Please refer to several articles at The Register (dot co dot uk) regarding the ongoing class-action suits aimed at MS for their bogus labeling of weak machines as “Vista-capable” when in fact they were only capable of *barely* running the humblest of Vista’s versions with all the bells and whistles turned off.

In the world economic meltdown, with MS pushing hard to make Win7 seem affordable and palatable to consumers, I expect a LOT of half-truths and outright fibs from MicroScoffed’s advertising execs. Creating an artificially low list of hardware requirements isn’t beneath them.

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Woody, have you actually installed your Win7 beta copy on that “$295 machine”? Is it running well, or running like a rocking horse carrying a 300 pound jockey?

And how’s the old irony alarm, when we realize that adding the cost of a legal non-beta copy of Win7 would double that $295?

Me, I’ll stick with WinXP on whatever desktop I’m using. Why use a 300 pound jockey when a 70 pound jockey is cheaper and faster?

When I finally can’t stay productive with WinXP, my next “windows” will be a consumer-friendly version of Linux, not the hideously anti-consumer bloatware/fragile/DRM-infested offerings of MS.

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Recommended reading on what’s wrong with Vista and Win7: Google for “windows vista cost analysis” for a fascinating article by Peter Gutmann.