Vista Capable became a phrase in flux with the release of Microsoft’s new operating system last year. Lack of drivers, graphics issues, things that didn’t work, and all sorts of headaches were cropping up daily. I criticized Asus and Microsoft for sticking a Vista Capable sticker on the Asus R2H at the time.

Well, now there is a class action lawsuit afoot that is challenging the entire Vista Capable designation on behalf of consumers. The lawsuit has been given sanction and is going forward. It turns out there are some pretty damaging emails from Microsoft employees about this. The New York Times is running a story on this today that contains some of the info, and also points to the internal Microsoft squabbling that occured in the run up to the difficulties. Most damaging are emails that make it look like Microsoft fudged things to help Intel meet some earnings targets with the decidely not Vista Capable 915 chipset.

Who knows how this will play out, but it ain’t gonna be pretty.