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Judge gives green light to 'Vista Capable' lawsuit

Natalie Weinstein CNET News

Published: 25 Feb 2008 09:59 GMT

A US district judge in Seattle has ruled that consumers can move ahead with a class-action suit against Microsoft over how it advertised computers with Windows XP as capable of running Vista, according to an article by the Associated Press.

The suit claims the labelling of computers as "Windows Vista Capable" misled consumers because many of the machines weren't powerful enough to run all of Vista's features, such as the Aero user interface, the article said.

The federal judge certified the suit late on Friday, but narrowed its scope to whether the "Vista Capable" labels artificially created demand for PCs in late 2006 during the Christmas-shopping season. Vista, which had faced several delays, was released in early 2007.

According to a related article in the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, many of the computers touted as Vista Capable could run only the stripped-down "Home Basic" version of Vista.

Microsoft said it was reviewing the decision.

Credit: Judge OKs suit over 'Vista Capable' from CNET News