The "Windows Vista Capable" lawsuit took another step toward trial—or settlement—Tuesday when US District Court Judge Marsha Pechman denied Microsoft's request for dismissal. The suit was filed in March by a pair of miffed PC buyers.

In a blow to Microsoft Corp., a federal judge granted class-action status to a lawsuit late Friday alleging that Microsoft unjustly enriched itself by promoting PCs as "Windows Vista Capable" even when they could only run a bare-bones version of the operating system, called "Vista Home Basic."

Wal-Mart will sell a sub-$300 "back-to-school" PC this fall pre-loaded with Microsoft Windows Vista and OpenOffice.org productivity software. The Everex GC3502 PC, is based on a 1.7GHz Via C7-D processor, and will be available later this year preloaded with Ubuntu Linux.

"About a week ago Wal-Mart began selling a $200 Linux machine running on a 1.5 ghz VIA C7 processor and 512 MB of RAM. While the specs are useless for Vista, it works blazingly fast on Ubuntu with the Enlightenment Window Manager. The machine is now officially sold out of their online warehouses (it may still be available in some stores).

DRM bites again: the Microsoft Windows Genuine Advantage servers (which every XP and Vista install phones home to) all failed sometime earlier today. The result? Every single Windows XP and Vista installation is being marked as counterfeit when it tries to check in.

I knew it. Vista simply wasn’t ready for prime time. Some internal documents that emerged from a class-action lawsuit over Vista Capable illustrated that hardware vendor, Dell, pushed back on Microsoft to fix issues with Vista before launching. Microsoft knew fully well of Dell’s feedback as early as Aug 2005.

Dell Ubuntu Linux buyers were recently outraged when a price comparison between identical Inspiron 1420 laptops showed that instead of the Ubuntu system being cheaper, it actually ended up costing $225 more than the same laptop with Vista Home Basic Edition.

I have many colleagues and friends who have been through messy divorces. In each case, these poor guys have gone from having the good life, to having issues, to losing half of their assets (or more). I just filed my divorce papers for Microsoft's Vista. In my case, my relationship with Vista never went through the good life period.

A Microsoft product manager couldn't correctly explain the "Vista Capable" marketing slogan, according to recent filings in a lawsuit that claims the company misled consumers with a prerelease Vista campaign last year.