[General] Windows 7 Will Ship Sans Internet Explorer in Europe

[Burhan Khalid]

The entire issue was that Internet Explorer was so deeply integrated
into Windows that it was impossible for people to remove it, which was
the entire reason for the lawsuit -- browser developers said that
there is no way to completely remove IE and its unfair for Microsoft
to not provide that option and that by doing that (completely
integrating it), it was creating a monopoly for IE and causing unfair
competition by essentially "forcing" people to use IE because of its
deep integration with the OS.

To be clear, there are two different kinds of 'explorers' in Windows.
There is 'Internet Explorer' which is the 'iexplorer.exe' file. This
is the primary Internet browser that ships with windows. The Windows
Explorer is the file manager "explorer.exe" that ships with Windows,
and it also can be used to browse the web. This is what runs the main
"shell" of Windows. The case was about the 'Internet' explorer.

In the US, Microsoft complied with this (partly) by providing an
option in the Windows XP service pack where you could set defaults for
programs; so you could set the default browser to Firefox, default
messenger to Google Talk, etc. This makes all default applications
will fire the default system browser. This was not enough for European
courts because in reality the Internet Browser was not un-installable
and completely removable.

That's why Windows 7 ships with no-IE option in Europe.

Hope that helps,
--
Burhan Khalid

On Wed, Jun 17, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Bashar
Al-Abdulhadi<bashar at kuwaitnet.net> wrote:
> couldn't agree more yal seme
>
> but i believe they did not mean not include a browser at all, could bundle
> IE6 or IE7 or what?
>
> any microsoft geeks around can advise us what do they mean?
>
>
> bashar abdullah wrote, On 06/17/2009 10:38 AM:
>
> Yes, I heard the news on their podcast. Funny how people kept complaining
> and when Microsoft obeyed we became "Hey, wait a minute. How will I get my
> first browser then?" I think it's at these days normal to expect a browser
> in every system by default. Wonder why there isn't such a complain on Safari
> on Mac!
>
> What was really lame however is Opera complaining that this is still not
> good, wanting Microsoft to include browser selection option in the
> installation. Well in that case, how many browsers should they include?
> Someone will be left out and complain. Even the ones included will complain,
> why am I not the first in the list? Even then, Opera won't have a good
> chance of winning people back I guess.
>
>
> On Sun, Jun 14, 2009 at 5:19 PM, Bashar Al-Abdulhadi <bashar at kuwaitnet.net>
> wrote:
>>
>>
>> http://www.osnews.com/story/21657/Windows_7_Will_Ship_Sans_Internet_Explorer_in_Europe
>>
>> In a move to basically outflank the EU antitrust investigation, Microsoft
>> has announced that all version of Windows 7 shipped in Europe will not
>> include Internet Explorer 8 by default. This is reminiscent of the Windows
>> XP N editions, which did not include Windows Media Player, but the
>> difference here is that Microsoft will not ship versions of Windows 7 with
>> Internet Explorer 8 in Europe.
>>
>> This really is a surprise move, first revealed by CNet, and later on
>> confirmed by Microsoft itself. The company will ship the same versions of
>> Windows 7 in Europe as it does in the rest of the world, with the difference
>> being that none of them include Internet Explorer.
>>
>> This is obviously a response to the EU antitrust investigation currently
>> under way against Microsoft. The EU was investigating whether or not
>> Microsoft had abused its monopoly position in the operating system market to
>> crush the competition in the browser market. With today's announcement,
>> Microsoft makes sure there will be no future clashes with the EU.
>>
>> The company emphasizes that the removal of Internet Explorer 8 from
>> Windows 7 will not negatively effect the rest of the operating system in any
>> way: all applications will still work. This solution wasn't Microsoft's
>> first choice, but for now, it's the best thing they could do to avoid any
>> fines, the company claims. Of course, OEMs will be able to add whatever
>> browser they please to their installation images, which means that computers
>> in shops might still ship with Internet Explorer by default.
>>
>> It does raise a serious issue: browser makers will have to find other ways
>> to get their browsers on users' machines. Microsoft will make a free IE8
>> Pack available to OEMs, and will offer IE8 through CD, FTP, and retail
>> channels as well. Competing browsers will have to do the same.
>>
>> I'm personally not particularly happy with this decision, as it will make
>> the computing experience less ideal. I hate Internet Explorer, but I'd much
>> rather have it available so I can quickly download a decent browser that I
>> do like. I would have preferred it if IE8 had simply been user-removable -
>> as in, totally removable.
>>
>>
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