Some False Advertising

I hate false advertising. I really do. I think it is basically duping the customer, tricking the customer out of their money. Although most of the time I am lucky enough to avoid being “the customer”, I knew I would be “the customer” soon enough.

The problem I have concerns the “Vista Capable” sticker on my computer. Supposedly this means that I am able to install Vista without a hitch, even if it is slow afterward. There has been a very large amount of controversy on this before and after Vista was released.

Because of this sticker, I got a DVD for Vista along with a product key for Windows Vista Home Premium and placed it into my computer. The setup started off with “loading files” and then at the end, a stop error showed up:

0×0000005C (0×0000010B, 0×00000003, 0×00000000, 0×00000000)

Uh oh. That would be annoying. The system refused to work.

So I looked up the specifications for Windows Vista. It was a minimum of 128 MB dedicated memory graphic card. The current one was a integrated card. But I was skeptical about upgrading because the setup would at least go through instead of forcing me to stop with a… stop error.

In the end, I bought a nVidia 7200 GS, with 256 MB memory and plugged it in. No avail.

Vista’s famous campaign tricked me. Those stickers shouldn’t be trusted.

( It’s probably the BIOS out of date, according to resources, but my PC manufacturer (Powerspec) doesn’t make any BIOS updates anymore. )