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EU Sleuths Think Microsoft Sabotaged Windows
Adam Zweimiller writes "The Inquirer is reporting that in it's ongoing battle with Microsoft, the European Commission is investigating the possibility that the Vole has sneakily sabotaged the Media Player-free versions of Windows it is obliged to ship to the EU. A report (subscription required) in today's Wall Street Journal suggests Microsoft has fiddled with the registry in its stripped-down Windows offerings and the result is that video clips embedded into Microsoft Word documents don't run properly, for example."
The whole Euro market is bigger than the US...
Would be a great boost for Linux though if they did.
From TFA: Microsoft's digital video competitor RealNetworks had been able to demonstrate a Media Player-free version of Windows running "without technical glitches", the Journal notes.
Setting his threshold to 5, Sparky eliminated most of the trolls on /.
Well if the problem is with Microsoft Word not playing embedded files, dump it.
Microsoft took away support to another application. The only other alternative to it would be get rid of the conflict, Microsoft themselves.
Openoffice isn't going to kill budgets. Have another player installed. Switch and be done with it.
Quicktime plays fine in openoffice with a mpg format.
In the past I would agree with you, these days however Real Player 10 is not spyware and is free of malware.
I dont think they would intentionally pull this.
Why not? They did almost the exact same thing in the US Antitrust trial -- completely broke Windows when told to remove IE, even though others with access to the source code had managed to do it successfully without major problems.
I mean, geez, they deliberately falsified video evidence in a federal court and barely got a stern talking-to -- why would they ever bother to do what they're told to? It's not like anybody ever penalizes them.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Seems odd to me that they want media player removed, but still want to play media under certain conditions.
Why is this even remotely odd? It's just the difference between libraries and an application that uses those libraries. The equivalent operation on a Mac is trivial: just delete Quicktime Player from the Applications folder. As it happens, this won't affect any other Quicktime dependent application -- it just removes a single app.
On the surface, this appears to be the same BS that MS tried to play off in the US antitrust case regarding the bundling of IE. MS purposely chose a twisted interpretation of the scope of "Internet Explorer" to claim that IE was inseparable from the rest of the OS. That is, they chose to interpret "remove IE" to mean removal of not just the top-level application and/or icon, but of all related architectural components. That alleged inseparability was a mind-numbingly stupid claim to anyone with an iota of actual software development knowledge.
I wouldn't make it so easy. If Word doesn't play movies even after another player has been installed, then the "unlawful leveraging of monopoly" case might apply to the Office product line as well.
Those speaking in TFA said "Windows is crippled," which it might very well be if the same problems applied across a wide array of applications.
If this only happens in Office, then there would be a case of "Microsoft crippling the dominant productivity application suite in order to ensure dominance in the media player market."
It'd be, or should be antitrust all over again.
I remember when Microsoft LIED to the US monopoly court when they presented videotaped "evidence" that Windows with IE removed was unstable - therefore IE was an "essential" part of the OS. In fact, the prosecutor noticed, while the tape was being played in the court by MS, that the "before" and "after" computers weren't even the same unit. MS had just switched machines, with the "after" machine sabotaged. While the prosecutor demonstrated that a Windows machine which had IE removed, even deleted as functions from DLLs (by a Princeton professor with no access to the source, just crude binary tools), worked pretty well, certainly much better than the fake "evidence" perpetrated by MS. This is how they operate. With contempt for consumers, laws, courts, government, and anyone fool enough to trust them.
--
make install -not war
According to the CIA World Factbook:
GDP per capita: United States: $37,800.
GDP per capita: France: $27,600.
GDP per capita: Germany: $27,600.
GDP per capita: Netherlands: $28,600.
GDP per capita: Sweden: $26,800.
GDP per capita: United Kingdom: $27,700.
I'll leave it to you to check the other countries of Europe. But the grandparent post seems to be true.
the economies of the E.U. and the USA are approximately equal in size. Add in Russia and the others, and the European economy is larger than the USA's. Why're you becoming so worked up? I don't even live in Europe.
E.U.: 11,848,195 millions $ GDP
USA: 11,784,781 millions $ GDP
Russia: 1,456,964 millions $ GDP
? is the EU not about 20 -40 times larger than most states
That's not really a good analogy.
A better analogy would be like Microsoft purposely sabotoging their own document format to make it impossible for other word processors to legally interoperate with it.
Wait no, A better analogy would be like Microsoft serving up broken web pages to the browsers of competitors.
No, wait. A better analogy would be like suggesting Microsoft would break Windows so that it would refuse to run under a competitor's version of DOS.
Maybe it's like Microsoft shipping a browser that has the option to uninstall other software vendor's browsers. Or Microsoft forcing OEM's to pay them a fee for every computer they ship, with or without Windows installed. Perhaps it's like Microsoft hiding crucial API's from everyone but themselves, and when forced to expose them for all to see defining "all" as anyone who can pony up 50 thousand dollars plus additional fees. Or Microsoft attempting to ship broken versions of Java to destroy the standard. Or forcing OEM vendors to carry Microsoft ads, and only Microsoft ads, on all desktops sold. Or negotiating with another company for a year only to steal their technology. And then refusing a court order to turn over all e-mails from that period.
But all of this is metaphorical: Microsoft would never do anything like this. This is all speculative fantasy. And besides everyone in this country is innocent until proven guilty in at least 4 different courts of law.
The ______ Agenda
But Windows Media Player is playing embedded documents. The host application playing back the stream is a codec that decodes the stream for any application that may want it, including Media Player. This is why you can download a DIVX codec and have it available in any application that may have an embedded media file marked for DIVX. Windows Media player is just a shell.
.exe file. Can Media Player still play the file? You betcha.
Do this... Install Quicktime from Apple. Delete the quicktime player
You are right in that this would be an easy demonstration to fake. But it would take longer to fake than to do the real thing.
The ______ Agenda
What is a vole?
A vole is a small rodent resembling a mouse but with a stouter body; a shorter, hairy tail; and smaller ears and eyes.
The way GDP is measured in the US is wildly different from Europe. GDP in Europe includes farm outout (which grows much more slowly than industrial output). In Europe software is not included and in the US legal business accounts for a surprisingly large chunk which does not occur so much in Europe.
In fact, Goldman Sachs show, that if you compare like with like, and use GDP/head/hour, France has the highest figure. But instead of spending on 2nd cars, the French take long and frequent holidays (in France).
I'm not sure what you mean by Social Productivity, but as far as crime goes, with the exception of homicide, crime in New York is lower then crime in Paris.
Yea, I have to pay for health insurance, but i know my insurance is better then any socialized medicine (ask Canadians why they come to the US for operations).
No, I dont have to pay for education (except college). This is one area where the socialists in the US are winning. Even though I pay taxes for education, I wouldnt send my kid to the local schools.
They difference is, I trust people more then the government when it comes to peoples money. You dont.
Actually, the services/taxing and employment laws cause massive unemployment in the EU, not low income per se. What causes low pay is that Americans work their asses off (average hours for the full time worker is over 40 hours per week) whereas in most of Europe this number is well under 40. Productivity (basically measured by income per hour worked) in Europe is on par with America. In the early 90s it was slightly higher, now it is slightly lower. Thus Europeans pay themselves by not working, and therefore it looks like they are poorer when its really they just get to chill more.
Actually, no. You can install Qt/Embedded and recompile most of kde against it, and use that with the linux framebuffer, if you want to.
I am trolling
the point is, Words mime-type handlers allow it to use other media players to render embedded content if WMP is not present.. Microsoft have disabled this ability, so that a version of Windows with a rival media player alone won't work.
It forces people to install WMP to regain lost functionality that shouldnt have been lost, and that's definitely sabotage.
I have been a user for about 10 years. This ends Feb 2014. The site's been ruined. I'm off. Dice, FU
You're getting Media Player and DirectShow confused. DirectShow is the standard Windows API for video playback. Windows Media Player is an application which provides a UI for video playback based on the DirectShow API. The codecs live inside DirectShow. The Media Player ActiveX control confuses things a little, but is really a way to embed the Media Player user interface into your application or document, not just the bare video playback functionality.
If MS removes Media Player, they break the ActiveX control, which breaks wep pages and documents which embed that ActiveX control. However, if those documents instead just referenced the video data and left it up to the viewer application to determine an appropriate player, there would be no problem as users could install another player and have it take over the duties that Media Player would have performed by default. Embedding Media Player directly is generally a bad idea anyway, since clearly that will only work on Windows systems. (and not even all Windows systems, now.)
In addition, applications which depend on DirectShow for video playback should go on working. This includes Winamp, mplayer (in part), DirectX Player as well as a load of games and other applications that aren't directly video-related but still playback video for some reason. If Microsoft has removed DirectShow, then it is really trying to be facetious, as clearly when the courts ruled that Media Player be unbundled they were referring to the Media Player application and not the API on which it depends. By that argument, they should have removed the Win32 API as well.
Seems the BBC negotiated a deal with Real Networks that resulted in a special build of RealPlayer without all the nasty stuff. Pretty handy, especially since the only reason I want RealPlayer installed is to listen to BBC feeds!
Yeah a lot of the homes are smaller, but the materials give off less toxic fumes and the construction will last at least a hundred years. I hope not too much of that changes to descend to the U.S. level where strong winds or the passage of a few decades are enough to routinely destroy hundreds of buildings.
All that seems to get left out of these wise and clever cost of living analyses churned out by neoliberal pundits hired by Bush, Bliar, Berlusconi and their owners.
Beta is broken and the link to classic doesn't work. Stop wasting our time or there won't be anybody left here.
No it can't; not unless the codec comes with a DirectShow filter. Apple (and Real) do not do this, in order to keep eyeballs in their clients.
I've been using it for the last year or so for exactly the same reason as you, and not had a problem.
GDP in Europe is also calculated including farming, US GDP does not include farming which would push the GDP down significantly. GDP is Europe does not include software capitilization. In other words, GDP in Europe is a far more conservative figure. Also, the GDP/head/hour worked in France is the highest in the world. They are just not interested in buying stuff, they go on holiday instead (in France).
Funny you would use that example...
You should study history, youngster. There was a time when car manufacturers tried to monopolize the market for car radios; basically they tried to destroy the after-market in car radios. Just like Microsoft is doing now. It took laws to stop them.
Other attempted monopolies include after market auto repair and upgrade parts, tires, and (currently) diagnostic information that would allow you to repair your own car.
Get this: right now there is a legal battle underway, which will result in new laws to guarantee your right to repair your own car. More precisely, the auto manufacturers want to prohibit anyone (i.e. non-dealer auto repair shops, owners) from accessing the computer diagnostics. You wouldn't be able to get any repairs except through the dealer, or an "authorized" repair shop.
Monopolies are bad. Trust me on this. ;)
WRONG.
Windows Media Player is just that, the player. It's not themes, it's not codecs, it's not DirectShow/ActiveMovie.
Just about any other media player that you can install in windows will play all the same media formats as WMP, usually using the same exact codecs. Uninstalling WMP (if that's possible) should not touch those codecs. I didn't RTFA, but it sounds like Microsoft choose to also not include the codecs to play media. If that's the case, it sounds like Microsoft just told the EU that old schoolyard saying, "Fine then, if you don't wanna play MY game, I'm going to take my ball and go home."
The themes are a non-argument, since they are just bitmaps taped together with some MSXML.
DirectShow and the DirectX suite is the software layer that talks directly to the hardware. That just makes WMP work fast. It gives an avenue for WMP to be able to display media using the real hardware resources on the computer. Other programs have access to this layer also, independently of WMP.
Why read the article when I can just make up a snap judgement?
I sure as hell did'nt..
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vole
Excellent list of points. Add to that:
Microsoft having Office 95 ask for a memory address at the 2GB limit, even though no desktop machine at the time came with even 512MB. The sole purpose of this exercise? To have Office not be able to run on OS/2, whose VM had a limit of 512MB (the shame!!!).
Or about making Office 95 docs incompatible with all previous versions of Office (again, a direct stab at forcing everyone to upgrade, and leaving OS/2 out in the cold. It wasn't so much about other word processors, since none of them could accurately deal with the ever changing screwed up word markup, and they were always months and months behind at the time.)
Or, how about Microsoft selling an "OS" to IBM before they actually owned the rights to it?
And lastly, the little negotiating with a company for a year and stealing their tech has happened numerous times.
The cesspool just got a check and balance.
France has the 15th highest GDP/capita in the world, with a U.S. Dollar figure of $24K.
The US has the 4th highest GDP/capita at $36K.
In absolute numbers for GDP (Millions):
1) US - 10,383,100
2) Japan - 3,993,430
3) Germany - 1,984,090
4) U.K. - 1,566,280
5) France - 1,431,280
6) China - 1,266,050
(GNP are roughly similar to these numbers, and the order is the same)
In terms of GDP growth:
3 - China +9.71
79 - US +3.30
101 - UK +2.65
127 - France +1.95
In terms of unemployement
58 - France 8.9%
62 - Germany 8.6%
86 - US 5.8%
94 - UK 5.1%
105 - Cuba 3.3%
Clearly, within 2-3 years, China will eclipse France and become the 5th largest economy, pushing France to 6th.
Also, France's GDP/GNP increases are alarmingly low, coupled with a relatively high unemployment rate paints a grim pictures for the French. I suspect they will not be a top 10 economy within 10-15 years.
(Oh, these numbers provided, ironically, by MS Encarta 2005)
but that it _forbid_ OEM's to install Quicktime or Realplayer on systems shipped
Been in the OEM business for many years, and we have yet to see any documentation from Microsoft preventing us from installing ANYTHING we want on the OSes for our PCs.
Additionally, prior to Windows2000, Windows95 and 98 had REALPLAYER on the OEM setup CD provided by Microsoft and it was installed in Windows, just they also had setups for AOL, Compuserve, and MSN.
If Microsoft is FORBIDDING the installation of this software, why is it on the OEM CDS that Microsoft provided to Manuafacturers up until the time these companies started stabbing Microsoft in the back by participaiting in lawsuits against MS.
Bully for Microsoft. I would of stopped putting RealPlayer, and AOL on my OS setup CDs as a courtesy to these companies once they testified against my company.
But EVEN after all that, there is NOTHING to forbid the installation of these applications, our Microsoft Contact, knows we do, and has even provided help from Microsoft on some of our installation troubles with these products, which they DID NOT HAVE TO DO.
The consipiracy theories here just keep getting bigger and bigger.
As for the whold Media Player issue in this thread... A) The EU requried MS to Remove Media Player (the UI) B) The EU required MS to Remove Media player control (the applet that allows it to play on web pages, and also provides OLE access). So even if the CODECS are installed on the system, but there is NO EXISTING Applet or Application to process them, how in the world could any reasonable person expect the video to play?
This is the most uneducated and ridiculous item I have seen in a while. And goes to prove the Government should fund and support technology but NOT REGULATE IT, as most people in the Government DOn't Get, won't get, nor have any expertise in these matters, no matter how many witnesses and hours are spent trying to EDUCATE a judge just so they can make an honest ruling.
I am so sick of Gov't thinking it knows better than the 'scientists', and 'technology' leaders of the world. Support these people don't second guess them.
As for the Intenet Explorer trial issues with regard to the Microsoft Monopoly, even the creator of Netscape later said it was bullcrap. (And he would be considered educated in the field, far more than the judges and lawyers making decisions FOR US).
This is gotten insane, in the US they preach capitalisim, yet when lawmakers or competitors draw into question a company that is too successful, the get put on a block and picked apart.
Sure there were idiots at Microsoft that did screwy stuff, but that doesn't mean Microsoft as a whole set out to do 99.9% of the things that Slashdot members keep refering to, over and over, and very inaccurately as well.
Get over it...
You don't like Microsoft, beat them at their own game. Truly make an Open Source OS that is as easy as Windows and supports as many program and hardware as Windows, and can do so without having prioritory Hardware like Apple does, and you will not even have to worry about Microsoft.
Ok, off my rant, and 90% of this stuff was NOT directed at the person that I am replying to, but I had to get it off my chest and into this discussion thread.
(Sorry in advance to RogerWilco)
-Also ignore the typos and grammar, I can see several in a quick proof, but don't have the time to edit them today.
TheNetAvenger - ranting off....
DirectShow wasn't removed.
All this bitching about "the registry being fucked up" is because the Windows Media Player activex control isn't registered.