So I read the article.
And from what I understand is that she is suing because she does not have the Vista Premium stuff in her machine.
And the marketing led her to believe that all Vista OS's had all those features including Basic.
WOW!!! She really is at fault for not doing her own research.
Or like someone else said she got screwed by the salesman.

I am going to try to keep this post simple and to the point. However, I
must touch on the lawyer thing. First of all, why in the world would anyone
want to really give up the right to sue. Or to be more precise why would you want to prevent someone from having the right to sue a company that has mis-marketed their product or has done someone harm either financially or to someone physically. That is really dumb. Just because you might have heard of a few frivolous cases going to court on TV (McDonald's) does not mean it is the norm. Far from it. Do any of you know exactly how much it costs to go to court? I mean really?? It is not cheap at all. Are lawyers crooks....hell yeah or least most of the ones I've run into. However, crooked / bad lawyers are the problem not the ability to take someone to court that you feel may have wronged you. As of right now in many states because of caps on award amounts most cases no matter how bad you feel that you have been wronged will give you no more than $200,000. That's barely enough to cover the lawyer. Much less any additional losses you might have accrued.

<<off soap box>>

Now as for Microsoft, "Vista Capable" ... Really?? I mean this is a
tech-site and I can't believe that some of you techies would actually
believe that this lady doesn't have a case. Have any of you actually installed Vista Basic on the minimum requirements. I have ... actually my company purchased a machine that has Vista Basic pre-installed and let me tell you what there is NOTHING about this machine that could possibly be considered as being acceptable, capable, or even remotely close to being considered "Capable" to run this operating system, while I tried to keep my boss from purchasing this machine it was no use. Why? Because Microsoft did a really good job at marketing an inferior product to the masses (and our government let them).

Now most of you will say that Microsoft has given the minimum
requirements for Vista and what I am telling you is that Vista will NOT run on 512 MB of RAM. Unless you turn off every feature you can find within the operating system (this applies to Basic). So what you have after you do this is not Vista but Windows XP with all of the features turned off riding on a updated WinXP kernel that will not run Microsoft's own Office products pre OfficeXP. How is this acceptable???

In addition to this, the stickers notating which version the machine Vista would acceptably run on didn't come out until maybe 2 or 3 months before the OS was launched with all of it's versions. Before this time Vista Capable was on everything from a dual core machine to a Sempron (my company has a couple of these). Herein lies the confusion and Microsoft's retarded decision to try and make Vista run on machines that just can't.

If you bought a toaster that was "Capable" of making toast yet would only toast one side of the bread would that be considered acceptable? No! If you bought a DVD player that was Blue Ray capable but couldn't play a HD title at more than slideshow speed would that be ok? Of course not. So why is it acceptable for software?

Everyone knows that VIsta was not ready to be lauched yet it was launched anyway and to make matters worse Microsoft forced OEMS to drop XP in favor of VIsta. Now while you can still get XP it comes at a premium and is alot harder to find in an OEM machine, especially one for the masses.

As for this case I really do hope Microsoft loses so that maybe the next operating system will be far better. Really they have no excuse as to why Vista is as half-baked as it is.

Iron my shirt BIATCH!!!

I decided to wait until latter to post this - to gauge the reactions of others.

Its AMAZING how knowing "just a little" about the law can result in so many poor opinions.

FACT: our judicial system for torts and contracts is EASILY the best in the world (..I can't say that for several other areas of the law like criminal law).

FACT: there are MANY different legal "hurdles" to overcome through out civil litigation. A capricious litigious civil case rarely results in what the "public" decry's as "law suit abuse". Additionally, "public" in this instance is usually a consortium of litigated Co's trying to relieve and limit damages, and then selling/spinning this to an unsuspecting public. The reason WHY they can sell this position? - the Media. They look for such cases OR fabricate/bias the facts of a marginal case because its "note worthy" (..Horror sells VERY well people, average does NOT). Unfortunately, the real public hear this crap so often that some, perhaps many, think its at least moderately normal. IT IS NOT (..i.e. it IS and EXCEPTION).

Now then.. Should the case be "thrown out" as some have suggested? The answer for at least summary judgement is:

If the case does not meet the meet the minimum requirements of the law (under suit), i.e. The Deceptive Trade Practices Act of Washington State, then YES.

If it does, then NO.

Really, its not that difficult for a judge with even a modest amount of experience to rule on.

The thing is.. all of the opinions thus far (either for the case or against the case), have not looked at the relevant statute to even see if it does or does not meet what is required. Hell, no one has even looked at the Uniform statute on deceptive trade practices (which is likely not exactly the same as Washington's). (..and don't think the Media will do it for you, they would rather have "road kill" - IT sells).

The Roman's had a description for this sort public: The MOB. Where popular opinion (rather than informed opinions), carried the day (..and sometimes it does, my state caps Hospital damages at half a mil.. Thats right, a young family's "bread winner", with perhaps no other means of support, could be killed by a hospital negligent staff infection and deemed that that person's life is worth only half a mil., no matter how negligent (or even KNOWING) the hospital is.)

Oh, and though it shouldn't need stating, you do NOT need to be a lawyer to reason if the asserted claim in the petition meets the requirements of the law. Just use some logic, expend some effort, and you'll have an actually INFORMED opinion.

Oh, a quick web search will get you at least a listing of uniform deceptive trade practices:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=washington+deceptive+trade+pra...

yeah, i was hoping for this. it was so deceitful of MS to allow this to happen. Not everyone knows that you need a decent video card on a new system to run that aero cr@p.

Hope she and many others win against the giant.

Help! I'm a n00b and it's M$'s fault!

I thought the basic version was the reason for the whole hub-bub that competitors were whining about. MS was integrating their own software to do stuff they were doing. So they HAD to release a minimum version to satisfy all the whiners. Sure no one (smart) will buy it, but that's the way it has to work.

Note to MS

Make a vista capable sticker with checkboxes per vista version next time...

I have to agree about hoping this is thrown out. While I'm sure there is more Microsoft could have down to be a bit more clear, but let's visit the definition of "capable":
....
3: having attributes (as physical or mental power) required for performance or accomplishment
4: having traits conducive to or features permitting

So, the computer, which can run the lowest (despite being reviewed as also the most absurd, or pointless) edition of Vista, does in fact meet the definition. So, "lawyering up" for this because: 1) as a consumer you didn't spend enough time deciding which computer would suit you, or 2) you got duped by a salesman, seems to follow the "I'm not responsible for what I do" attitude the U.S. seems to be adopting since the 1980's.

If I had a dime for every moron in the world I see I'd have enough to buy Microsoft and a hitman to take care of her.

I have to contact that lawyer. I want to sue Viagra, because there ads show attractive women flocking to the dude who took their pill. Yet when I took it I just got a place to hang my hat :-(

Such misleading ads.

I'm about to start a class action against nvidia if I don't get some freaking "VISTA READY" nforce3 drivers.

She should just kill herself and remove her genes off the pool. Humankind doesn't need such stupidity to propagate to future generations,

I bought a Dodge Magnum and didn't get a Hemi. You mean I have to ask for it and pay more? But they advertise the Hemi!

Vista Basic = XP Home Basic rewrapped.

It's this sort of thing that just makes me scream for tort reform.

How is this possibly anything approaching the fault of Microsoft.

Home Basic is the cheapest version of the new OS.

You don't buy the cheapest version of a sports car and expect it to perform like a Viper. Similarly, this. Microsoft made no false claims. Microsoft did not injure anyone.

Lawsuits like this and the people who instigate them (I'm looking at you, Congress) need to go to hell. Now.

she has no case. They even have differentiate between capable and ready.

The HDTV mess is something that needs to be straighted out, those terms are messed up.

I don't see how she can possibly win this lawsuit.

#12, 1980's? Things actually did happen before you were born, you know.

The hyper-corruption of law by politicians began in 1934 (massive expansion of discovery), but it took a while to complete the task. It exploded with the irresponsible 1960's. And then the Supreme Being Philosopher Kings in the late 1970's declared that lawyers, who are officially "officers of the court" and thus when practicing part of government, had a right to advertise on television. That's when people began noticing what had been happening for decades.

And now we have a lawyer running for president who was able to claim to be able to speak to a dead child (small exaggeration, he only claimed he knew what she would say if she were there to testify) in order to loot a hospital his client was suing.

Another idiot looking for a handout.

But then it is up to the consumer to discover all the specifics that Microsoft buries within their "more technical" documentation. A "marketing practices" class action does not put the onus on the customer to be able to identify partial claims; this is the structure which "Big Tobacco" lost under, and why commercials contain a large portion of legaliese.

According to many state laws it is up to the advertiser to properly identify clauses up front, otherwise it can be labeled "deceptive" due to the fact that there can be considered 2 versions of a claim: the partial claim made inside the commonly available ad, versus the full claim details which may be disclosed to the consumer only after 'intense scrutiny".

Does she have a case? Maybe, maybe not. Can't tell from here.

I'm sorry.. but I hope the judge tosses her out on her ass on this one lol

There's lots of documentation out there that she could have looked at. Such as: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/windowsvista/buyorupgrade...

Yay! More litigation. woohoo! Gotta pay for all those lawyer's ski cabins in Colorado...