Microsoft Will Ship Windows 7 in Europe With IE Unbundled

jimmi_hendrix was one of several people to note CNET's report that 'Microsoft plans to remove Internet Explorer from the versions of Windows 7 that it ships in Europe, CNET News has learned. Reacting to antitrust concerns expressed by European regulators, Microsoft plans to offer a version in Europe that has the browser removed. Computer makers would then have the option to add the browser back in, ship another browser or ship multiple browsers, according to a confidential memo that was sent to PC makers and seen by CNET News." There's also a report at Ars Technica.

Comments

Why are we deprived of this in North America?

[TropicalCoder]

I'm jealous - we should be offered the same deal here in good old North America

Re:Why are we deprived of this in North America?

[erroneus]

You're not! Check the pirate bay after the european release is made. Furthermore, look to those Windows - LITE versions that people put together. They are also quite effective.

My question is if they are removing the blue E icon or actually removing the rendering engine? My guess is the former. The way things stand, I imagine many apps would be impossible to run without the rendering engine. A simple test would be to open a file browser and then type in a URL to see if an internet web page can be shown. If it's there, you will see it that way.

Re:Why are we deprived of this in North America?

[EvanED]

A simple test would be to open a file browser and then type in a URL to see if an internet web page can be shown. If it's there, you will see it that way.

MS got rid of the tie between Windows Explorer and IE with Windows Vista; trying to view a local folder in IE opens Windows explorer, and trying to view an internet URL in Windows Explorer opens your default browser.

My question is if they are removing the blue E icon or actually removing the rendering engine?

My reading is that they basically can't remove the rendering engine completely; too much stuff depends on it. HTML is behind the entire Windows Help system for instance, and I can't see them either altering the technology that radically or disabling help. There's also a lot of third party software (e.g. Steam) that uses it.

I don't know how much IE adds to the rendering engine though. It may be the case that MSHTML (what's used for the help system and such) is actually pretty lightweight and IE adds quite a bit, so this split is actually quite meaningful, but I doubt that's the case.

Re:Why are we deprived of this in North America?

[EvanED]

Geez, how about just making the help consist of GODDAMN HTML FILES?

Um, they basically are. They're zipped together somehow because help usually has multiple pages and they want it in one file, but that's what they are behind the scenes.

They point is how do you display that HTML? It's that which we are talking about. Right now Windows uses MSHTML to display them. The APIs under discussion would allow Mozilla to hook up Gecko so that it could render your help files (which would maybe allow you to totally remove IE stuff from the system), or someone to hook up Webkit to display help files, etc.

(Another interpretation of what you say is to just have the web browser itself display help files; this has a number of drawbacks, not the least of which is that without a browser in there by default, you wouldn't be able to read help. And it's exactly that situation which is why I'm postulating that MS isn't going to remove MSHTML.)

HugeOrNot

[alain94040]

Is it just me or is this huge?

We'll finally be able to measure IE's marketshare in a non-biased market.

Re:HugeOrNot

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

We'll finally be able to measure IE's marketshare in a non-biased market.

Not really. Many years of a broken market have created a huge number of Websites and Web applications broken to only work properly with IE. Unless this is remedied, we'll only have a slightly less broken market. Additionally, this applies only to the EU, so any company doing business anyplace outside the EU or Web developers wanting to target customers outside the EU will still be subject to artificial market incentives caused by MS's bundling elsewhere.

Getting Firefox?

[InvisibleClergy]

I'm confused. So if I get a copy of Windows in Europe and do a full reinstall, how am I supposed to use my already-active internet connection to get Firefox?

Re:Getting Firefox?

[Bacon Bits]

This is what a governing body demanded. It doesn't have to make sense.

This will be hell

[Useful Wheat]

I'm going to guess that this statement applies to most of the people on slashdot.

"I provide tech support to my friends and family."

Doesn't it chill your blood to imagine that you could very suddenly be in a situation where every single person you know who gets a new computer is going to need you to set it up? They will be totally and completely helpless without Internet explorer, they won't be able to burn it to a CD or put it on a flash drive without your detailed instructions.

And then it won't work. And it won't be what they're used to be because FireFox/chrome/IE 8 isn't IE 6. And then you'll have to come over again to explain that the download manager isn't stealing their awful FWD: jokes.

This isn't progress, this is a punishment to each and every one of us.

Only Half the Story

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

The article submitter fails to note the EU is not necessarily on board with this as they've been circulating a survey asking PC companies about how many and what browsers should be pre-installed as well as asking questions about if MS is pressuring them on the issue.

Re:MS Updates

[zonky]

Updates in Vista uses a seperate contral panel applet, presumably its the same in 7.

Re:What next EU:

[int69h]

Big difference that you seem to be willfully ignoring. Neither Apple or any Linux vendor strong armed OEMs into exclusively installing their browser.

Here we go again

[hkmwbz]

Cue hundreds of comments like "why can Apple bundle a browser but not Microsoft" (Apple is not in the same dominant position, and didn't break the law), "EU is a bunch of commie bastards" (ignoring the fact that the US has the exact same antitrust laws as well), and so on. It's the same old drivel every single time. It's as if there is a legion of Microsoft shills just waiting in line to post the same fallacies over and over again every time someone posts about the EU antitrust case. I can't believe that some people still don't get the basic facts of this case.

Sigh.