A new round of documents out in the Vista "Junk PC" lawsuit shows that Intel bullied Microsoft into saying an Intel chipset could run Vista, when in fact, it couldn't run the most vital parts of the new operating system, such as running Aero. Intel had billions of dollars at stake, and Microsoft, in the words of one exec, "caved" into Intel.

At the heart of Intel's pressure was its 915 chipset, which was incapable of running Vista's Aero interface. Intel had a significant number of those chipsets on hand. Because the chipsets were incapable of running Vista, Intel wouldn't be able to unload them. That's why they pressured Microsoft into putting "Vista Capable" stickers on PCs with 915 chipsets, even though those PCs couldn't run Aero or other parts of Vista.

The latest filings are part of a class-action lawsuit against Microsoft for a marketing scheme in which people claim that Microsoft misled consumers into buying "Windows Vista Capable" PCs, even though the PCs couldn't run the most important features of Vista. The TechFlash site has the actual documents themselves, thanks to the great reporting of Todd Bishop.

Microsoft had determined that the 915 chipset wouldn't qualify for the "Vista Capable" designation because the chipset couldn't run Aero. Intel then told Microsoft that if PCs with the 915 chipsets didn't get the "Vista Capable" designation, Intel could be faced with billions of dollars in revenue losses. On January 24, 2006, Microsoft executive Bob Aoki wrote to Microsoft executive Will Poole that: