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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."
"...and the result is that video clips embedded into Microsoft Word documents don't run properly..."
I'm just going to take a wild guess here and say that maybe they should install Media Player to get those clips to run properly?
And for those who actually take this seriously....
I'm sure someone will try to point out that Word won't play embedded media clips even if alternative media players are installed. Seems logical to me, when embedding a media file in a proprietary document format it likely requires Media Player to play it.
It's like "suggesting" Microsoft purposely "sabotaged" the Help system after a person removes the IE Core from the system. (Doing so effectively breaks the help system among other things)
How many times has someone made a change to one part of an application only to find out that it breaks something else? It seems to me that this type of problem is the very reason MS didn't want to pull out MP in the first place.
-K
Well, they could remove Media Player but leave the media-playing .dll files; that way any programs that want to play media (such as Word) may do so, while Media Player is technically not there.
Guy asked me for a quarter for a cup of coffee. So I bit him.
The terms the EU is imposing are clear: MS has to deliver a Windows without Media Player component that is not crippled in any respect when the OS is used with an alternative player. Perhaps that is not so easy-- but then again it isn't like MS with all its billions of cash reserves is going to be bankrupted by the development costs.
It's like "suggesting" Microsoft purposely "sabotaged" the Help system after a person removes the IE Core from the system. (Doing so effectively breaks the help system among other things)
That's what Microsoft did. Apps are apps and OS is OS, and coupling one to the other has been recognized as bad design since the 1960s or earlier. Yet MS purposefully chose to do bad engineering because it looked like a good marketing strategy.
I won't shed any tears if the EU declares that MS has been acting illegally, and that its protections under EU law are therefore voided. I wouldn't benefit from that directly, but I expect that I would see a lot of indirect future benefits if Windows code ended up in European public domain.
I really think that it is time for Redmond to grow up and take on the responsibilities that go with its success. And stop farting around like an adolescent entrepreneur with a shoestring budget.
No, it's more like suggesting that 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. Apologize for Microsoft all you want: this is how they operate. With contempt for consumers, laws, courts, government, and even the apologists fool enough to trust them.
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make install -not war
I've read that report, and it's misleading. The report has an agenda, and that agenda is making the economics in the EU more like those in the USA.
The report talks about net income (which is income after tax), and it completely neglects to take account of all the services provided by taxpayers.
What it effectively says is "The net income of people in the EU is lower that that in the US, and that this is due to (amongst other things) higher taxes."
What it ignores, is that people in the USA must pay for health insurance, public transport, education, and a host of other social security benefits that are available to most people in the EU.
I haven't travelled in the US, but I have in Europe, and I never noticed a single homeless person there (I'm not saying there aren't any). The situation there is even better than in Australia where I live.
If I had to make a choice between a high-tax/high-spend system, and its opposite, I'd go for high-tax every time, because of increased social productivity, vastly decreased crime, homelessness, drug addiction.....
When I read it, I couldn't believe that someone could write a report with such transperant bias.
That's garbage. If you have a better product, then people will use yours over the default. This is why more people use Winamp and iTunes than use Media Player. I won't deny the advantage Microsoft has in packaging their player with their OS, but that isn't a reason to claim it's killing competition.
Cars come with stereo systems as factory defaults. This doesn't stop the numerous car audio manufacturers from selling their products, nor does it stop entire stores devoted to selling you one of these (better) systems, and installing it for you. The fact remains, when you drive off the lot, you want to be able to listen to music. Microsoft recognises this, and therefore sells their operating system with a device which plays media.
Not to turn this into a discussion of the merits of socialism, but keep in mind the average European has safety nets Americans don't-- medical care being the most obvious (I'm sorry, but our system is a mess... Insured or not, a major illness is guaranteed to bring economic catastrophe to the average American.) They also (in most countries) have much more vacation and leisure time, as well as generous unemployment benefits (which, of course, goes hand-in-hand with the fact that it's much harder to actually find a job there...)
With the exception of medical care, I can't say which system is better-- wealth is nice, and it's much harder to achieve the higher echelons on your own in the European system (by starting your own business, for example.) On the other hand, are we really better off with larger homes and more appliances? Most Europeans I've met have all they need, if not everything they want. And my impression is that they tend to enjoy a more stress-free existance, because if they lose their job or get sick they don't face the risk of losing everything we have.
Too little and way too late. Everybody I know who's even remotely computer literate (and a fair few who aren't really) have had it with real. I wouldn't install it if I had a signed afidavit from the CEO saying it won't call home or resist uninstallation, distills whiskey and prints $100 notes.
Send lawyers, guns, and money!