Vista Capable Suit Loses Class-Action Status

Reversing an earlier ruling, a judge has refused to grant class-action status to a lawsuit accusing Microsoft of unfair marketing in its Vista Capable program, which allowed OEMs to label certain computers “Vista Capable” even if they could only run a version of Vista without advanced features. While the judge did not dismiss the case, the removal of class-action status will likely make individual cases too expensive for the individual plaintiffs to continue to pursue them.

Price Inflation Not Proven

Introduced in mid-2006 before Vista was launched, the Vista Capable program was meant to allow consumers to identify computers with Windows XP that would be capable of running Vista. However, Microsoft guaranteed only that Vista Capable computers would run Vista Home Basic, which lacks features such as the advanced Aero interface and Media Center remote-controllable digital media interface. A separate designation, Vista Premium-Ready, was used to identify computers that could run Vista Home Premium, which offered these features.