It's not Microsoft's fault that Asus decided to sell a cheap, untested, poorly-built device. It's your fault, as a tech-savvy customer, to buy it.
>as such MS certainly has a responsibility for allowing these hardware specs onto the street
And then get sued by the DoJ and split up by a court. Thanks to the antitrust ruling, MS cannot force anything on the OEMs. If you can install Windows on a 512MB RAM machine and sell it, MS can't do shit to stop you.
In addition to the "Signature" branding, OP bought it in a Microsoft Store. There is really no excuse for being so terrible at taking care of their own ecosystem.
Your solution is effectively "Don't sell non-Microsoft products at your store."
Yes, I know that Apple has managed to do exactly that, build a retail store where there's an expectation that anything you buy there will be at the brand level of quality. Apple can do a lot of things other companies can't. It has the best designers, the best technology platforms, the best infrastructure. Apple's remarkable consistency is the product of the company Jobs built.
Microsoft has to struggle very hard to come up with one half-decent product.
I don't care what it costs - it should work.
>It's not Microsoft's fault that Asus decided to sell a cheap, untested, poorly-built device.
Microsoft probably wouldn't be able to prevent Asus from selling it outright, but it could refuse to sell it through MS Store or giving it a 'signature device' branding.
> it should work > refuse to sell it through MS Store > It works.
> MS is probably bound by some partnership agreements so it cannot refuse
What I got out of this instead is that MS guarantees a "Signature Device" to just be free of any bloatware. I was also deceived by the devices in-store working perfectly well, but having been already fixed by store employees before customers could get to them.
Guess I know better for the next time, eh?