EU sleuths think Microsoft sabotaged Windows

[Agathon]

Does Realplayer for Windows still install that horrible download manager and all that other crap?

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by Whaleboy
I don't get it, other companies are free to bundle their products? In effect, anti-monopoly/pro-competition laws are just using the law to reduce the quality of a product... or am I way out here?

You are way out, so out that you are outside of the solar system

First of all, there is no reason why removing certain items bundled together with an operating system will adversely affect the function of the OS itself. The only cause for this is because Microsoft mingled code from various parts in a huge mess. This is just a Microsoft policy to straddle a user with various junk regardless of the user's preferences. Thus, you are stuck with IE even if you use Firefox. This is also a stupid decision because it completely violates one of the fundamental principles of programming.

Secondly, speaking about the quality of MS products is so ironic.

[Urban Ranger]

Originally posted by aneeshm
The antitrust case against MS is BS in the first place . AFAIK , value addition was not a crime the last time I checked .

It is when such practices are used to squeeze the competitors out of business by unfair competition.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
First of all, there is no reason why removing certain items bundled together with an operating system will adversely affect the function of the OS itself.

Let me get this straight - removing functionality from the OS (like, say, an HTML parsing engine in the form of IE) should not affect the function of the OS itself?

The only cause for this is because Microsoft mingled code from various parts in a huge mess. This is just a Microsoft policy to straddle a user with various junk regardless of the user's preferences. Thus, you are stuck with IE even if you use Firefox. This is also a stupid decision because it completely violates one of the fundamental principles of programming.

What, modularity?

IE is modular, it can be removed from the OS. It has been done. The problem is, when you do that, you break all applications that depend on the IE DLLs for a built-in HTML parser and renderer for the OS. That was the problem, and that's why the solution is to just remove references to IE even though it'll still be there -- removing it would break programs, including MS' competitors (like winamp).

Secondly, speaking about the quality of MS products is so ironic.

If only Windows was as polished as Gnome and KDE are, and MS Office as polished as OpenOffice.

Your ridiculous bias is showing, old man.