It was a misleading marketing exercise

If I remember correctly, Vista was not ready for release in time for the Xmas market and so MS put up the marketting plan to sell to include free Vista when it became available.

As part of the plan some PCs/laptops were blazoned Vista ready or Vista Capable so that they could attract buyers.

It then turned out that the minimum spec released by MS that had to be matched to allow the Vista Capable logo to be employed was far too low to achieve the results portrayed by movies and demos of the soon to be released Vista product.

OK the hardware vendors were misleading in their claims, but they were adhering to the MS requirements and MS are the ones who now how much is really required to achieve a simple task. So the HW vendors were either misled by MS or in collaboration with MS were allowed to use misleading claims on their hardware to maximise their selling potential.

The average consumer does not have a clue what Vista is other than something that comes with the computer, they do not understand the differences between versions especially prior to release. Some of us still don't!

Meanwhile the consumers who bought a PC/laptop for Xmas thinking that within a couple of months it would be running the flashy OS promised in marketing blurb by MS have been ripped off. Would they have been willing to pay such a high price for the device had they known that it would not do what they had been led to believe? Probably not.

Many end consumers were ripped off and the root of the problem originated with the misleading Vista capable spec released by MS, unfortunately for the complainants, hardware manufacturers are unlikely to add their weight as it may influence future oem deals with MS.

Does sound like the judge is a big MS fan, however it could be that the complainants' team have not done their homework and put together the right case and evidence.