Everyone had their suspicions as to what Microsoft may or may not have been doing when it released Vista with different stickers like “capable,” and “ready.”  Many consumers felt cheated when they purchased hardware that flat out couldn’t handle Vista.  Well, the truth has finally surfaced:  In the class-action lawsuit brought against Microsoft regarding the labeling system for Vista, the court has released a series of emails between Microsoft execs that show how Microsoft plain deceived customers into buying hardware that couldn’t handle Vista to help Intel and to release Vista earlier than it should have been.

One of the factors deterring many consumers from upgrading their PCs to Vista was the high price points for the new shiny operating system. The folks at Microsoft were finally let in on the secret, and decided to lower the price points of Vista substantially.

It’s clear by now that not even Microsoft is happy with what it “achieved” with Vista.  Some internal emails have been made available after a federal judge ordered them unsealed.  They are being used to support the plaintiff’s position over the “Vista capable” lawsuit.

Microsoft was unable to launch Vista for the holiday season of 2006 and decided to initiate a program with free upgrades to Vista.  Depending on the version of XP that shipped with the computer determined which version of Vista the person was able to get.  At the same time it also launched the “Vista Capable” and “Premium Ready” programs.  This confused consumers and has led to a class action lawsuit against the company.

Microsoft is going to be playing the role of “big brother” even if users choose not to install SP1.  The service pack is due for release in mid-March but another update will be seeking out illegal copies of the software.

Certain problems with Vista won’t be fixed by service packs or by updates but rather were actually part of the design.  Users got used to XP and the way XP did things but Vista does some things differently.  To help get your sanity back here are three things you can do to make Vista more amiable.

When Vista released it contained many hardware and software compatibility issues, some of which have been solved and some not.  Microsoft made and will soon release Vista SP1 but that too, will be a mixed blessing.

Companies seem to make quite a few mistakes these days.  The latest one comes from everyone’s favorite Redmond-based software behemoth.  Microsoft accidentally made Vista SP1 available to a few 64-bit users before realizing the mistake and pulling the update.

There are two ways to run several operating systems on your computer.  You can run them with virtualization inside one another, or you can install them alongside each other and boot each individually, this is the easiest method for most users.

Vista SP1 has landed, but not for everyone.  Those using a 64-bit installation of Vista may have noticed a surprise courtesy of Windows Update.  Microsoft has released the 64-bit version of SP1 ahead of the 32-bit release.

Vista SP1 was supposed to fix problems, instead it’s been very good at creating entirely new ones.  A recent update required to install Vista SP1 sent some PCs into endless reboot cycles, some of which could not be recovered.  Now, it seems that installing SP1 will break some of your programs that are working perfectly without the service pack.

Vista SP1 is still due in mid-March but a recent update required for the service pack has caused several problems among users.  The issues have been present in the two pre-release service packs and final version.  The problematic update is required to install any version of the pack.

Windows Vista has had its fair share of problems, a good few of those have been solved though some still linger around.  Microsoft is preparing to release Vista SP1 next month which has been known to solve some of the existing problems but has created new ones.  The company also introduced a feature in Vista called the “anytime upgrade.”

There are several free defrag utilities on the market but this one is relatively new and is made by the same developer which brought the popular “clean up” utiltity, CCleaner to the market also as freeware.  It’s important to defrag your hard drive from time to time, why not do it with a free utility.

Some people are having issues with their installations of pre-release versions of Vista SP1.  This is why it’s called “pre-release” or “beta.”  The more savvy of you may have already sought out the final version of Vista SP1 but keep this post in mind if you have/are planning to do so.