All he knew about Vista Capable was what subordinates, particularly Jim Allchin, the Windows development chief who took Vista to market before retiring in early 2007, and , the former senior vice president responsible for the client version of Windows, told him. Ballmer admitted having had only "brief discussions about technical requirements and timing" for the marketing effort with high-level executives at partners such as Intel Corp.

Microsoft's Bowermaster declined to comment late Friday when asked why Ballmer was not more involved in the Vista Capable marketing campaign. At the time of Vista's debut in November 2006, Microsoft touted the unveiling as its "biggest ever in the history of Microsoft product launches."

The plaintiffs' attorneys also asked for testimony from other current and , including Allchin, Poole and Rajesh Srinivasan, a product manager in the Windows group at the time of Vista's launch. Lawyers will take their depositions starting Monday.

The lawsuit, which began in 2007 and was granted class-action status in February 2008, claims that Microsoft ran a "bait and switch" by touting slower, less-expensive PCs as able to run Vista when they would handle only Vista Home Basic, the least expensive version of the OS. The suit argues that Home Basic is not representative of the Vista that was heavily marketed to consumers.

The case is perhaps best known for the made public earlier this year, but it resurfaced Friday after lawyers for the plaintiffs asked Pechman to force Microsoft to use that they may qualify for inclusion in the case.