Microsoft Busting Its Own Browser+OS Myth

Why should they care now? by nebaz · 2010-07-01 07:48 · Score: 1, Insightful

Damage has been done. Sure Firefox, Chrome, Opera and the lot are slowly regaining market share, but that was a tactic they needed when they wanted to drive Netscape out of the market, which they ultimately did. Companies like this don't create arguments that hold up to long term scrutiny, they don't need to.

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Re:Why should they care now? by sopssa · 2010-07-01 07:49 · Score: 4, Insightful

What does this prove? Different versions of IE's can obviously provide the system and application wide libraries too, but there has to be at least one of them installed for it to work.
Then there is also the fact that countless amount of software uses IE's rendering engine, which has to be present in the system for those to work. Which again works with different versions of it.
I'm happy Steam changed to it's own WebKit, but it was just a few months ago and there still are thousands of other software that uses it.
Re:Why should they care now? by Qwell · 2010-07-01 08:07 · Score: 1

It's almost like there's some kind of Application Programming Interface layer there. Wouldn't that be new and interesting?

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As of 10/06/03, I hate COBOL developers.
Re:Why should they care now? by Dragonslicer · 2010-07-01 08:15 · Score: 4, Funny

It's almost like there's some kind of Application Programming Interface layer there. Wouldn't that be new and interesting?
New and interesting, you say? You should apply for a patent!
Re:Why should they care now? by hairyfeet · 2010-07-01 08:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

Exactly. As a greybeard old enough to have used 98Lite to "hot rod" systems I can say that even back then you could remove it easy enough, but without MSHTML.dll and related files on the system many programs that were not made by MSFT simply wouldn't run or would die hard. In the days of dialup it was simply better to have a rendering engine built into the OS because as anyone on the dialup back then would tell you, even small downloads were slooooow buddy.
I frankly never understood why so much focus was on IE during the trail, when IMHO there were much better smoking guns, such as tying OEM licenses to PCs sold, not copies of Windows sold. That little trick effectively killed BeOS and made sure the only thing you were getting from an OEM was Windows. Now that they can no longer do that trick (and I personally hope Intel gets busted for their OEMs backroom dealing) frankly I think MSFT should be able to put whatever programs they want into their OS. After all it isn't like you have to buy Windows, there is OSX, Linux, BSD, etc, and plenty of places like System76 that will be happy to sell non-MSFT equipment to you, just as there is FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Kmeleon, Flock, etc.
I'm just glad the days of "This site requires IE" are dying hard IE6 can't die fast enough IMHO. The only nice thing I can say about IE is it makes switching people to FF that much easier. Just an hour ago I finished up a service call to the nice retired NASA engineer down the hall. After using IE since Win95 I switched him over to FF. After seeing how easy it was to block ads and add specialized searches he was sold. BTW does anyone know of any good "deep web" search engines I can point him towards? He is doing geology research and needs to get more "off the beaten path" to find the kind of data he requires for the paper he's working on. I'm afraid geology and deep web isn't something I have experience in, so any pointers would be helpful.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Why should they care now? by commodore64_love · 2010-07-01 08:21 · Score: 0, Offtopic

Netscape was the best browser you could buy up 'til AOL bought them out, and made the stupid decision to release Netscape 6 in 2001 (really just Firefox 0.6 beta). What a mess that was. But all the earlier Netscapes were superior to Internet Exploder. Overall my favorite browsers have been:
Mosaic Amiga
Mosaic
Netscape
Firefox 1.0-present
I sometimes use Opera X 10.5 too, but there's something not quite "right" about that browser. It consumes a lot of memory (according to task manager) and sometimes freezes-up for no apparent reason. Plus the Opera Turbo feature often doesn't work (stops loading the page at 95%) which is annoying when you're on a slow connection.

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:Why should they care now? by commodore64_love · 2010-07-01 08:25 · Score: 0, Offtopic

One nice thing about older programs is their compact size.
For example I have Word 97 open right now, and it's only consuming 5 megabytes. i.e. Not slowing down the system with memory swapping/drive thrashing. Similarly IE6 usually stays under 100 megabytes..... only a third as much as Firefox or Opera consume.

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:27 · Score: 5, Funny

I'm afraid geology and deep web isn't something I have experience in, so any pointers would be helpful.
0x3859FA23 0xDE29018E 0xB538DD86 0x76A1FFFF
You're welcome.
Re:Why should they care now? by poetmatt · 2010-07-01 08:31 · Score: 1

scholar.google.com is as straightforward as it can get.
Re:Why should they care now? by BZ · 2010-07-01 08:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

They're not dying; they just moved. Quite a number of mobile sites do the same thing with Safari instead of IE, and Apple pushes its proprietary -webkit things as hard as MS ever did theirs (see the recent fiasco when MS felt like it had to implement -webkit-text-size-adjust, which is otherwise only implemented in Mobile Safari and apparently widely used to make web pages which will only render correctly in Mobile Safari, in its mobile browser...)
Different big company, slightly different technologies, same old tactics.
Re:Why should they care now? by JWSmythe · 2010-07-01 08:39 · Score: 0, Redundant

What a novel idea. Too bad there isn't a well established system for taking your ideas and protecting them from being stolen by others for use in their own products.

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Serious? Seriousness is well above my pay grade.
Re:Why should they care now? by Sulphur · 2010-07-01 08:53 · Score: 1

If the page load stops at 95%, then that is annoying on a fast connection as well.
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Theese guys have not seen the ball since the kickoff. Andreessen
Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:30 · Score: 0

0xC0000005
Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:39 · Score: 0

Wouldn't that be new and interesting?
What are you talking about? The way you say "new", it sounds like you're a lawyer or a total noob. If former, go shag yourself. If latter, then stop laming and rather get into hacking, learn to become ethical as well. You will see then, that there is nothing interesting in what Microsoft says.
Re:Why should they care now? by man_of_mr_e · 2010-07-01 09:58 · Score: 1

That's not a pointer, that's an error code.

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Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 10:09 · Score: 0

0x3859FA23 0xDE29018E 0xB538DD86 0x76A1FFFF
You could at least make them word-aligned ;)
Re:Why should they care now? by Just+Some+Guy · 2010-07-01 10:37 · Score: 1

0x76410E7831CB2FA8
How's that netbook treatin' ya?

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Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
Re:Why should they care now? by koro666 · 2010-07-01 10:41 · Score: 1

The problem with old programs are all the unpatched security holes.
I might not want the new and shinier version, but I sure do want to use a version that's still being updated when the next 0-day comes.
Re:Why should they care now? by drsmithy · 2010-07-01 10:52 · Score: 1

Netscape was the best browser you could buy [...]
That's because it was pretty much the only browser you had to "buy".
IE was superior to Navigator in terms of function and performance from IE4 onwards, primarily because Navigator was an utter disaster from version 4.0 onwards. Even comparing IE 3.x and Navigator 3.x, the difference was so insignificant as to be purely a matter of preference or inertia.
Netscape lost because their product sucked. No other reason of consequence.
Re:Why should they care now? by mollog · 2010-07-01 11:14 · Score: 1

The problem with old programs is the Microsoft 'Updates' that add cruft until the system becomes a dog. Microsoft's solution? Buy their new version.

Funny how that works.

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Best regards.
Re:Why should they care now? by Runaway1956 · 2010-07-01 12:55 · Score: 2, Informative

I don't know about all that. I've been using Nlited versions of Windows for quite a long while now. IE is ripped out by the roots, before the installation media is burnt. No IE at all. It works well on XP and Windows7. Had I ever bothered with Vista, I'm certain it would have worked there as well. (Vista was just to big a POS to ever bother Nliting) Sure, a lot of software may look for that rendering engine, but in my experience, for home use, the software that I use works just fine if the only rendering engine available is Gecko. Hell, I can read Windows CHM files on Linux, and there isn't the vaguest trace of Trident on those machines.
Everything that was ever said about Trident being necessary for the operating system to work was a lie. Simple as that.

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"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
Re:Why should they care now? by 10101001+10101001 · 2010-07-01 13:33 · Score: 1

Exactly. As a greybeard old enough to have used 98Lite to "hot rod" systems I can say that even back then you could remove it easy enough, but without MSHTML.dll and related files on the system many programs that were not made by MSFT simply wouldn't run or would die hard.
Funny you should mention that, actually. As someone who uses Xubuntu (and heavily IceWM under it), I've installed various parts of both Gnome and KDE for the few apps under each that I use. But, because I didn't simply install kubuntu-desktop or ubuntu-desktop, lots of various bits and pieces aren't installed which ends up breaking some apps that just assume everything is there (really, this is may be a problem with Ubuntu not keeping proper dependencies with running external apps (hard to tell since it's not trivial to figure out all how many of the "recommended" packages aren't installed and really should be)). So, I'd say that's a general problem with any complex enough system when you start wanting to remove/leave out parts.

In the days of dialup it was simply better to have a rendering engine built into the OS because as anyone on the dialup back then would tell you, even small downloads were slooooow buddy.
Even if that were the case, that doesn't explain why Trident was the rendering engine built into the OS. If you'll recall, Trident in Outlook Express turned into a massive security nightmare for years because instead of having a simple HTML renderer available, a massively complex web rendering engine was made accessible in a fashion that coupled to all sorts of applications which simply weren't written with security in mind. Admittedly, a large part of this problem was with developers too quick to simply throw the neat "web control" into their program without much thought about all the risks that'd entail (a strong argument that a readily accessible web control in the OS is more trouble than it's worth). But MS itself really didn't put a lot of forethought into the problem either (if you're reading email that was downloaded, then I guess that means the rendering engine can treat the data as "local" which likely means "trusted data"; yep, can't see how that'd go bad).

I frankly never understood why so much focus was on IE during the trail, when IMHO there were much better smoking guns, such as tying OEM licenses to PCs sold, not copies of Windows sold. That little trick effectively killed BeOS and made sure the only thing you were getting from an OEM was Windows.
That's pretty easy. One, when the investigation for the trial started, Netscape was the dominant web browser. When some OEMs were told not to include Netscape, MS tried to pretend their inclusion of IE in Windows was a necessary and they weren't specifically acting to lock-in IE and lock-out Netscape. In short, it appeared to be a very clear example of MS using their position in one market (OSs/Windows) to obtain the same position in another (Web Browsers/IE). Trying to argue that BeOS didn't become popular because of anticompetitive practices is a lot harder to argue than arguing Netscape became less popular because of anticompetitive practices. Two, the whole deal with charging per PC was itself a settlement that the government agreed to (in 1995, IIRC). So, it'd be rather hard for the DOJ to argue against its own agreement.

Now that they can no longer do that trick (and I personally hope Intel gets busted for their OEMs backroom dealing) frankly I think MSFT should be able to put whatever programs they want into their OS. After all it isn't like you have to buy Windows, there is OSX, Linux, BSD, etc, and plenty of places like System76 that will be happy to sell non-MSFT equipment to you, just as there is FF, Chrome, Opera, Safari, Kmeleon, Flock, etc.
I'd agree, sort of, but not entirely. Dial-up is still something a lot of people have and installing an OS, no matter how free, is still

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Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
Re:Why should they care now? by kenshin33 · 2010-07-01 14:48 · Score: 0, Redundant

a lie? hardly, said like this : "Everything that was ever said about Trident being necessary for the operating system to work was a lie. Simple as that." I would rather call it an judgment error from the developers --or management--. The rendering engine (Trident) and the application (IE) are tow different entities. While assuming that indeed key system component depends on the rendering engine --thus they had to ship it--, I fail to see the mandatory presence of IE (the application).
Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 15:06 · Score: 1, Funny

You must be a computer support professional, your answer is simultaneously completely correct and totally useless.
Re:Why should they care now? by hairyfeet · 2010-07-01 18:14 · Score: 1

Actually I've found you can keep an older MSFT OS purring like a kitten, it is just like everything else you need third party tools to do so. I use a combination of CCleaner and Revo Uninstaller along with Winutilities Pro to keep my older machines squeaky clean and running fast. CCleaner to get rid of old Hotfix Uninstallers and clean the temp crap, Revo because it is aggressive about removing the crap most third party installs leave behind, and finally Winutilities Pro for its excellent registry and disk defrag, along with several other useful tools with easy to use built in scheduler.
Using these free third party tools I've been able to keep my circa 2004 XP machine running like the day it was bought. No slowdowns, no cruft, just a good clean running XP. With MSFT having to worry about antitrust you really need third party tools to keep older versions running at peak, although I've found they've gotten a lot better with Windows 7 in that regard.

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ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 18:48 · Score: 0

> 0xDE29018E
Could you please leave out the kernel pointers? And why is it that none of your pointers are aligned?
Re:Why should they care now? by TheThiefMaster · 2010-07-01 20:03 · Score: 2, Insightful

Actually on a current system the first 4 hex chars of a 64-bit pointer have to be 0s (or Fs in system space). The current generation of cpus only support 48-bits of actual address.
Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 20:16 · Score: 0

Are people realizing that Google is trying to do a lock in with it's Chromium OS?
I know it's still in early stage, but now is the time to react!
Re:Why should they care now? by molecular · 2010-07-01 22:59 · Score: 1

Exactly. As a greybeard old enough to have used 98Lite
Dude, you better not have a grey beard yet. You must be in your twenties.
Re:Why should they care now? by robthebloke · 2010-07-02 03:58 · Score: 1

Sorry for being a pedant, but they are aligned......

const char* str = "some string";
const char* ptr = str + 1;

str and ptr are word/dword/qword aligned (depending on the system). However the value of ptr addresses some memory that is not aligned. Nowt wrong with that.....
Re:Why should they care now? by robthebloke · 2010-07-02 04:00 · Score: 1

And another post from someone who doesn't understand pointers...... The pointer is aligned. The address isn't.
Re:Why should they care now? by commodore64_love · 2010-07-02 04:23 · Score: 1

>>>IE6 can't die fast enough IMHO.
Well one nice thing about older programs is their compact size. For example I have Word 97 open right now, and it's only consuming 5 megabytes. i.e. Not slowing down the system with memory swapping/drive thrashing. Similarly IE6 usually stays under 100 megabytes..... only a third as much as Firefox or Opera consume.

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:Why should they care now? by commodore64_love · 2010-07-02 04:26 · Score: 1

>>>that was a tactic they needed when they wanted to drive Netscape out of the market,
That was a shame. Netscape was the best browser you could buy up 'til AOL took over the company, and made the stupid decision to release Netscape 6 in 2001 (really just Firefox 0.6 beta). But all the earlier Netscapes were superior to Internet Exploder and it's a shame Microsoft uses shitty tactics to drive Netscape to the brink of bankruptcy.
Overall my favorite browsers have been:
Mosaic Amiga
Mosaic
Netscape
Firefox 1.0-present
I sometimes use Opera X 10.5 too, but there's something not quite "right" about that browser. It consumes a lot of memory (according to task manager) and sometimes freezes-up for no apparent reason. Plus the Opera Turbo feature often doesn't work (stops loading the page at 95%) which is annoying when you're on a slow connection.

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:Why should they care now? by commodore64_love · 2010-07-02 04:30 · Score: 1

>>>That's because Netscape was pretty much the only browser you had to "buy".
Only upto 1996, and then Netscape moved to the free model because Microsoft was giving-away Internet Explorer.
.
>>>IE was superior to Navigator
Bullshit. IE has never been superior to any other browser. For that matter Windows has never been superior to any other OS. I can't think of a single product Microsoft has ever made where I would label it "the best" product on the market.

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"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Re:Why should they care now? by drsmithy · 2010-07-02 05:41 · Score: 1

Only upto 1996, and then Netscape moved to the free model because Microsoft was giving-away Internet Explorer.
Navigator wasn't made free until the beginning of 1998.
Bullshit. IE has never been superior to any other browser.
The industry disagrees. IE4 was rapidly stealing marketshare from Navigator long before it was integrated into Windows 98. Heck, the _beta_ version was winning non-trivial numbers of people away from Navigator 3 (and the freshly released 4).
As for the unholy disaster that was Navigator 4.0, it's hard to imagine anyone saying it was better than _anything_ with a straight face, let alone IE4. They'd nearly made it tolerable by 4.5 or so, but by then it was pretty much game over.
For that matter Windows has never been superior to any other OS. I can't think of a single product Microsoft has ever made where I would label it "the best" product on the market.
Millions of people clearly feel Windows is the best option for them. I certainly do, and it has nothing to do with lack of knowledge or experience with the alternatives.
Re:Why should they care now? by BikeHelmet · 2010-07-02 14:56 · Score: 1

What does this prove? Different versions of IE's can obviously provide the system and application wide libraries too, but there has to be at least one of them installed for it to work.
Microsoft claimed in the past that they couldn't remove IE because so many applications depended on it. (The trident rendering engine is used in many programs - although now webkit is taking over)
They made similar excuses for WMP.
Of course, it's quite possible to upgrade to IE8 without disrupting applications depending on IE6's embedded controls.
And nLite proved years ago that you can remove IE/WMP without removing trident/WMP-codecs - but acknowledging that would be heresy.
Re:Why should they care now? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-07 00:12 · Score: 0

He's not using a "current system" you insensitive clod.

Nobody believed it at the time by 91degrees · 2010-07-01 07:50 · Score: 5, Insightful

And nobody believes it now.

A possible alternative headline could be "Obvious lie from MS turns out to be a lie"

Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 07:56 · Score: 1, Informative

Came here to say this.
There have always been third-party tools to remove IE from Windows.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 07:57 · Score: 4, Insightful

Actually, few people care or listened at the time. Anybody who is still using IE6 does not give a rat's ass what MS has claimed about the ties between IE and the OS. Very few civilians paid attention to the details of the anti-trust case, and they are not convinced that they cannot upgrade their browser because of something MS lawyers claimed in a court room a decade ago.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:03 · Score: 0, Redundant

Which breaks lots and lots of software that expect windows to come with the browser to display stuff and add text processing and other useful benefits.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by KiloByte · 2010-07-01 08:15 · Score: 2, Funny

Just wait until Google says it can't unbundle Chrome from the Chrome OS...

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The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by poetmatt · 2010-07-01 08:32 · Score: 2, Insightful

why would this even matter? It's a modified linux kernel, people would easily rebuild it without chrome if concerned.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by JamesP · 2010-07-01 08:52 · Score: 1

Next thing you know they'll say that lynx is bundled into my system and I can't remove it!!!

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how long until /. fixes commenting on Chrome?
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by TheHerk · 2010-07-01 08:58 · Score: 1

If it wasn't open source I guess that would matter.

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-Blind faith runs into things.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Bai+jie · 2010-07-01 09:50 · Score: 4, Funny

I've posted instructions on how to remove lynx. Its in jpeg format.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:55 · Score: 0

1990 called, it wants it argument back... In other news Bill Gates thinks no computer will ever need more than 640K... can we move on already?
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Blakey+Rat · 2010-07-01 11:35 · Score: 4, Insightful

It was true when they said it, about Windows 98. Windows 98 couldn't (for all practical purposes) be run without IE-- even drawing the desktop depended on it. Moreover, there would have been no way for MS to remove the IE integration within the ridiculous time frame the court was asking about. (90 days, if I recall correctly.)
Here's a secret, one the article writer didn't tell you, that I'm about to reveal. You may want to sit down for this... ready? Ok, here goes:
THINGS CHANGE OVER TIME
Shocking, I know.
The reason IE isn't integrated into Windows anymore is because every version of Windows, from XP to 7, has been working to remove the integration that was previously present.
And you know what? IE aside, a HTML renderer of some sort *is* required by Windows-- just as it's required by OS X, most Linux distributions, and Chrome OS. So if you take IE to mean "iexplore.exe", then no it's no longer required. If you take it to mean "the Trident HTML rendering component", then yes it is required-- exactly as required as WebKit is in OS X.

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Comment of the year
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by pyrrhonist · 2010-07-01 13:26 · Score: 1

JPEG is horrible for text. You should have used PNG.

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Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Yaa+101 · 2010-07-01 13:53 · Score: 1

uhm... Sorry to disturb your worldview, but no HTML renderer is needed by Linux, every one of them out there is optional.
A HTML renderer is only needed to browse the web, people do other things besides browsing on Linux...
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Zironic · 2010-07-01 14:06 · Score: 0

No, a HTML renderer is required to display HTML documents, for instance Windows help is HTML, I'm sure Linux contains built in HTML documents aswell.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by TyreeJackson · 2010-07-01 15:27 · Score: 1

The trident HTML rendering component is not required for windows to function. I have successfully removed all traces of mshtml.dll, mshtmler.dll and mshtmled.dll from windows 2000, xp, and windows 7 without crippling the os. The only things affected for me are windows help, the "enhanced" services screen in the computer management mmc snapin and a handful of applications that were foolishly written to use that library. On a slightly related but still off-topic note, I would like to point out to those that claimed that the internet options control panel applet was a system wide internet settings component (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=445158#c59) and not an Internet explorer options dialog, that this applet also ceases to function with trident removed. It appears that it's dialog may be housed within the trident engine's dlls.

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-- Tyree
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 16:17 · Score: 1, Informative

nope, they are man pages (raw text gziped)
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 17:54 · Score: 1, Informative

Bullshit. 98lite could and quite happily did remove IE from Windows 98, and it worked fine. Drawing the desktop did not depend on it at all.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by shaitand · 2010-07-01 18:21 · Score: 3, Insightful

"It was true when they said it, about Windows 98. Windows 98 couldn't (for all practical purposes) be run without IE-- even drawing the desktop depended on it."
That argument would be more convincing if Windows 98 hadn't been made that way for the purpose of making the argument in the first place.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by jellomizer · 2010-07-02 00:40 · Score: 1

Besides trying to kill netscape as it was one of its goals at the time during Windows 98. The fully integrated web browser wasn't as successful UI as it hoped for. Still people clicked on the e icon to get on the internet. They never really typed the URL in the Windows Explorer tool bar. To load the page on there... As well the security concerns of Active X made it rather unusable rather quickly. And put a stop of having a huge amount of web sites with Active X controls auto install "legit" applications on the PC. Over the years Microsoft has been de coupling the browser from the OS... As they realized all they need to do to keep it popular is just have a link that is easy to get to as part of the default setup.
Having the browser decoupled has a lot more advantages.

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If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by 91degrees · 2010-07-02 03:48 · Score: 1

Windows may have needed an HTML display library, a network library with http support and a windowing. Neither of these is Internet Explorer. Internet Explorer is a very simple application that ties these libraries together (and adds a certain amount of extra functionality) to make a functional web browser. MS could have removed this simple application and satisfied the justice department.

Microsoft argued that anything that was used by IE was part of IE. They argued that a basic text renderer was part of it so if they removed IE, they'd have to remove text rendering. Clearly not remotely true.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Blakey+Rat · 2010-07-02 04:44 · Score: 1

That argument would be more convincing if Windows 98 hadn't been made that way for the purpose of making the argument in the first place.
But it wasn't. It was all part of the ActiveContent/ActiveDesktop idea that Microsoft was working with at the time. That was Microsoft's vision of Windows. It turned out not to be very successful, so they dropped it for future versions.
But to claim that they *only* worked on it so that, years in the future, they could have some critical piece of testimony to use in a trial that hadn't even started yet? That's Slashdot paranoia at its finest, right there. You deserve a medal.
Here's another shocking revelation: MICROSOFT DOES NOT HAVE A TIME MACHINE.

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Comment of the year
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by blueskies · 2010-07-02 05:40 · Score: 1

> And you know what? IE aside, a HTML renderer of some sort *is* required by Windows-- just as it's required by OS X, most Linux distributions, and Chrome OS
What?? Since when does linux require a HTML renderer? Have you told my netgear router that?
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by orudge · 2010-07-02 06:51 · Score: 1

That's only because 98lite would replace explorer.exe with a version from Windows 95. 98lite could still remove various aspects of IE without replacing Explorer, of course, but the core rendering engine would still be installed. For all intents and purposes, explorer.exe and iexplore.exe in Windows 98 were basically both just a wrapper for the IE engine.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by shaitand · 2010-07-02 15:14 · Score: 1

"It was all part of the ActiveContent/ActiveDesktop idea that Microsoft was working with at the time. "
An idea thats only purpose was to tie the browser to the desktop. The IE 5 Active desktop was horrible in 95b as well.
"But to claim that they *only* worked on it so that, years in the future, they could have some critical piece of testimony to use in a trial that hadn't even started yet?"
Years in the future? With the release of 98 they were already making the claim. Not for the sake of courts... yet. But to justify the forced integration to the technically inclined consumers.
This went hand in hand with other claims aimed at this group, like that windows was now a "true" gui without DOS. Amusingly this is a claim they made for 95, 98, and ME.
Additionally, the beginnings of the messy and humiliating trial you refer to began with a lawsuit that wasn't far behind the release of win98. It just took years before it culminated.
Re:Nobody believed it at the time by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-04 03:11 · Score: 0

Wooosh

So by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 07:50 · Score: 0

but those lawsuits are over, so why worry about it

Um no... by Dynedain · 2010-07-01 07:50 · Score: 5, Informative

It's not a myth. After that valid argument was deemed insufficient to get out of the anti-trust lawsuits, Microsoft has made a concerted effort to detach IE from the OS.

For example, since IE7, attempts at FTP gets shunted to Windows Explorer. Windows Update on Vista and Windows 7 no longer use IE. The help system uses Trident, but not IExplore.exe. Windows in the EU now prompts the user for which browser to install.

IE is not inextricably bound to the OS because MS has intentionally been keeping it split. However, just because you can get IE removed/disabled, doesn't mean you can remove the HTML rendering engine (Trident). Just like stripping Safari out of OSX, doesn't completely remove WebKit (used in iTunes and a lot of other things).

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Re:Um no... by StormReaver · 2010-07-01 07:55 · Score: 3, Insightful

IE is not inextricably bound to the OS because MS has intentionally been keeping it split.
Which is the very thing that Microsoft told the court was not possible. So...ummm....yes, Microsoft lied.
Re:Um no... by CannonballHead · 2010-07-01 07:58 · Score: 3, Insightful

Did they tell the court that the browser is inextricably bound to the CURRENT OS or to future OS's?
Re:Um no... by xavierpayne · 2010-07-01 08:02 · Score: 5, Informative

Microsoft told the court it was not possible in the retarded 30-90 timeframe the court demanded. It's taken years and at least 1 whole new OS cycle to get the level of detachment they have now.
Re:Um no... by nine-times · 2010-07-01 08:06 · Score: 5, Interesting

I don't think that anyone disbelieved Microsoft when they claimed that IE had been made part of the OS. No one is really calling that a myth. The supposed myth is that it had to be part of the OS, and that Microsoft could not make a meaningful distinction between the browser and the OS.
Still, we can argue about whether Microsoft claimed such a thing or whether it really is a "myth".
Re:Um no... by Confusador · 2010-07-01 08:08 · Score: 1

I never thought that getting people to use Firefox would open a massive security hole, but I discovered after a while that some of them had never moved to newer versions of IE because they didn't use it. Now most of them understand that just because it's hidden doesn't mean it's not there.
Re:Um no... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:09 · Score: 0

And it's still somewhat linked...
Is your antivirus unable to download the latest definitions? Check the LAN settings in IE to make sure that a virus didn't forward your request against a localhost proxy that's capturing your traffic. Why am I setting proxy servers in IE? Still? I don't know.
Re:Um no... by Nadaka · 2010-07-01 08:13 · Score: 1

I'm not saying it is impossible to exploit a browser not in use... but I don't see a way to do that over the internet without already owning the system.
Re:Um no... by Your.Master · 2010-07-01 08:14 · Score: 2, Informative

Those are the Windows LAN settings. IE uses them, as does Chrome and many other well-behaved Windows applications.
IE also provides an access point to them mixed in with IE-specific settings, which causes some confusion. You can also get there (without the IE-specific settings; at least, the ones that are inherently IE specific) from the control panel.
Re:Um no... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:15 · Score: 0

Dude, you are wrong. That was clearly a troll and if you can't see it then you and your parents owe the world an apology.
Re:Um no... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:25 · Score: 0

At the time they were linking a lot of systems together using IE, so from a certain point of view what they said was the truth. They have just made an effort to break up that connection in the time since.
Kind of ironic that now OSes like Chrome are being made where such a claim is even more accurate.
Re:Um no... by EvanED · 2010-07-01 08:25 · Score: 1

Hell, 2 OS cycles: moving off of the 9x kernel onto NT, and then Vista. Both made significant progress on this front.
This is such a stupid article I'm surprised it wasn't posted by kdawson.
Re:Um no... by commodore64_love · 2010-07-01 08:30 · Score: 3, Insightful

Good question.
At the time Microsoft was defending Windows 98, claiming their browser was integrated with it (which was true). Of course that OS was retired in 2001 (me was the last version). We now use a completely different OS called Windows NT 5.x (XP) or 6.x (Vista/Seven) so the old argument that IE is integrated no longer applies.

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Re:Um no... by tepples · 2010-07-01 08:34 · Score: 1

You can also get there (without the IE-specific settings; at least, the ones that are inherently IE specific) from the control panel.
In Windows XP, Start > Control Panel > Internet Options puts the non-IE-specific settings in the Connections pane along with five panes of web-specific stuff. Was this changed in Windows Vista or Windows 7?
Re:Um no... by tepples · 2010-07-01 08:35 · Score: 1

I'm not saying it is impossible to exploit a browser not in use... but I don't see a way to do that over the internet without already owning the system.
You get the user to start an app other than iexplore.exe that embeds an IE control.
Re:Um no... by ashridah · 2010-07-01 08:37 · Score: 1

Sure, except we have/had apps that also embed trident. My RSS reader does. Steam used to, but no longer does. The help system does. Any bugs there can also be exploited via any of those vehicles, depending on how targeted you make your attack.
Re:Um no... by elrous0 · 2010-07-01 08:49 · Score: 1

Unless John Titor was on the dev team, I'm pretty sure they were limited to speaking of existing OS's.

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Re:Um no... by linebackn · 2010-07-01 09:01 · Score: 2, Informative

If it is a myth or not depends on how you look at it. Back in the day I was able to run Windows 98 (98Lite) without any trace of IE and at the same time run IE 4 under Wine without Windows.
But the catch was IE is heavily made up of components that other applications could make use of (and too often did regardless if it made sense or not). In fact, the entire Windows 98 "integrated" shell depended on many of these components and would fail to run if IE was removed in its entirety. (In that case the Windows 95 shell had to be used instead). Since the OS bundle was therefore unusable to normal users without the IE application, they called it "integrated with the OS".
These components still exist and are unfortunately heavily depended on by Windows and numerous applications.
The worst part about this is that Microsoft has painted themselves in to a corner because of the way it is implemented. It is not possible to cleanly remove IE in its entirety (well, *I* think this should be possible) or run multiple versions of IE in any officially supported manner under the same instance of Windows.
If I needed to access a webby app that only worked in Netscape 4, I probably could install Netscape 4 under Windows 7 and access it just fine in conjunction with any other newer browsers. No such luck with IE, those that need to use IE 6 HAVE to use Windows XP only and can not even install IE 8 at the same time. (Yes, there are some hacks out there but the only official way Microsoft supports running IE 6 under Vista/7 is using XP in VM!)
Re:Um no... by RightSaidFred99 · 2010-07-01 10:14 · Score: 1

Strawman. Microsoft never said it was not possible, as nothing of that sort is "impossible". It's just highly, highly problematic.
Re:Um no... by RightSaidFred99 · 2010-07-01 10:16 · Score: 1

Exactly. This article is just silly. IE (the rendering engine portion) is still in Windows. They've just upgraded and updated it, and made certain parts of it more modular for removal for EU purposes. How exactly is the fact that they've managed to update IE (the RE) an argument that it's not part of Windows?
It's very simple. Lots of software (Microsoft and non-Microsoft) depends on portions of IE. Those portions have not gone away and won't for some time.
Re:Um no... by RightSaidFred99 · 2010-07-01 10:17 · Score: 1

No, they did not. Considering with enough manpower and effort that pretty much any software project like that could eventually be done. What they did say was that tons of MS and non-MS software depends on IE being present. True then, true now. I'm not sure of the point of this article.
Re:Um no... by vlueboy · 2010-07-01 10:58 · Score: 1

You can also get there (without the IE-specific settings; at least, the ones that are inherently IE specific) from the control panel.
In Windows XP, Start > Control Panel > Internet Options puts the non-IE-specific settings in the Connections pane along with five panes of web-specific stuff. Was this changed in Windows Vista or Windows 7?
To do us all a public service, I went to check. I've been using Vista fulltime for 3 years, but don't recall any way to reach the proxy page without IE's "Internet Properties" which is tin the same place where "Internet Options" is (in control.exe's classic view.)
I did a search for proxy settings and found a link or two that state these are for Internet Explorer. The first link shows the Windows registry key to apply a restrictions via group policy is mysteriously Software\Policies\Microsoft\Internet Explorer.
For more proof, though, and pretending the above isn't enough, we can reason that if these "system-wide" control panels were true to the phrase, then why would we need a cookie control GUI in every single alternative browser? It appears that every tab in there is ignored equally: auto-complete, parental controls, popup blocking, running activeX, managing addons, protocol handlers and the default browser --which mysteriously has an IE icon in it and no option to set ANOTHER browser in this particular dialog.
The MacOS 8 of 1997 has an Internet Connection panel to centrally handle many settings, and was followed by browsers. My personal "homepage" should be stored once and for all by default, but we all have to deal with apple choosing their site, MS choosing their own, and firefox pointing to google or mozilla even when I've already told the supposedly central panel where I want to go. No, offering to scan my alternative browser settings is still inferior to forcing everyone to just just look in a registry key. Windows programmers never had hard guidelines to strictly set or to follow. That's why the OS is the twisty little... mess we have today.
By the way, in Vista you cannot reach the above IE settings / proxy control panel from the "Network and Sharing Center," though a proxy is considered a most important part of a network. See?
Re:Um no... by Joe+U · 2010-07-01 11:27 · Score: 1

The supposed myth is that it had to be part of the OS, and that Microsoft could not make a meaningful distinction between the browser and the OS.
In Windows 98/Me, it did have to be part of the OS. MS built most of the visual part of the OS around the browser control, which was IE.
Re:Um no... by Kalriath · 2010-07-01 12:27 · Score: 1

The proxy settings are actually WinINET settings, not IE settings. Yes, there are a ton of IE settings in what really should be WinINET's control panel, but we can't win 'em all.
Of course, bear in mind that many of those settings are for Trident, not Internet Explorer.

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Re:Um no... by guruevi · 2010-07-01 13:07 · Score: 1

Even before the Microsoft trial there was software out there that replaced the Microsoft Explorer engine which resulted in a really nifty desktop environment. I forgot the name of the software but I believe it has disappeared since. The problem was stability of course since not all API's that MSHTML provides are openly available and thus could not be implemented. Heck, we made Windows 95 through 98 work with the DR-DOS kernel resulting in a very fast and stable system. If you ever tried OS/2 Merlin, you know that it was possible to get a Win32 system working without IE. Most technical users knew Microsoft was lying since they knew where Windows came from and what it was based on.

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Re:Um no... by yuhong · 2010-07-01 13:23 · Score: 1

To be more precise, it was the shell, and the integrated shell in Windows 98 was originally part of the optional Windows Desktop Update that you could install together with IE4. Remember Active Desktop?
Re:Um no... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 16:34 · Score: 0

I think they meant inexplicably.
Re:Um no... by CannonballHead · 2010-07-02 03:57 · Score: 1

I'm not sure of the point of this article.
You don't? I think it's rather painfully obvious. "We hate Microsoft" is the point. ;)

When is a line not a line? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 07:50 · Score: 0

Were does one draw the line between OS and application (and let's not draw libraries into this).

Re:When is a line not a line? by StormReaver · 2010-07-01 08:00 · Score: 4, Insightful

Were does one draw the line between OS and application (and let's not draw libraries into this).
The operating system manages the hardware, and provides an interface between the hardware and applications. Everything else is an application (including most libraries, since they're just reusable parts of applications).
Re:When is a line not a line? by blair1q · 2010-07-01 08:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

A web browser needs an internet-connection library, a display library, and a parser library for the data between them.
If you put that into your OS, other application developers may suddenly decide they want to use the internet library and some of the parser library, instead of whatever libraries the OS used to have, or whatever code they were planning to implement themselves.
Now someone says "we order you to remove the web browser from the OS."
You say "that is impossible. Parts of the web browser now serve as parts of the OS."
The only thing you can remove is the browser executable itself, which in the extreme case is just a call with particular arguments to a function in a library you can't remove. So you remove the browser executable and convince the issuers of the order that you have done their bidding.
Re:When is a line not a line? by Slime-dogg · 2010-07-01 08:22 · Score: 1

The operating system manages the hardware, and provides an interface between the hardware and applications. Everything else is an application (including most libraries, since they're just reusable parts of applications).
That would be the kernel, not the OS. An OS not only provides applications an interface with the hardware, but also functions as an interface for the user as well. GNU is a partial operating system that has no specific kernel. When it is paired with a kernel (GNU/HURD or GNU/LINUX), then it is considered an operating system.
As such, it is necessary for an OS to have a set of applications, in addition to the kernel.

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Re:When is a line not a line? by Raul654 · 2010-07-01 08:26 · Score: 2, Funny

The operating system manages the hardware, and provides an interface between the hardware and applications. Everything else is an application (including most libraries, since they're just reusable parts of applications).
br/?
That's the definition of a microkernel. But that is irrelevant in a discussion about Windows, which is a monolithic kernel and does other things like incorporating a TCP/IP stack, file systems, virtual memory, etc -- none of which fit your definition of what an OS should do. So the GP's point is well taken - there is no single agreed-upon definition of what should be in the operating system, and what should be left to user-space; different operating systems do it differently.

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Re:When is a line not a line? by unix1 · 2010-07-01 08:52 · Score: 1

The operating system manages the hardware, and provides an interface between the hardware and applications. Everything else is an application (including most libraries, since they're just reusable parts of applications).
Yes, but kernels do a little more than that, including providing interfaces for those applications to implement things like process and memory management, user permissions/security, filesystems, etc.
In the case of consumer desktop MS Windows versions up until and including Windows XP, the operating system (and their supporting libraries/applications) did not have a capability to support a comprehensive user level security. Windows XP has some, but nowhere near enough, user security. So some imaginary security is implemented at a higher level. For example, most of the times, when a Windows XP user is "locked out" of certain features (such as viewing list of processes, running a command, opening a command prompt, access to certain hardware, etc.) it's done at the level of the Windows Explorer shell. Locked out of the C:\ drive from Windows Explorer? No problem, try any number of file managers that don't use the explorer shell. Cannot see the list of processes by right-clicking on the task bar? No problem - download any number of process managers.
So, an argument can be made that since the Explorer shell is performing certain tasks that should be performed at a lower OS level (the "security" being one of many), the Explorer is then part of the "OS." Since Internet Explorer used/uses the Explorer shell and Explorer needs the HTML rendering components, then the browser is indirectly part of the "Operating System."
Re:When is a line not a line? by XanC · 2010-07-01 08:53 · Score: 2, Informative

No, Linux is an OS. GNU is a set of tools that run on it.
Re:When is a line not a line? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:20 · Score: 0

You can not get any software libraries to be part of the OS because they are still needing working OS under them to work.
OS like Linux, NT (NT is server-client architectured OS = with microkernel. NT is NOT hybrid kernel. There is not such OS architecture as "Hybrid"), XNU, HURD, FreeBSD, SunOS, HP-UX, PARAS etc etc. Are just OS's.
Example, the GNU/Linux does not exist because the GNU software can not work without working operating system. glibc, bash, etc etc. Are just system software like the OS is. But they are definetly not part of the operating system. Not even bootloader is part of the OS. Bootloader is just a "simple" (talk about GRUB being simple, like talking Emacs being just a text editor) program what tasks is to locate OS image from the storage device and read it to RAM and execute it so it can take control and start loading other softwares and so on.
Windows is software system. Not a operating system (okay, it is as much web browser as it is operating system. Most knows it as operating system because without NT, the Windows is not operating system but just lousy bunch of software) what is the NT in the Windows. NT is now in 6.1 version in Windows 7. Too many mistakes the operating system and software system (what is contrary to hardware system, those two builds together a computer system) but it seems to be because marketing has taken control over the computer science how the computer really works.
Re:When is a line not a line? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:55 · Score: 0

Kernel IS THE OPERATING SYSTEM.
But not always!
Kernel is the original name of the software what offered all the services what todays OS has.
But it was long time ago when there was only single architecture for operating systems and it was monolithic.
It was the time when monolithic kernels were ruling and Unix was the king because there was resource limiations (hardware) to size of the OS.
When the limitations went away, the OS's started to grow. They became very complex and easy to crash.
Like first OS's were just few thousands lines of code. Some were HUGE on that time that they had few tens of thousands lines of code. Like OS in the Xerox Star was about 48 000 LoC. It was HUGE.
But when OS's started to have hundreds of thousands LoC's. There came demand to get new architectures to the OS's.
Welcome to the Server-Client architecture, AKA microkernels.
The S-C architecture idea was to take a monolithic OS (aka kernel) and slice it to pieces. You ended to have very tiny kernel what had only most important functions of the OS. All other OS parts like filesystems, networking, printing, I/O and device drivers were separated from the microkernel. They were placed to run in protected process to the microkernel and run in supervisor mode like the microkernel itself. The servers (aka modules) could be located to same or different address space than the microkernel. The original idea was that servers were separated from microkernel so they could not crash it if server went down. But no one was stopping you to place it to same address space but still being isolated from it. Technically possible and it is done today usually.
Then there came other OS architectures as well. Like Layered what was littlebit same as S-C but as name suggest, every layer served the one in top of them and used servers under them.
And all times going, there are still few most used architectures for the OS's.
Monolithic (mostly used in Unixes)
Server-Client (aka microkernel)
Layered (aka microkernel)
And then there is marketing spinoff for "new architecture" aka "hybrid". What got lots of critic because it was not original and different at all from server-client. Microsoft tried to get it to markets to be saying "fast as monolithic OS, but stable and secure as server-client OS)
And then there is the GNU what is writing propaganda and stealing fame by saying that Linux is just a kernel and not the operating system but the OS is the GNU/Linux.
First of all. GNU has own OS, called HURD. It is not a kernel but operating system. HURD has own kernel. But it is not monolithic but microkernel. It name is GNU Mach. And it is deriavation of the Mach microkernel.
HURD has Microkernel and servers (modules. Do not mistake Modules/Servers to Daemons what are just normal programs in userspace and what OS runs).
GNU is not speaking much about HURD's microkernel because soon people would count 1+1 and get a idea that if HURD is microkernel + servers. Then why HURD would be only a kernel when it already has all what is needed from the OS?
Linux is monolithic. Monolithic kernel can be modular same time. The difference is that modularity is in the binary level, not in the architecture level. The modular monolithic operating system works just like it would be single binary blob but it actually is multiple binaries. When the module is loaded, it acts like it would be compiled in the OS image.
Linux has all the features what are needed from full Unix operating system. Multitaskin, Networking, Filesystems, I/O, Drivers etc etc. ALL OS FUNCTIONS EXIST IN THE LINUX!.
The OS is that software what runs in kernel space or in supervisor mode. - that is most clearest and simplest definition for the OS.
None of the GNU software works without the OS (execluding HURD and GRUB) because they do not offer any of the OS functions like process management, memory management, filesystems, networking (TCP/IP, UDP etc) or device drivers.
Most people have been fee
Re:When is a line not a line? by RightSaidFred99 · 2010-07-01 10:19 · Score: 1

This is neckbeard nonsense. An OS is a product sold to a consumer which lets them run applications and get work done. The Computer Science definition of "OS" is meaningless. You're comparing apples and oranges.
Re:When is a line not a line? by lennier · 2010-07-01 10:34 · Score: 1

Were does one draw the line between OS and application (and let's not draw libraries into this).
It's simple.
An operating system provides a web browser, search engine, media player, movie editor, Cloud services and weather-reporting gadgets on the desktop.
Low-level access to disk filesystems such as CD-R and ISO is not part of the operating system and is provided by third-party applications which you must purchase separately.
Hope that helps!

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Re:When is a line not a line? by man_of_mr_e · 2010-07-01 10:47 · Score: 1

The operating system manages the hardware, and provides an interface between the hardware and applications. Everything else is an application (including most libraries, since they're just reusable parts of applications).
The FSF disagrees with you. For example, they consider the shell, glibc, and a raft of other utilities to be part of the "OS".
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#osvskernel
In particular, they consider the "os" to be the userland portion, and those things that "ship with" the OS. They consider the kernel to be that which you describe.

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Re:When is a line not a line? by man_of_mr_e · 2010-07-01 10:49 · Score: 0, Redundant

Not according to the FSF.
http://www.gnu.org/gnu/gnu-linux-faq.html#osvskernel

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Re:When is a line not a line? by RocketRabbit · 2010-07-01 11:58 · Score: 0, Redundant

Actually in the classic sense, an "operating system" is a system that has what you need to do your daily work. Not just the base layer, but the applications too. When you freshly install Windows it is hardly suitable for everyday work, and is therefore not, in the classic or traditional sense, an operating system because it doesn't really operate yet. It just sits there.
I realize the terminology has changed over time, but there should be some term to denote a system that is suitable for work or play, including all the applications and libraries that are not included by default.
In this sense, any default Linux install is much more of an OS than Windows is, as you are able to use it to do work right off the bat. After all, most of them include the gimp, OO.o, emacs, browsers, calendar, email apps, and so on.
Re:When is a line not a line? by Bing+Tsher+E · 2010-07-01 14:27 · Score: 0, Redundant

Linux is a kernel. All sorts of OSes have been created that use the Linux kernel. They are commonly referred to as 'distributions.' Many/most of them use the GNU tools as part of that distribution.
Re:When is a line not a line? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 16:02 · Score: 0

"Operating system is that that part of the software system what works in the kernel space or in supervisor mode."
There, you just got the single definition to the operating system.
Monolithic kernel runs in kernel space and in supervisor mode. It fills the OS definition alone. Monolithic OS's are Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, SunOS, HP-UX and few others.
Server-client architecture is operating system architecture where the microkernel runs in kernel space and other OS parts (servers/modules) runs in kernel space or user space. But servers are run always in protected process as in supervisor mode with the microkernel. The operating system is microkernel+servers.
Server-client architectured operating systems are, NT, XNU, Minix, Dragon Fly BSD, kFreeBSD and so on.
Then there is third architecture what is layered, but I do not know how many actually use it. Seems to be lost. And the server-client architecture can be developed using micro-, nano- or exokernels. The principles are same but the kernel size just is different. Like the microkernel what Minix use, is about 4000 LoC's. Very clean and simple microkernel.
When compared to Linux, the kernel functions itself are about few thousands lines of code. But 90% code is about device drivers and rest are filesystems, networking, memory management etc etc...
Windows is not operating system. It is a software system. NT is the operating system and it is not monolithic (OR "hybrid") but it is server-client architectured. Microsoft have used few OS's among the times. MS-DOS (MS-DOS/PC-DOS 1.0 -> Windows ME. The Windows 95 -> Windows ME was a series where MS-DOS was integrated to the windowing system itself. In other words, parts of the MS-DOS was replaced by the Windows. But it still was the MS-DOS series in evolution but not own kind OS.
Then there is the CE what is the OS for small and embedded devices. Started more like OS for PDA's and similar devices. Today CE is used with same manner, for embedded devices and small devices like smartphones. It is used in GPS locators or in Windows Mobile Phone -series. Have not died anywhere at all.
And last and most famoust OS from MIcrosoft. The "Next Technology", the NT. What was started as 3.0 version and have used as OS trough the NT series of Windows to Windows 2000 and to Windows XP. And now it is in it 6.1 version in Windows 7. While Windows Vista was 6.0. (In XP it was 5.1-5.2, in Windows 2k it was 5.0 and so on. In Windows NT 4 the software system was following the OS versioning but the W2k was where MS changed the marketing)
Those are the three OS's what are most famous from MS. MS-DOS was bad. Windows 9x generation was even worse when Microsoft added windowing system, web browser and other system programs to the OS functions and almost made the whole software system being almost one gigantic OS with everything. Thats why Windows 95 crashed every day and almost every situation. No one is so stupid to integrate windowing manager to the OS than Microsoft! The OS LoC amount must have been HUGE!
And Microsoft has today few other experimental OS's like Singluarity what is server-client architectured like the NT is. If you watch Singularity developers video blogs, you would hear how they explain how NT is the OS in Windows Vista (and Windows seven) and how it is server-client by it architecture and faces many problems by their design to fill all kind crappy system software to it what does not belong to the OS functions and makes it unstable, unsecure and slow.
ps. Top post what you are quoting does not define the microkernel. Or how the hell you believe that microkernel can manage the hardware when the microkernel does not include the needed device drivers or have the networking capabilities (you need them to get network devices working) or have a I/O functions OR have at least the filesystems so you could manage the storage devices!?
Microkernel has only the most important OS functions in it! All other OS functions are separated from it to prote
Re:When is a line not a line? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 16:29 · Score: 0

No, there is no single agreement what should ONLY be in the OS. Why there should be?
But in contrary, there IS single agreement what software need to have so it can be counted as the operating system!
Multitasking
Process Management
Memory Management
I/O
Filesystems
Device Drivers.
About those are the basic functions what is software need to offer so it can work as the operating system.
But no one is forcing you to not add windowing system like Windows or application programs like web browser or even games like World of Warcraft!
It just would be very stupid because the whole OS would grow to dozens of millions lines of code and every single line where is bug, could bring the whole software system down.
That was about Microsofts "secret" mission in Project MinWin. That they rip off all the non-OS functions from the NT and they get it in the diet. They managed to get NT to in such shape it only toke over 40 Megabytes of RAM and had only few OS servers. Every device driver was moved back to the user space where they were more easily being separated from the microkernel with the old technology what they used.
And as you can see, NT is far more stable OS in Windows 7 after the MinWin project. It was done well and in MinWin Microsoft separated from the NT the core libraries and functions what the Internet Explorer used. They even separated the Explorer functions from it so the whole shell was standalone in Windows Vista.

So about this myth by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 07:52 · Score: 0

So you're busting the idea of a modular Operating system where the one module of the OS requires some version of the other module but won't function without it?

Doesn't Matter by StormReaver · 2010-07-01 07:52 · Score: 1, Redundant

It doesn't matter anymore. The argument was only important long enough to bamboozle the court system. After that, Microsoft could scream the truth from the highest mountain top with impunity. It's not like the court system is going to admit to its own incompetence, and punish Microsoft for lying.

Re:Doesn't Matter by ptomblin · 2010-07-01 08:00 · Score: 3, Interesting

Funny thing is, I have a quote from a Microsoft patent application that occurred around the same time they were arguing in court that the browser was part of the OS: "It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, ... is separate from the operating system." Man, I wish I'd recorded the patent application number when I put that in my quotes file.

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Re:Doesn't Matter by dkleinsc · 2010-07-01 08:04 · Score: 5, Informative

It wasn't court system incompetence that caused Microsoft to get away with its antitrust practices. Far from it - they had gotten to the point of starting to decide sanctions.
The thing was, shortly after the 2000 election cycle, the Justice Department decided to stop pursuing the court case, for some reason, and settled for a slap on the wrist.

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Re:Doesn't Matter by phantomfive · 2010-07-01 08:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

And their argument didn't even work at the time. Their own video tapes showed that it worked fine without IE. It was pretty hilarious, actually.

Furthermore I don't think the author's argument makes any sense; she is not a programmer, she is an author and analyst. Any programmer will know that even if the browser were an integral part of the OS, it could still be replaced as long as those parts that are used by the OS remain (which can obviously happen when you upgrade your own browser).

She also tries to claim that Microsoft is trying to be consistent in its arguments, but Microsoft (like any competent spin-doctor) doesn't care if their arguments are consistent, they only care if they convince at the moment. Unlike geeks they feel no need to be consistent with arguments from 10 years ago that no one remembers.

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Re:Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:08 · Score: 1, Informative

Funny thing is, I have a quote from a Microsoft patent application that occurred around the same time they were arguing in court that the browser was part of the OS: "It should be understood by those skilled in the art that a Web browser, such as Netscape Navigator or Internet Explorer, ... is separate from the operating system." Man, I wish I'd recorded the patent application number when I put that in my quotes file.
The US Patent Number is 5,794,230.
Re:Doesn't Matter by Nimey · 2010-07-01 08:10 · Score: 4, Interesting

More to the point, the Justice Dept pulled the experienced lawyers off the case once the Bush Administration took over in 2001.
One suspects it was for ideological reasons, Republicans being known for favoring big business.

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Re:Doesn't Matter by LordBullGod · 2010-07-01 08:18 · Score: 1

Does it matter anyway? Safari and OS X, IE and Win32, Lunix and Firefox...... "It's all cloud computing now" - It will soon be what G00GLE wants us to use......if you subscribe to that sort of thing. The web is a bloated sack of protoplasm now anyway. It was useful back in the day........ahh the good ole days.
Re:Doesn't Matter by bonch · 2010-07-01 08:21 · Score: 1

Did you forget that Microsoft was found guilty?
Re:Doesn't Matter by bonch · 2010-07-01 08:23 · Score: 1, Interesting

With the rise of Apple and Google signaling Microsoft's natural decline, the Justice Department's actions have turned out to be correct. The free market rejected the monopoly on its own without the need for government intervention like splitting up the company and other ridiculous solutions being thrown around back then.
Re:Doesn't Matter by RobertM1968 · 2010-07-01 08:31 · Score: 1

Does it matter anyway? Safari and OS X, IE and Win32, Lunix and Firefox...... "It's all cloud computing now" - It will soon be what G00GLE wants us to use......if you subscribe to that sort of thing.
The web is a bloated sack of protoplasm now anyway. It was useful back in the day........ahh the good ole days.
Huh? Safari (or Firefox or Opera) on OSX, Linux and Firefox (or various other browsers)... and as for cloud computing, IE and Microsoft forcing it to everyone is the biggest problem for web developers.

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Re:Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:40 · Score: 0

And they were totally right to do so. Nobody forced you to use Microsoft products back then, and nobody forces you today. The free market rejected the Windows platform on its own with the rise of Apple and Google.
The truth is that most Slashdotters wanted Microsoft taken down out of some fantasy that it would cause mass adoption of Linux on the desktop. It turned out that the desktop wasn't even going to be the future of computing anyway.
Parent should be -1, Rose Colored Glasses.
When that Antitrust suit was started, you *could not* buy an assembled machine from a vendor without Windows or DOS of some form installed.
If you did find a vendor that was willing, the price was in most cases higher.
Funny thing, back in that time frame Mary Jo Foley was the biggest Microsoft asskisser of the bunch.
They must've stopped paying her sorry ass off.
Re:Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:09 · Score: 0

Nobody forced you to use Microsoft products back then, and nobody forces you today.
But they do force you to buy MS products - which is the problem. (Ever try to purchase a computer without Windows?)
Re:Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:14 · Score: 2, Informative

Patent number: 5794230
Page 12
Method and system for creating and searching directories on a server
Re:Doesn't Matter by phantomfive · 2010-07-01 10:08 · Score: 1

Here it is, patent number 5,794,230. Incidentally, reading a patent is about the most miserable thing you can ever do. I suggest using the search function to find your quote within the patent.

To find it I used Google patent search.

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Qxe4
Re:Doesn't Matter by nacturation · 2010-07-01 10:09 · Score: 1

http://www.google.com/patents/about?id=w5ogAAAAEBAJ&dq="It+should+be+understood+by+those+skilled+in+the+art+that+a+Web+browser"

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Re:Doesn't Matter by RightSaidFred99 · 2010-07-01 10:25 · Score: 1

Their own video tapes showed that it worked fine without IE.
No, it didn't. According to the article you linked, it showed no slowdown. If you know jack shit about Windows you know that many apps (MS and non-MS) depend in IE. So the whole trial was a farce, and as Microsoft said - removing IE was not an option, other than removing the icon or limited parts of it.
And as you say, the article is nonsense. Being able to update IE doesn't mean it's not a critical component. They can update the kernel too - "Oh noesies, the kernel must be extra fluff, they can take that out!". Pfft, rank idiocy.
Re:Doesn't Matter by Macthorpe · 2010-07-01 10:26 · Score: 1

But they do force you to buy MS products - which is the problem. (Ever try to purchase a computer without Windows?)
Yes. It's ridiculously easy.

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Re:Doesn't Matter by antdude · 2010-07-01 10:39 · Score: 1

Are there online videos from these video tapes?

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Re:Doesn't Matter by Kalriath · 2010-07-01 12:33 · Score: 1

When that Antitrust suit was started, you *could not* buy an assembled machine from a vendor without Windows or DOS of some form installed. If you did find a vendor that was willing, the price was in most cases higher.
And that's still the case now. The reason it costs more is that the OEM can't subsidise the cost of the PC with crapware which they get paid to install (30 second trial of Norton, anyone?)

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Re:Doesn't Matter by Nimey · 2010-07-01 12:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

That must be why Windows is still ~90% of the market, with a similar share for Office.
Which kind are you?
http://www.leftycartoons.com/the-24-types-of-libertarian/

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Re:Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 14:38 · Score: 0

Republicans being known for favoring big business.
More like Microsoft donated huge sums of money to Bush's campaign and the Republican party in general. So the government backed off once Bush got into office.
Democrats favor big business as much as Republicans do, it might just be different sectors of the economy which they favor.
Re:Doesn't Matter by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 16:38 · Score: 0

If only there was a facility one could use to search for a specific chunk of that quote and find the relevant patent.
Patent 5794230
That quote appears on page 12 of the abstract.

This Disproves Nothing by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 07:53 · Score: 0

XP Comes with IE6, you can upgrade to IE7 or IE8 or not, your choice. How does this prove that IE is not linked / embedded in the Operating System.

I can upgrade a component of my OS or not...

Patching third party browsers. by hilather · 2010-07-01 07:54 · Score: 1

Ever tried with with SMS (now SCCP)? Microsoft didn't make it easy in older versions.

Not convinced by MetalliQaZ · 2010-07-01 07:55 · Score: 0, Flamebait

Even if users can have any one of several version of IE, they all still have IE. The linux kernel is part of the OS, but users upgrade it constantly. Microsoft's argument may have been silly, but her point doesn't make sense to me.

In addition, lets take a look at where we are so many years later. Apple's industry dominating platforms are locked into iTunes and the App Store. Both of which are far more intrusive than IE ever was. Try installing Mozilla AppFox or FireTunes on your iPad...

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Re:Not convinced by MetalliQaZ · 2010-07-01 08:54 · Score: 1

Apple fanboys... meh.

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"Part of the OS" by Tei · 2010-07-01 07:56 · Score: 1

What "Part of the OS" means, and what are the effects?

Arguabilly, a perl distro is part of most Linux distros, since key parts of the distro are written in Perl. A "Perl-less" version of the distro is maybe possible, simply removing perl, and replacing all these parts by other modules that don't need it.

So something can be "part of the OS", and at the same type, can be replaced?

MSHTML.dll seems part of XP the same way a Hard-Disk is *not* part of the console XBox360. This is because all the XP have this DLL, and you are supposed to assume it exist. But some XBox360 consoles don't have a harddisk, so you can't asume your game can use a harddisk, so you have to program it to run from ROM in a optical mecanical device.

So..

I mostly think the article is wrong, and consoles suck.

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ILLOGICAL by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 07:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

'Microsoft has insisted that its browser is part of Windows, and, ironically, that's coming back to haunt the company. Customers can mix and match different versions of IE with different versions of Windows.....But Microsoft has done very little to get this message out there. I'd argue this is because it makes plain the absurdity of the company's claims that IE is part of Windows.'"

Fallacious logic!
Internet Explorer is part of Windows and not Internet Explorer 6 is part of Windows.
Customers are just plain lazy or the IT departments just don't care if its IE6 or IE9 on 3 year old systems they just attend to when it's broken down.
I think the whole post is not worth news for a nerd. There is no logic to this argument and should be trashed.

It's that important to the OS by Murdoch5 · 2010-07-01 07:59 · Score: 0

True browser / OS integration is hard to pull off and Microsoft has 100% not pulled this off. To start off you can remove IE and still use Windows. Second if you want to see what a Browser + Desktop integrated setup is like just look at KDE, that is a true Browser + Desktop. What Microsoft has is a craptastic browser that is associated wit the same company as the OS and hence they say they reliant on each other. Personally I think it great the OS and browser aren't linked. Who actually likes IE?

Windows / IE by wzinc · 2010-07-01 08:01 · Score: 1

Well, if you completely stripped IE from Windows, things that depend on an HTML renderer would break, such as help (.chm), HTML apps (.hta), and .Net (web browser control), to name a few.

Side note: Mac OS X uses Webkit to render help and a number of other OS parts / pieces.

Re:Windows / IE by ducomputergeek · 2010-07-01 08:43 · Score: 1

But the big difference is OSX doesn't do anything to break FireFox or Opera. As far as that goes, since it's open source they do nothing to prevent other companies from using Webkit for things like Chrome, Palm, Konqueror or anyone else that wants to use Webkit. If FireFox decided tomorrow to abandon their rendering engine for Webkit, Apple isn't doing anything to stop them. Furthermore I can remove and delete safari from my mac and nothing bad happens. Webkit is still there and used in the libraries, but it is not dependent on having safari installed.

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Re:Windows / IE by cdrguru · 2010-07-01 09:37 · Score: 1

This is the identical situation with Windows with one exception. There is nothing that you can point at and say "This is Internet Explorer and not involved with anything else" other than a very small executable. The rest of the "browser" is like Webkit is to OSX.
Why they didn't offer an uninstall for the IEXPLORE.EXE file is probably because it didn't make any sense to do so. It wouldn't have changed anything to speak of. You could still access "Internet Explorer" by typing a URL into any Windows Explorer address bar. And that level of integration is what pretty much means that IE is tied into the OS.
This level of integration is very much present in Windows 7.
Re:Windows / IE by drsmithy · 2010-07-01 11:10 · Score: 1

But the big difference is OSX doesn't do anything to break FireFox or Opera.
Neither does Windows.
Re:Windows / IE by shutdown+-p+now · 2010-07-01 13:31 · Score: 2, Informative

You could still access "Internet Explorer" by typing a URL into any Windows Explorer address bar. And that level of integration is what pretty much means that IE is tied into the OS.
This level of integration is very much present in Windows 7.
That's not true, actually. In 7 (and Vista), Explorer doesn't embed IE. If you type an HTTP URL in the address bar, it will open it in your default system browser, which may or may not be IE. If you uninstall IE (e.g. in EU edition), and won't install any other browser, you won't be able to open HTTP URLs from Explorer at all.
To be more precise, Explorer just hands the entered URL over to ShellExecute API function, which does its magic of looking up the associated default application and launching it. This is actually what any well-behaved application should do with URLs on Windows.

That claim is almost 9 years old... by in10se · 2010-07-01 08:05 · Score: 4, Insightful

Um, when Microsoft made that claim, they were referring to Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 which are both almost 9 years old. At that time, IE6 was very likely tightly linked to the OS. They slowly "unlinked" it over the years which I'm sure was a lot of work. You can argue that they shouldn't have linked it in the first place (you may or may not be right). The fact that you could upgrade from IE6 to IE7 or 8 does not mean it was not linked - can you not upgrade certain pieces of the OS on Linux, Unix, or MacOS in small pieces? Isn't that what a patch is?

We are now to MAJOR OS versions later and Microsoft doesn't claim the OS and the browser are linked anymore.

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Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by KiloByte · 2010-07-01 08:12 · Score: 1

Well, then how would you explain why it works on Wine?

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Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by in10se · 2010-07-01 08:20 · Score: 1

Well, then how would you explain why it works on Wine?
Define "it".
Oh, and it appears that I was wrong, the trial started before XP was released, so this actually started with Windows 95/98 and IE4/5. It's just that lots of businesses still use XP and IE6. This only further helps my argument because MS would have already started to separate things by the time Windows XP was released.

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Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:38 · Score: 0

Because WINE provides an MSHTML.DLL and WININET.DLL implementation that exactly matches MSIE 6's. Why? Because they have to. Many Windows applications uses these components. WININET.DLL is NT's version of libcurl on POSIX based platforms.
In fact, the WINE implementation of MSHTML.DLL is hooked up to use Gecko (the same rendering engine FireFox uses) via XPCOM -- in quirks mode. Heck, I found the WINE sources to be better documentation to using MSHTML in my own Win32 software than MSDN!
And why did I use MSHTML in my software? Because it makes sense. The primary purpose of the only serious Win32 software I developed was to talk to some specific hardware. As such displaying things like instructions, warning messages, etc. all benefited because internally they were stored as HTML blobs. So that means - rich text, UTF-8 internationalization and hotlinks to our online user manuals for when an error message pops up.
It just made our application richer -- it certainly isn't a web centric thing -- in fact most of the heavy use of this application was for within a vehicle without a net connection.
The minute you expose anything as a public API and people begin using it you have to support it if you care about backwards compatibility. While I am no fan of many things M$ says if you reach under the hood you can kind of understand why they said that.
Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by sweatyboatman · 2010-07-01 08:43 · Score: 1

the trial was about the linking of the Microsoft's browser to their monopoly OS. that they did it in a way that made it hard to undo does not make it less anti-competitive.
the argument that Microsoft made at the trial was that a web browser was then and always would be a crucial part of the OS. to a technical person, this argument makes no sense -- as it's just a matter of programming. which is why you (and many others) have chosen to defend a weaker formulation of Microsoft's argument (that they only said it would be hard to untangle -- I'm sure they said that as well, but I can't imagine a judge caring much about that).
The point is that at no time was it necessary for Microsoft to bundle IE with their operating system. They chose to do that. It's possible that they innocently thought that it would improve the user experience. That, or (as I believe the court decided) they were attempting to leverage their monopoly status on the OS to give them a hammer-lock on the burgeoning web industry.

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Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:45 · Score: 0

The fact that you could upgrade from IE6 to IE7 or 8 does not mean it was not linked - can you not upgrade certain pieces of the OS on Linux, Unix, or MacOS in small pieces? Isn't that what a patch is?
We are now to MAJOR OS versions later and Microsoft doesn't claim the OS and the browser are linked anymore.
Ah, but the pieces in Linux, Unix, and MacOS are modular by design and quite interchangeable. Windows was not built to be modular. At least not to the same degree as the other OS's you mentioned. So something that is 'linked' to the OS is truly linked. It cannot be removed. Plus, Microsoft's entire argument hinged on their claim that the browser was so linked to the base OS that it couldn't be removed. If that were true then unless future versions of IE maintained complete backwards compatibility with the previous versions (which by the way, they don't) the future version would not work and would break the OS. The only thing that was really 'linked' (and still is to a few things) was the rendering engine, and that's not the browser.
Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by in10se · 2010-07-01 08:58 · Score: 1

The article is not really about the anti-trust case - it is about Microsoft saying the browser and OS would be difficult to de-couple.
It really doesn't matter why they chose to bundle them together with respect to the current topic. The author of the article is trying to make Microsoft sound like a liar because they said they couldn't unlink the two (in the time specified by the court anyway). The fact that they have solved this problem over 10 years later should not come as a surprise.

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Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by cdrguru · 2010-07-01 09:29 · Score: 1

Most of the newer displays that show links in Vista and Windows 7 are in fact rendered with an HTML renderer that is built into the operating system. IE uses the same HTML rendering engine.
I'd say that is pretty much a complete linkage between the OS and an HTML rendering engine with IE being a simple user interface that exposes the rendering of HTML pages. The fact that the Control Panel, Personalize and about 100 other displays now are also constructed from HTML pretty much means they are very tightly coupled.
The entire help system for displaying help files from third-party applications is also dependent on the MSHTML rendering engine.
There are also lightly documented and undocumented COM interfaces to the MSHTML rendering engine. So it isn't really possible to replace that with the rendering engine from, say Chrome or Firefox.
Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by drsmithy · 2010-07-01 11:26 · Score: 1

Um, when Microsoft made that claim, they were referring to Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6 which are both almost 9 years old.
Actually it was about Windows 98 and IE4.
At that time, IE6 was very likely tightly linked to the OS.
It was no more "linked" then than it is now.
The argument is, and has always been, that the integration of IE into Windows resulted in various other parts of the system being dependent on the shared IE components to work. This statement is 100% true, and the subsequent emulation of that design by basically every other major platform has long since vindicated it from a technical perspective.
The only time the "IE is part of the OS" claim is incorrect, is when people deliberately choose a poor context in which to (mis)interpret it. IE is "part of the OS" the same way Explorer, Control Panel, the network stack, the Win32 API, or any number of other components are part of the OS. It was true then, it's true now, and it's also true of all the other major platforms as well (OSX w/Safari+Webkit, KDE w/Konquerer+khtml, GNOME w/Epiphany+Webkit).
Re:That claim is almost 9 years old... by in10se · 2010-07-02 03:03 · Score: 1

Windows was not built to be modular.
The article was not about whether MS used proper coding techniques, just about whether they were lying about the browser being a part of the OS.

If that were true then unless future versions of IE maintained complete backwards compatibility with the previous versions (which by the way, they don't)
I'm pretty sure they are backward compatible - that's why they have BeforeNavigate() and BeforeNavigate2() methods [and NavigateComplete()/NavigateComplete2(), and NewWindow()/NewWindow2()/NewWindow3()]. The older methods still work for backward compatibility, but they are marked as deprecated and/or obsolete.
It has been proven, time and time again that technically, yes you could remove the browser, and you could still boot and use the OS, but numerous parts of the system would no longer work or would crash if you tried to use them.
I understand the difference between a rendering engine and a browser, but I highly doubt that the courts or the media do. I'm betting that any references to "browser" in court documents and the news could be replaced with "rendering engine" or "browser libraries" and instantly make all those claims 100% true.

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IIRC by Cro+Magnon · 2010-07-01 08:07 · Score: 2, Insightful

Microsoft released a version of Windows without IE, and it was unstable, erratic, and unreliable.

IOW, indistinguishable from the regular version.

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Re:IIRC by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:20 · Score: 0

no, that was ME.
Re:IIRC by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:26 · Score: 0

Sorta like your mom.

I'm just waiting for IE 9 on ChromeOS by PerfectionLost · 2010-07-01 08:15 · Score: 1

I'm just waiting for IE 10 on ChromeOS. Won't google make the same argument as Microsoft then?

Re:I'm just waiting for IE 9 on ChromeOS by selven · 2010-07-01 11:43 · Score: 1

The way you write programs for Chrome OS is by making them web apps. That's the ONLY way to do it, and even Google can't make an exception for themselves if they want to, say, install Google Earth onto the OS. The browser in the OS is not only tightly integrated, but it's also the only way to interact with the OS (compare Windows 98 where you could still replace much of the IE functionality with Netscape). If Microsoft were to release IE as a web app, I'm sure Google would be quite happy about it.
Re:I'm just waiting for IE 9 on ChromeOS by Bing+Tsher+E · 2010-07-01 14:22 · Score: 1

I am just anxious to see if the Justice Department and assorted third parties will whip up a frenzy if it isn't possible to run IE 10 on ChromeOS.

IE6 really is part of XP by Animats · 2010-07-01 08:26 · Score: 1

The problem for Microsoft is that IE6 really is part of Windows XP. The code of IE was split up amongst various DLLs which also do other things. IE was tied into other functions and deliberately made difficult to remove. And, of course, the "File" menu on IE6 has no "Exit" option.

While IE is less integrated into Microsoft's OS than it used to be, Microsoft's Media Player is now tied into the OS even more tightly. Microsoft is no longer afraid of Netscape. They're afraid of Apple iTunes.

Re:IE6 really is part of XP by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:17 · Score: 0

What the fuck bullshit is spewing out of your yapper? I just tried to remove WMP and it takes less than one minute to do it. Do you have any idea what you're talking about? No, trolls like you have never actually used Windows, but shit fuck gee willickers if you aren't the world's foremost Windows expert.

huh? by sweatyboatman · 2010-07-01 08:33 · Score: 1

seriously, what are you talking about?

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Windows Explorer by Mongoose+Disciple · 2010-07-01 08:33 · Score: 1

I recall part of the argument at the time being that the Windows (File system) Explorer and Internet Explorer had converged / were intertwined / had more or less become two parts of the same thing.

But I can't remember the details or if it was even a valid argument at the time, so maybe someone who was paying more attention can fill that in.

Re:Windows Explorer by cdrguru · 2010-07-01 09:23 · Score: 1

If you type http://slashdot.org/ into the address bar of a Windows Explorer window it will display the web page right there in that window using the MSHTML renderer.
Also, if you move from the "classic" window display you are actually displaying it with HTML, so again MSHTML is used.
There are many HTML displays in Windows that you would not suspect are done with MSHTML. This is pretty much the reason why MSHTML is part of the operating system - a decision was made in 1995 to use HTML for displaying stuff built into the OS. An HTML rendering control is a basic part of the system and you can't get away from it.

What is that garbage? by LanceUppercut · 2010-07-01 08:34 · Score: 1

I mean I understand that certain people are clueless and therefore can be convinced to believe anything. And there are certain people who prefer deluding themselves even though they know that their delusions are just that - delusions. However, anyone who ever worked with Windows knows that IE is indeed a part of Windows. There's no debate about that and there has never been. Just because the user can switch from one version of IE to another doesn't in any way contradict the claim. It simply proves that the IE, as a system component, is designed properly and very professionally, i.e. with a sufficient level of decoupling and interface abstraction. I understand that this very fact has been a significant source of inferiority complex attacks for the followers of certain of other OS-es, developed by certain half-illiterate crowd of various "c00l hack0rz". So they will undoubtedly try to pervert its meaning. But that doesn't change the reality, at least for those who prefer to live in connection with it.

IE not connected, but limited by fermion · 2010-07-01 08:34 · Score: 3, Insightful

Here is my take. MS makes a profit by controlling the computer market. They mark up products in such a way, and provide strategic discounts, so most of the profits in the desktop computer industry goes to them. This is why Dell has a gross profit of around 10% and MS has a gross profit of 80%. Apple, who manufacturers computer but does not pay the MS tax has a gross profit of around 40%. Obviously any computer manufacturer would want to have a gross profit more in line with Apple. MS would hate that because assuming the price of the computer is fixed, and profit to the OEM will cut into the MS profit. In this screwed up market, it is a zero sum game, which is the death of any free market.

The web would have resulted in the loss of MS profit if it had been allowed to grow freely. At that time many production machines were still using very simple systems that could be implemented on web based interface. Companies like Compaq were still competing hard and had non-MS offering that were less complex and more reliable than the PC. MS Office was not quite everywhere, and options existed. The fight was going over who controlled the application front end. If the application front end was platform independent, then people could run software on MS servers, but the desktop could be anything for the average worker drone.

This could not happen. So MS made IE into a application front end that would only run on windows. This meant that the servers and desktop had to run MS software. OEM could not develop intelligent terminals that would have saved huge amounts of administrative costs. OEM could not sell this intelligent terminal for the same price as a MS PC and pocket the profit.

In reality what happened, the lie that MS could make people believe, no matter who much they said it, is that there is a real benefit to having the server run the same software as the desktop. So people continued to use MS desktops, but many switched to linux servers. This meant the bombs that MS put in IE to connect it to MS Windows became a liability. They tried to stop *nix with ad campiagns, in the courts, but with IE 8, even if the propaganda continues, the effect is clear.

Which is also why there is so much activities over phones and tablets. The OEM is nevery going to make a fair profit with MS, neither are developers. That is why most of the cool stuff have been developed in places outside of the US. Google is sharing profits, and, no matter what any says, so is Apple. The App store has made it possible to make money. MS is now where Unix was in the 80's. An expensive albeit still relevant dinosaur. It is a matter of time until people look on our old desktop like we looked at IBM 360 of VAX. A little nostalgic, but happy we have something bette.

--
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black

Ka-wrong by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 08:40 · Score: 0

Microsoft doesn't want users to know they can upgrade their browser? Is that why I've been seeing TV ads for IE 8? I don't think I've *ever* seen an ad for a web browser on TV. Especially given that they are giving away IE 8 for free, making no money on these ads...

Ability to replace components by tepples · 2010-07-01 08:42 · Score: 1

Arguabilly, a perl distro is part of most Linux distros, since key parts of the distro are written in Perl.

But a machine's administrator can easily replace /usr/bin/perl with any binary that implements a compatible interface. Any /usr/bin/perl that parses and runs the same language will do, even if it has third-party defect fixes applied to it. Microsoft doesn't make that so easy with mshtml.dll: either you use Microsoft's mshtml.dll, or you don't use Windows.

and consoles suck.

True, HTPCs are better in theory, but in practice, consoles have far more local-multiplayer games.

Re:Ability to replace components by drsmithy · 2010-07-01 11:08 · Score: 1

But a machine's administrator can easily replace /usr/bin/perl with any binary that implements a compatible interface.
As you could with IE.
Any /usr/bin/perl that parses and runs the same language will do, even if it has third-party defect fixes applied to it.
Unless, of course, there are programs that depend on some buggy behaviour a third-party replacement doesn't have.
Microsoft doesn't make that so easy with mshtml.dll: either you use Microsoft's mshtml.dll, or you don't use Windows.
Whether they make it easy or not is irrelevant (thought I fail to see how they make it "hard"). The principle - and therefore the argument - is the same.
Re:Ability to replace components by shutdown+-p+now · 2010-07-01 13:26 · Score: 1

Any /usr/bin/perl that parses and runs the same language will do, even if it has third-party defect fixes applied to it. Microsoft doesn't make that so easy with mshtml.dll: either you use Microsoft's mshtml.dll, or you don't use Windows.
Actually, you can do that to mshtml.dll. So long as it provides the same API, which is documented, and can instantiate the same object (identified by GUID) via DllGetClassObject, it should work, though I'm not sure about any licensing issues (or applicability thereof in sane jurisdictions).
Furthermore, since IE rendering engine is actually a properly registered COM component, you could hijack that registration without even touching mshtml.dll - just patch the corresponding entries under HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT to point at your own DLL. Someone might still try to go to mshtml.dll directly, though, but this isn't common.
Of course, this all isn't officially supported in any way. But then, in the hypothetical case presented by GP, neither would be running the Linux distro with your own Perl replacement - if it doesn't work, you're on your own.
Re:Ability to replace components by tepples · 2010-07-01 14:33 · Score: 1

Of course, this all isn't officially supported in any way. But then, in the hypothetical case presented by GP, neither would be running the Linux distro with your own Perl replacement - if it doesn't work, you're on your own.
Another difference is that with Linux, someone can make, distribute, and support a distro that includes this hardened Perl by default.
Re:Ability to replace components by shutdown+-p+now · 2010-07-01 15:30 · Score: 1

Well, yes, but's that openness in a sense of "open source", which is an angle somewhat different from extensibility vs monolithic design.
I think, however, that if you go the CLSID hijacking route, you could still legally distribute an installer for your own DLL that'd rewrite the registry as needed.

Uhmm... by FireXtol · 2010-07-01 08:43 · Score: 0

I'm pretty sure IE is still integrated into Explorer.exe, which is the default shell of Windows.

--
Enlightenment is the elimination of that which is unnecessary.

Third-party MSHTML.dll by tepples · 2010-07-01 08:47 · Score: 1

Well, if you completely stripped IE from Windows, things that depend on an HTML renderer would break

They should depend on a browser but not necessarily IE, as I explained in another comment.

such as help (.chm)

These should be viewable with any web browser, provided that the operating system provides a URI scheme handler for files within a CHM archive.

HTML apps (.hta)

These depend on quirks of Internet Explorer; I'll grant that.

Re:Third-party MSHTML.dll by cdrguru · 2010-07-01 09:33 · Score: 1

It might have been nice, but that wasn't the decision that was made in 1995. Since then thousands or tens of thousands of applications have been built which use the MSHTML rendering engine with its unique (and either lightly documented or undocumented) COM interfaces with the OS to do its job.
Sure, it might have been nice to document how the MS rendering engine was interfaced with and provide for a smooth transition to replacing it by either later MS software or third party written renderers. That was not done and it has not been provided for in any respect since 1995.
So, no, today it is not possible to replace the MSHTML rendering engine with something else. And this decision dates from 1995 and I suspect we are pretty much stuck with it for a lot of compatability reasons.

Working offline in cloud computing by tepples · 2010-07-01 08:51 · Score: 1

"It's all cloud computing now"

Provided that you're willing to pay 60 USD a month for mobile broadband. A lot of us aren't, and we use numerous offline-mode workarounds such as IMAP sync, the Read It Later extension, and the like. Until IE supports HTML5 cache manifests and HTML5 web storage like Chrome and Firefox, IE won't be ready for the netbook.

So what about older PCs with little RAM? by BUL2294 · 2010-07-01 08:57 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm curious to know if anyone has tried IE7 or IE8 on an older computer running XP that has less than 256MB RAM? Such PCs (barely) meet the requirements for XP, and since IE is "inextricably part of the OS", Microsoft is IMHO on the hook to come up with a solution for such users...

For example, I have an old Toshiba Libretto 110CT. The specs: Pentium-MMX, 233MHz, 64MB RAM, 160GB PATA HD (I upgraded for the better access rate, since it only supports PIO mode), 802.11b WiFi... Going above 64MB RAM is not an option (excluding one hack that requires soldering and could bring it up to a massive 96MB). It's a neat little toy, especially for DOS games, and works reasonably well with XP Pro, Office XP, WordPerfect 11, etc.--especially after I disable 7 unnecessary services. Firefox 3.6 is painful on it, but it runs better than earlier versions of Firefox due to improvements in Javascript. IE6 runs reasonably well--better than Firefox. So, I'm curious--is IE7 or IE8 worth a try on this thing?

I know IE7 sucks with Javascript, so should I just go to IE8? Has anyone even tried IE7/8 on a very low end PC that barely meets XP & IE specs? Even IE8 says it needs only 64MB RAM. (I still need access to Windows Update and the occasional website...)

--
Windows 3.1x calc: 3.11 - 3.10 = 0.00

Re:So what about older PCs with little RAM? by RocketRabbit · 2010-07-01 11:48 · Score: 1

Well if it's slow and buggy and runs like ass then it is performing as expected for a Windows product.
I don't think it is realistic for you to expect to be able to run a Microsoft product with the minimum specs. This has been well known since the Windows 3.0 days.
Re:So what about older PCs with little RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 14:21 · Score: 0

Other than the "pain is fun" masochism factor, why would you try to run Windows on that hardware?
Use a lightweight Linux distro, like Puppy Linux or Xubuntu.
Re:So what about older PCs with little RAM? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 14:40 · Score: 0

Virtual Machines. I currently run an XP Home VM with only 192MB allocated to it because I want to let the host OS have more of it. As far as I can tell, MSIE 8 works fine in 192MB of RAM in VirtualBox. Of course, Windows has always performed better and needed less RAM in a VM than on real hardware so who knows.

Sure, there is some flexibility by cdrguru · 2010-07-01 09:20 · Score: 1

The problem is that everything to do with help and a bunch of the new Vista/7 displays are rendered using HTML. It is presumed that there will be something called MSHTML.DLL around which will do this rendering and have the COM/COM+ interfaces that are required.

Guess what? That pretty much limits it to the IE browser. Especially considering the level of documentation available about all the COM interfaces that are required for the HTML rendering object.

Take out that renderer and the OS is non-functional. Perhaps more so with Vista and Windows 7 than XP (and earlier), but substantial functionality of the operating system itself is indeed dependent on the exact implementation of the HTML renderer.

This doesn't preclude adding another browser which does not remove MSHTML.DLL, so naturally FireFox and Chrome will work just fine. It is just removing the HTML COM object that counts. And I would suspect that while there might be some flexibility with upgrading, it isn't going to be completely transparent. Having the HTML Help facility stop working or other displays that require HTML rendering would be a big problem.

Was introducing HTML Help the way they did it as a component of the OS a mistake? Maybe. But in 1995 it was a somewhat different decision and while Apple seems to have no trouble making their users re-buy software every few years the Microsoft users seem to really want to hang onto applications for a lot longer. One impediment to moving to 64-bit versions of the OS is the lack of support for 16-bit (Windows 3.1) applications, if you can believe it.

multiple versions doesn't mean the OS isn't linked by Michael+Kristopeit · 2010-07-01 09:25 · Score: 0

Customers can mix and match different versions of IE with different versions of Windows.....But Microsoft has done very little to get this message out there. I'd argue this is because it makes plain the absurdity of the company's claims that IE is part of Windows.

and i'd argue that you probably don't know much about configuration files. the OS could still be linked to an "IE Hub" that would then invoke whichever version of IE, for whichever user, using whichever preferences settings were requested.

Slashdot Mythology by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:39 · Score: 0

At a point during Microsoft's anti-trust trial Microsoft claimed that the OS/browser integration was not possible to untangle in the time frame demanded by the court.

This has been exaggerated by Slashsnot et al. to mean that Microsoft claimed it was incapable of ever separating the OS from the browser. The exaggeration is further compounded when it is said that Microsoft is holding to this mythological claim to this day.

Microsoft never argued it was impossible to separate the OS from the browser. Didn't happen. Also, Microsoft is not arguing such today. timothy, anonymous reader and the rest: please grow up and stop now.

Try using an OS Without a browser... by Kaenneth · 2010-07-01 09:53 · Score: 1, Insightful

The last time I installed Windows 95 (the first release, which did not yet have IE) I then tried to get a browser onto it.

Since I was tech-savvy enough to know about FTP, I tried FTP'ing to various browser-software sites, including Microsoft and (iirc)Netscape. I was not successful, and could not get directions from any web sites, since there was no browser to get to the web sites with. I eventually was able to telnet to a *nix shell account, and use a text-based browser (lynx, iirc) to get a windows-compatible browser file.

As a car analogy, a web browser is like tires. If you managed to get an [car]/[OS] without [tires]/[browser], good luck getting to the [tire store]/[browser installer].

Re:Try using an OS Without a browser... by richman555 · 2010-07-01 13:03 · Score: 1

Your browser (normally Netscape) was normally given to you from your ISP. You needed to sign up for internet access and then they would send it to you (on floppy I think) Once online, you could use this browser to upgrade if there was a newer one available.

Google chrome proves Microsoft right in a sense. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:58 · Score: 0

MS was in the middle of its overreaction to the fact that it had underestimated the potential of the web and was doing things like 'active desktop' and putting html content in folders for windows explorer to display. They really were on a path of integrating the browser and OS because they envisioned html evolving to a point that it would be the universal language of all UI elements. They were forced to keep them separated as a result of losing the case and that turned out to be a good decision. (It also seems to have made Gates pause long enough to reflect on his own life and focus on charity work.)

The whole premise of this really bad article is all wrong. I seriously doubt that there's a single person at MS concerned about the appearance of having had a faulty argument 10 years ago regarding Windows 98 - they lost the case!

Google grants most search based wishes. by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-01 09:58 · Score: 0

Man, I wish I'd recorded the patent application number when I put that in my quotes file.

Method and system for creating and searching directories on a server. ( #5794230 )

Who cares? by Device666 · 2010-07-01 10:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

Who cares if Microsoft lies, they don't know what they are doing, anyway. Their long term vision lacks anyway. Apple has a store MW wants a store. Apple has an App store, Microsoft wants an App store, Apple has Ipod, Microsoft wants an Ipod. Etc. They want to be the best, but each time they just give up. If Microsoft ever had the edge of vision, they have lost in anyways. They are already have become the boring IBM Gates never wanted to be. And Gates is gone. There is no leadership, there is no focus. They just want to do everything, and they do everything.... Poorly

MS was anti web browser by richman555 · 2010-07-01 12:54 · Score: 2, Insightful

Microsoft illegally leveraged their monopoly at the time. Including a competitive browser for "Free" with Windows was the downfall for Netscape. The browser did have a cost but it was blended in with the cost of Windows which almost everyone run. Netscape could no longer sell their browser and the rest is history. The browser was never a part of the operating system and really never needed to be. It just was Microsofts way of protecting its monopoly. I think what most people miss is that Microsoft never wanted web browser technology to exist! They only produced IE in order to kill off Netscape. They had that idea that only specific windows desktop applications would provide some access to the internet in a very controlled way, not like browsing or surfing the web for whatever content you would like. Development for IE almost came to complete halt if it wasnt for open source browsers coming of age.

Re:MS was anti web browser by Eskarel · 2010-07-01 13:18 · Score: 1

And if browsers still cost $60-100 there wouldn't be 90% of the web we have today.

Replacing != Removing by Eskarel · 2010-07-01 13:17 · Score: 1

Explorer and IE use the same underlying libraries, and the help system(among other things) uses the HTML engine provided by IE to function. IE is definitely integrated into the OS(which was what Microsoft always claimed). Whether it should be or not is another matter, but there is a certain amount of logic in having only one html engine, and the file/web browser combo isn't exactly unknown in the open source world either (Konqueror).

Just because Microsoft can replace an existing version of IE with another one doesn't mean that Windows would actually work if you completely removed it.

They sabotaged the removal tool by darkonc · 2010-07-01 14:28 · Score: 2, Interesting

Back when IE4 came out, MS claimed that it became irretrievably bound to Windows 95. .... To prove this, machines which installed IE4 and then tried to uninstall it became (more) unusable.

But my roommate, at the time, did Windows installations on grey boxes full-time. He discovered that if you used the IE3 uninstaller, IE4 would uninstall just fine, leaving a completely usable system (as far as Win95 was concerned). This means that Microsoft added something to the IE4 uninstaller to willfully break machines that uninstalled iE4.

The creation of an IE-free version for the European market also underlies their claims.

Nonetheless, it does remain a legally perilous path for Microsoft to expressly admit that IE really isn't tied to the operating system.

--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.

Re:They sabotaged the removal tool by SheeEttin · 2010-07-01 19:44 · Score: 1

This means that Microsoft added something to the IE4 uninstaller to willfully break machines that uninstalled iE4.

Malice, stupidity, etc. You know the quote. You really think Microsoft is that smart?

Microsoft Mythology by Anonymous Coward · 2010-07-02 00:05 · Score: 0

"I think we should have to do even more cloning .. of Netscape", Oct 1995

"PSD needs to get serious about cloning Netscape .. We will bind the shell to the Internet Explorer so that running any other browser is a jolting experience", Nov 1995

"I would NOT phrase the survey, or other things only in terms of "put the browser in the OS .. Instead you need to ask a more neutral question about how the internet technology needs to merge with local computing", Feb 1996

"INTERNET EXPLORER: Unless specifically requested to the contrary by the end user of the Customer System and provided proper translation is available, COMPANY will ship MS Internet Explorer 2.0, and the most current subsequent higher version Product Releases and Version Releases thereof, preinstalled on all new Customer Systems which are validated and released for shipment by COMPANY after April 1, May 1996"

define what "is" is. by Zarf · 2010-07-02 01:57 · Score: 1

'Microsoft has insisted that its browser is part of Windows'

Is "is" was or is "is" is? It is possible it was but is not. It is most likely "is" wasn't... but all us technical people knew that.

--
[signature]

Apple pushing proprietary things on the web? by Mr.+Punch · 2010-07-06 07:30 · Score: 1

Isn't Apple pushing standard HTML5? Not every browser has adopted the standard yet, but it isn't a bunch of closed extensions like Microsoft pushed for IE years ago.

Re:Apple pushing proprietary things on the web? by BZ · 2010-07-06 10:11 · Score: 1

> Isn't Apple pushing standard HTML5?
Apple is pushing a mix of three things, without differentiating between them very much:
1) Things that are part of the proposed HTML5, CSS3, etc standards and that other
implementors agree are a good idea.
2) Things that Apple has implemented and unilaterally proposed for standardization (which
just means they sort of wrote up how it works in their implementation, without going
too much into detail and threw the writeup over the wall at the W3C) but that other
vendors aren't convinced are a good idea
3) Things that Apple has implemented that they have no plans to propose for
standardization as far as anyone can tell.
A number of -webkit CSS properties fall into bucket 3.
> it isn't a bunch of closed extensions like Microsoft pushed for IE years ago
It actually is, _just_ like the MS and IE situation in the late 1990s. Completely and utterly like it.

Why should they care now? Yes! by hagiwhat · 2010-07-12 23:17 · Score: 1

Then there is also the fact that countless yes the information and thanks..

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Microsoft Busting Its Own Browser+OS Myth

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