E-mail messages from Microsoft executives released this week reveal technical and marketing struggles the company faced in launching the Windows Vista operating system last year.

The e-mails were publicly released on Thursday as part of a federal lawsuit which accuses Microsoft of misleading customers by labeling some PCs Vista Capable that could only run the Vista Home Basic edition, not other versions which include more advanced graphics called Premium.

Steven Sinofsky, a vice president for Windows products explained in one message how Microsoft hopes to improves its efforts for the next release of the product.

We need to be clearer with industry, and we need to decide what we will do and do that well and 100 percent and not just do a little of everything, wrote

A Microsoft general manager who handles relations with personal-computer makers wrote in an e-mail on February 26, 2007 that it was a mistake to certify hardware - an Intel 915 graphics chipset - to run with Vista.

He said it was a mistake on our part to change the original graphics requirements. He added that in the end, we lowered the requirement to help Intel make their quarterly earnings so they could continue to sell motherboards with 915 graphics embedded.

A spokesman for Intel said Kalkman was not qualified to know internal details about the company's forecasts, according to the Wall Street Journal.

In another message, Microsoft board member Jon Shirley wrote to Chief Executive Steve Ballmer that he had upgraded one of his computers to Windows Vista but experienced compatibility problems.

A Microsoft spokesman told the Seattle Post Intelligencer that employees at the firm had raised concerns to improve the program, adding that they are the sort of exchanges they want to encourage.

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