Author Topic: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit  (Read 29383 times)

Offline Pugnate

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Offline Cobra951

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #1 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 11:51:08 AM »
What's most newsworthy there is the legion of people who defend Microsoft.  Look at the comments.  I found one post with a pro-lawsuit stance, and an opinion that makes sense to me.  Everyone else is saying that "Vista-capable" doesn't have to mean that Vista performs well.  They're fine with that first generation of under-performing Vista machines sold to unwitting consumers.

Offline Pugnate

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #2 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 12:07:25 PM »
I wonder if they are MS employees. You never know these days.

And the question here is that why would you upgrade to Vista, if you are going to opt for a version that looks worse than XP. I'd naturally think a Vista capable machine would be able to run the OS with all the bells and whistles.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #3 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 12:33:33 PM »
I wonder if they are MS employees. You never know these days.

And the question here is that why would you upgrade to Vista, if you are going to opt for a version that looks worse than XP. I'd naturally think a Vista capable machine would be able to run the OS with all the bells and whistles.

If your laptop breaks, and you're an average consumer on a budget, you don't have an option, Pug.  If you're knowledgeable, you can get one with Vista Basic and reformat with XP, or you can search for a refurb with XP you feel you can trust.  MS has made it very difficult for most people to get a new PC without Vista. 

If that same consumer's PC is working fine under XP, then he has an option.  The new OS is forced through attrition, even if it's unpopular (which it probably isn't).

Offline scottws

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #4 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 12:36:24 PM »
I wonder if they are MS employees. You never know these days.

And the question here is that why would you upgrade to Vista, if you are going to opt for a version that looks worse than XP. I'd naturally think a Vista capable machine would be able to run the OS with all the bells and whistles.
The average consumer don't realize they are going to be downgrading graphically, and I think that's the rub.  The original language does say something like "core experience" but I don't even know where that is.  I've never seen that language before.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #5 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 12:47:46 PM »
How much worse does Vista Basic look (than XP)?  See, my daughter just went through this bullshit.  This average consumer on a budget is a real person.  She got a new laptop with 1 GB RAM, and I told her she should stick with Vista Basic at that memory size.  I hope I didn't steer her wrong.  They wanted oodles more money for 2 GB, and of course, Vista Premium costs a chunk more as well.

Offline scottws

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #6 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 01:02:41 PM »
Vista's basic GUI looks like the Win95/98/ME/2000 interface or the XP basic interface.  Vista has Aero and basic.  There are two Aero modes: the whizbang one with the transparencies and neat effects and the opaque one.  It doesn't have Luna from XP.

Offline beo

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #7 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 02:20:33 PM »
Vista's basic GUI looks like the Win95/98/ME/2000 interface or the XP basic interface.  Vista has Aero and basic.  There are two Aero modes: the whizbang one with the transparencies and neat effects and the opaque one.  It doesn't have Luna from XP.

not quite. i'm running basic, and it does have the cut down non-"whizbang" version of what is essentially areo. there's no windows transparencies, or the new fancy app switching, but other than that it looks just like the aero UI.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #8 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 02:28:39 PM »
OK, thanks.  So the functionality at least is full.  I don't think she cares about how pretty the OS is, as long as she can do everything she could under XP (much like me).  Her mother's PC uses Windows 2000, and that's perfectly functional.  (It's a Pentium-3 PC I got some years ago very cheap, hoping to use it as an FTP server.  I ended up passing it along to her when her old PC went bust.)

Edit:  Beo, so, is that useful?  See, I can't understand the big deal about making the OS look like a video game.  When we move to gesture-based control, as in Minority Report, fine.  Maybe then we need things to look and behave like physical objects in the OS.  Right now, with point-and-click mouse, I don't understand the need for all the overhead.  Since I have not played with Vista at all, I'm having a hard time visualizing what the experience is going to be like with and without the aero stuff.

Offline Quemaqua

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #9 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 07:05:01 PM »
It amazes me how many Vista fanboys are out there.  Go to any gaming board anywhere, look up some threads where Vista doesn't do anything right and causes the game to explode, and then watch the legions of people that go on and on about how it isn't Vista's fault, blah blah blah.  My guess is these people are just trying really fucking hard to justify their own stupidity, and I say fuck 'em all.

Anyway, the lawsuit sounds like a good thing.  MS management seems to have been piling bad decisions on top of more bad decisions, and they really need to be made to pay for all of them.  I have no real insight on this because I wouldn't touch Vista if you paid me, but it sounds legitimate enough.

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Offline beo

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #10 on: Monday, February 25, 2008, 07:18:57 PM »
Edit:  Beo, so, is that useful?

it's literally just a skin - that's it. it's not more or less "useful", it just looks different. the premium version of aero has the transparencies, app switching and some other minor graphical effects, while the basic version does not. there's really nothing more to say on aero's functionality - that's all there is to it.

Offline Xessive

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #11 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 01:30:49 AM »
I have Vista running on my work laptop and even though it is fully capable of running Aero with all the bells & whistles I still switch to the Standard skin. Why? Becuase to use Aero (or even WindowBlinds) Vista needs to load something called the Desktop Window Manager (DWM) which eats up about ~100MB of my RAM. I feel it's a waste of resources, especially since all I'm getting is transparency and some window animations. Totally ot worth it.

Anyway, I'm looking for ways to skin the Vista Standard visual style. I haven't been able to find something along the lines of the "uxtheme.dll patch" (which is the method for XP). The only thing I know of that does work is TuneUp Styler (which also comes with the TuneUp Utilities), but I'm limited to their selection of visual styles (available here).

Offline gpw11

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #12 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 01:56:06 AM »
What's most newsworthy there is the legion of people who defend Microsoft.  Look at the comments.  I found one post with a pro-lawsuit stance, and an opinion that makes sense to me.  Everyone else is saying that "Vista-capable" doesn't have to mean that Vista performs well.  They're fine with that first generation of under-performing Vista machines sold to unwitting consumers.

I honestly don't think most people understand the issue (on both sides).  The PCs and laptops in question were sold with XP on them, but had stickers saying that they were 'Vista capable'.  This was part of a program that MS and retailers put in place in order to keep sales of pre-loaded XP machines constant right before Vista went on sale.    Beyond that, it's all up in the air.  I have no idea what level of machines they were selling (although apparently they all met the requirements for home basic), and exactly how much information was held on this sticker or any corresponding paperwork. 

Basically what it comes down to is if meeting the minimum requirements is enough to state that a machine is capable of running something.  I haven't actually heard anything mentioned about the actual performance of the machines under Vista in 4 or more articles over the last month or so.  I'm imagining that this is because the lawsuit isn't related to performance, only graphical features.  It's kind of a crap shoot when considering the business ethics of it. 

Personally, I'd say as long as you can run the basic version of Vista in a stable environment with adequate speed I don't see it as being particularly unethical, but my opinion doesn't mean much at all seeing as I don't know anything about the actual campaign and I'm very fucking jaded from dealing with PC game requirements that pretty much outright lie  far worse than Microsoft and the OEMs seemed to here.

Either way, this is certainly a good thing for pretty much everybody.  Microsoft learns a valuable lesson in being clear and concise which I'm sure they'll put to use with Windows 7. Consumers can rest assure that even if the class action suit loses, it will have had an impact and this won't happen again. Some people will get around $5 they can buy some sour keys with.  Finally, there'll be a couple of lawyers who can buy a new car, put a down-payment on a new mortgage, and bang some hookers. 

 I think the best we can hope for is that Microsoft loses, it sets precedent for not only MS but for every software development house in the business to stop downplaying requirements, the plaintiffs take their money and purchase "Doing Research on Buying Stuff For Dummies", and some lawyers get Herpes.


Offline Pugnate

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #13 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 02:03:52 AM »
Why the hell didn't we become lawyers again? Sure we may have to fondle Satan in the after life, but it would be a good time till then.

Offline Cobra951

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #14 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 01:33:52 PM »
Vista's basic GUI looks like the Win95/98/ME/2000 interface or the XP basic interface.  Vista has Aero and basic.  There are two Aero modes: the whizbang one with the transparencies and neat effects and the opaque one.  It doesn't have Luna from XP.

Ah, so Luna is the default XP theme.  (Looked it up.)  I'm on that right now, with different wallpaper.  I also looked around for info on Vista, and the differences between the aero and basic interfaces.  Found a fairly official looking blog page.  Way out of date, but it explains things in a nutshell.  It seems to me the basic interface is just fine.  You don't really give up anything from XP.  Switching themes may be more complicated, but I don't care.  As long as functionality hasn't been intentionally crippled to force aero, I still don't see what the big deal is about transparencies and 3D manipulations.

Edit:
Anyway, I'm looking for ways to skin the Vista Standard visual style. I haven't been able to find something along the lines of the "uxtheme.dll patch" (which is the method for XP). The only thing I know of that does work is TuneUp Styler (which also comes with the TuneUp Utilities), but I'm limited to their selection of visual styles (available here).

How about Vista Black[Edit 2]  That's actually the first full-resolution Vista-UI image I've been able to find anywhere.  That's not bad at all.  I could live with the UI just fine.
« Last Edit: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 02:07:44 PM by Cobra951 »

Offline Pugnate

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #15 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 02:22:09 PM »
You are right, that not having Aero isn't a big deal, but Aero is pretty much the only massive difference between XP and Vista.

I find Vista more stable, faster, and easily more intuitive in its interface and whatnot. The thing is that all these changes are really subtle, and aren't really worth $150 on a new OS. With DX10 a bust so far, the only really advantage is Aero. I personally don't think it is worth it either though, but if that's not working, then what's the point?


Offline Cobra951

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #16 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 05:15:33 PM »
No point, other than it's much easier and probably cheaper to get than XP when you buy a new laptop or pre-fab desktop. 

My daughter called for my birthday a while ago, and I talked to her about her PC.  Everything's running fine, and she has already gotten into killing off processes that don't need to be running.  She's been looking online for tips.  She had some trouble with Photoshop, but figured that out as well.  She's smart, and she's got a handle on it.  I'm not worried anymore.  She'll be the Vista expert before I will.

Offline scottws

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #17 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 05:57:20 PM »
Vista is crap.  It seems to do everything slower.  I hate it.  The only thing I like is the little indexed search thing in the Start menu.

Offline WindAndConfusion

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Re: "Vista Capable" Class Action Suit
« Reply #18 on: Tuesday, February 26, 2008, 06:51:25 PM »
it's literally just a skin - that's it. it's not more or less "useful", it just looks different. the premium version of aero has the transparencies, app switching and some other minor graphical effects, while the basic version does not. there's really nothing more to say on aero's functionality - that's all there is to it.
There is more, actually. Aero uses the new Desktop Window Manager, which is basically a GPU-accelerated GUI. In theory, this should mean Aero is much faster and somewhat more efficient than the old Windows GUI. In practice, Microsoft is shockingly incompetent.

Apple has been doing the same thing with OS X since 2002 (see Quartz), except Apple's version doesn't suck.