to get x64 out of (nevermind the fact that I've had to have major hardware repairs done 3 times in 2 years - thank god I bought an extended warranty). I was wondering if there was any update to the lawsuits mentioned in this thread. Is there someone that I can contact to join the class-action suit?

Thanks
Jeff