Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments
typodupeerror delete not in
  • Preferences

Comments: 423 +-   Microsoft Drops Windows 7 E Editions on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:48PM

Posted by kdawson on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:48PM
from the gets-no-bread-with-one-meatball dept.
microsoft
government
msie
court
internet
news
A week after Microsoft agreed to include a browser ballot screen in Windows 7 systems sold in Europe, then announced that those systems would initially include no browser at all — specifically, no Internet Explorer — Microsoft has changed its mind again and dropped talk of a European Windows 7 E edition. Here is the official Microsoft blog announcement, which includes a screen shot of the proposed ballot screen. The browsers are listed left-to-right in order of market share, with IE therefore having pride of place. PC Pro notes that, since the ballot screen would not appear if IE were not pre-installed, Microsoft's proposal opens the door for Google to work with PC manufacturers to get Chrome on new machines. Note that the browser ballot screen has not yet been accepted by the EU, though the initial reaction to it was welcoming.
story

Related Stories

Submission: Microsoft drops Windows 7 E editions by Barence (1228440)
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

Microsoft Drops Windows 7 E Editions 50 Comments More /

 Full
 Abbreviated
 Hidden
More
Loading... please wait.

  • Wait, what? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by SilverHatHacker (1381259) on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:50PM (#28919253)

    The ballot screen would not appear if IE were not installed.

    Doesn't that kinda kill the point of the whole project?

    • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by sopssa (1498795) * on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:56PM (#28919311)

      It seems to me that this enables manufacturer to choose:

      1) Install "IE", which by default asks user which browser to install
      2) Install another browser by default
      3) Dont install any browser at all (the Windows 7 E route)

      What makes me wonder tho, is the IE removed after installing another browser?

      • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)

        by xlsior (524145) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:40PM (#28919645) Homepage
        What makes me wonder tho, is the IE removed after installing another browser?

        They've said (when announcing the 'E' versions) that it would not come with the browser front-end, but that the back-end rendering engine would still be there since so many other applications depend on it. So I guess it's more hidden than actually removed.

          • Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Informative)

            by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2009, @11:43PM (#28923029)

            In Vista/W7, typing a URL into Windows Explorer pops open your default browser.

      • Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Ilgaz (86384) on Sunday August 02 2009, @04:26PM (#28920071) Homepage

        Which heroic OEM will dare to exclude IE from their Windows? Don't state some unknown brands please. I speak about HP, Lenovo, Dell sized OEMs.

        There is no way an OEM will dare to exclude Microsoft's browser and drive them nuts.

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by cobrachaos (1610589)
        Actually IE has been flashed into a ROM embedded on all systems distributed with windows. Resistance is futile.

  • Better way to go (Score:5, Insightful)

    by sopssa (1498795) * on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:51PM (#28919263)

    This does look like a good way to go, and its good they also list the main features of every browser. This way more users also get to see how good Opera is too. However to make the list completely unbiased, they could randomize the order on every page load.

    Seeing it uses IE to download the browser you want, have they made it so that IE gets removed after that too?

    • I would want to choke someone if it was random (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Sycraft-fu (314770) on Sunday August 02 2009, @06:44PM (#28921001)

      Being a computer support professional, I do a LOT of Windows installs. One of the things that makes it quicker/easier is that you know what to expect where. So you can quickly click past setup screens. In the case of this screen, I want it in a set order. That way, I can quickly find the browser I want to set as default on that particular system. If it got randomized, it would slow things down and/or cause mistakes.

      The order doesn't really matter, so long as there is one. This is actually a fairly intelligent way of doing it: The larger the market share of a browser, the more probable it is that someone will want to use that browser as their default.

  • Isn't it time to drop the bill gates borg icon??!! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:52PM (#28919275)

    That joke has long past its expiration date; Bill Gates isn't at Microsoft anymore (on a regular basis), the Borg is from a tv show that ended over 15 years ago.

    It's like using the Edsel to represent Ford, its just old and stale. time for slashdot to get with the times.

  • What, no Lynx?!? (Score:4, Funny)

    by chrb (1083577) on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:54PM (#28919283)

    Or Konqueror?

    Bah.

  • Obsolete (Score:4, Interesting)

    by clang_jangle (975789) on Sunday August 02 2009, @02:56PM (#28919315)
    I'm no lover of MS, but this business of them being in trouble for bundling the browser made sense back when Netscape cost $50 and there were no real choices for the layman. Nowadays it's really a non-issue. After all, anyone who cares is free to download any number of free browsers. When "free as in beer" is the default price of a web browser, how is MS giving theirs away anti-competitive?

    • Re:Obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)

      by antifoidulus (807088) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:00PM (#28919341) Homepage Journal
      The most important thing is being able to remove the browser(and I mean really remove it) so it doesn't have it's hooks so deep in the OS that its impossible to get out. If they would just allow users to do that, then I think they should be able to ship whatever browser(s) they want with the system.

      • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dgatwood (11270)

        That's not really feasible for lots of reasons, starting with the fact that thousands of apps use the IE rendering engine for displaying help content and other web content. It isn't possible to remove the engine without breaking all of those apps, and it isn't feasible to expect other browsers to conform to a programming API sufficiently to make it feasible for multiple engines to be supported for those purposes. You can certainly make it possible to remove the browser, but that basically means removing a

        • Re:Obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)

          by RedK (112790) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:11PM (#28919417)
          It's far from pointless. People don't browse the web using a rendering engine, they use a browser. An HTML rendering engine is useless on its own. People need a way to tell the rendering engine what pages to load and render and a way to store caches, cookies, etc.. Leave the rendering engine on the system for help files, display in other apps, etc... that doesn't matter at all. As long as people are free to choose what they browse the web with, you remove Microsoft's dominance over web technologies and web evolution and that is the true goal.

        • Re:Obsolete (Score:4, Informative)

          by mR.bRiGhTsId3 (1196765) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:47PM (#28919717)
          MSHTML is a COM component. It is clearly non-trivial, but not impossible, for someone to wrapping another rendering engine with the same COM interface and substituting it in. I seem to remember there was an effort for gecko a while back for the windows platform, but either way, WINE uses gecko for apps that request access to MSHTML so it is clearly possible.

    • Re:Obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RedK (112790) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:06PM (#28919375)
      The cost of the browser is not the issue, the control over what technologies get used on the Web is. Microsoft have proven that they don't want to play fair, by ignoring standards for so long and promoting their proprietary stuff. If Microsoft were to have a really poor market share, they'd have to write all their stuff for the open web, respecting standards so that everything works for every user. If they have 90% of all users on their platform, they can make sure that the other 10% are stuck trying to be compatible. This is basically what IE6 was and what IE represents. Their browser might be free as in beer to the user, but the indirect costs are enormous.

        • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

          by RedK (112790)
          I've been on the Internet since about 1995. You rewriting history in order to make it seem Microsoft actually got where they are through merit is laughable at best.

            • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

              by RedK (112790)

              Same argument you made in a different article about IE. Funny how you always seem to reply to these with the same boiler plate responses. Microsoft's dominance over the Web came with Windows 98's bundling of Internet Explorer 4. The Netscape rewrite had nothing to do with it, and there were other rendering engines and browsers out at the time besides Internet Explorer and Netscape.

              Since you're just a paid Microsoft shill, this conversation is pretty much over. You'll always make false claims and bend th

                • Re:Obsolete (Score:4, Informative)

                  by RedK (112790) on Monday August 03 2009, @12:21AM (#28923249)
                  Rewriting history much ? In October 1998, Internet Explorer barely had 40% (source : http://www.cc.gatech.edu/gvu/user_surveys/survey-1998-10/graphs/technology/q41.htm [gatech.edu]). It plummets from there, and many sites report that by the beginning of 1999, IE had jumped to over 60%. Windows 98 bundling didn't help uh ? You guys ignoring history is very funny. It used to be Browsers could get bundling deals with ISP. Windows 98 pretty much ended the need for ISP "install disks" and pushed Internet Explorer unto the users. The DOJ agrees, trying to say it ain't so 10 years later doesn't change the facts.

    • Re:Obsolete (Score:5, Insightful)

      by sammyF70 (1154563) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:17PM (#28919477) Homepage Journal

      You assume most people actually KNOW there are free browsers (or even that they know what an "internet browser" is). That's sadly as far removed from reality as it can be.

      Most people don't even know what Internet Explorer *IS*, for them, the IE icon means that they load up the internet (no... they don't connect. why would they connect? it's in .. aeh .. the thing under the table ... the harddrive!). If you tell them "you should use chrome, it's faster" or "you should use Firefox, it can do more stuff" or even "you should use anything but IE, as IE is a PoS" they'll look at you with big glassy eye and answer "but .. but ... I need Ze Internet!".

      That's why having the ballot screen is a good thing : it tells the unknowing masses that there are alternatives. Now ... if we could have something similar for the bundled 30-days trials of MS Office and Norton ... (my wish would actually be that those wouldn't be bundled at all ... but that's probably completely unrealistic.)

          • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

            by Ilgaz (86384)

            I don't know about current situation but just months earlier, someone from IBM said they are still on IE 6 since the massive changes at the engine level needs massive changes. We speak about Big Blue with 450.000 workers here.

            So next time, careful when you call companies "backwards", they could be so huge so they can't deploy every new MS toy instantly when they feel like it. I am sure it is not just IBM, a lot of large companies have to do extensive testing, re-coding whenever a large update ships. MS coul

      • Re:Obsolete (Score:5, Informative)

        by unfasten (1335957) on Sunday August 02 2009, @05:51PM (#28920703)

        Not only that but they can make web tools Live/Bing/Hotmail work best with their browser - influencing users of those tools to almost be forced to to use IE.

        They've already been bitten by that one. They blocked all browsers except IE [news.com] from accessing MSN.com. After two days of people making noise about it they let everyone view MSN again.

        Did they learn? No. Less than two years later [cnet.com] they served a stylesheet to Opera (and only to Opera, other browsers received a working stylesheet and IE had its own) that deliberately broke the display of the page. They served Opera the IE stylesheet, which displayed fine, after some more complaints.

        Was that enough for them? No, they tried again with hotmail. They sent Opera an incomplete javascript file [opera.com] that was missing a required function to empty the junk e-mail. Other browsers were sent a different javascript file.

        I don't think they'd dare try again with how closely the EU is monitoring them now.

  • Less work for them... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PrimaryConsult (1546585) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:01PM (#28919347)
    The logistics of separating out the IE browser from the rest of the OS must have been more daunting than anticipated. I do wish the "ballot screen" idea would be used in places outside the EU, as well...

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by jpmorgan (517966)
      No, when they went to the EU and said 'we're going to ship a browser free version of Windows and let the OEMs install whatever they want' the EU said 'that's not good enough.' Because, see, if they did that the OEMs would just install IE and Firefox and be done with it. This isn't about getting Microsoft's claws off the browser business, it's about improving Opera's desktop market share, by hook or by crook.

  • What about... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by s0litaire (1205168) * on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:04PM (#28919363)
    ...All those that have pre-ordered Win7e or Win7n versions?

    Are those orders canceled since the product no longer exists, or will they get the Full (non-upgrade) Win7 version instead?

  • What is safari doing there? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Brian Gordon (987471) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:34PM (#28919597)
    Well Apple's little update-jacking fiasco seems to have paid off. The screenshot [microsoftontheissues.com] shows that Safari is the third most popular Windows browser, in front of Chrome and Opera. I don't have any problem with Safari (fast, small, standards compliant) but I wonder if this is all an Apple plan... and they seriously need to just use Windows widgets and styles instead of imposing their Cocoa look on the windows environment..

      • Re:What is safari doing there? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by Rockoon (1252108) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:51PM (#28919767)
        I would, but every time I run it and select to update my copy, it wants to download Bonjour, iTunes, and QuickTime for me. Since I don't want that shit on my system, I forcefully close the process from task manager.

  • Hrm... (Score:3)

    by yoshi_mon (172895) on Sunday August 02 2009, @03:36PM (#28919613)

    I can't see the MS blog page, it's /.ed, but from the summary I felt that this solution seems to imply that browsers are mutually exclusive?

    I'd hope that MS would not even go that far but you can never rule anything out with them.

  • PC Makers can already install Chrome (Score:3, Informative)

    by MarkLR (236125) on Sunday August 02 2009, @07:57PM (#28921421)

    >Microsoft's proposal opens the door for Google to work with PC manufacturers to get Chrome on new machines.

    This has always been an option. If Google wants to pay PC manufacturers to install Chrome as a default they can do so both in the US and the EU. It's one of the results of the anti-trust cases of the 90s.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by JohnBailey (1092697)

      Microsoft had announced that they had an RTM version, and now they make such a profound change. This is really odd. Is there any good explanation? Have they a separate, decoupled RTM process for the European versions? Has there never been a "Windows 7 E"? And how much would it cost to get something adware-infested into the browser selection screen?

      What profound change? A single change to the set of pre installed apps that the installer checks, a simple chooser screen set to autorun and that is it. It's about as profound as changing the default wallpaper.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by petermgreen (876956)

          Then I bet they would be in a very similar position to where MS is now with antitrust suits aimed at them.

          But they aren't and they probablly won't be in the forseeable future. They seem content to stay in the luxury market.

      • Re:Wait (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Kalriath (849904) * on Sunday August 02 2009, @06:41PM (#28920987)

        People need to stop modding this shit as insightful. Explorer isn't based on Internet Explorer either.

        What you perceive as Safari is two components: Safari, and WebKit. WebKit is something you can't remove from Mac OS, as the shell would die horribly without it. You can happily drag Safari to the trash.

        What you perceive as Internet Explorer is two components: Internet Explorer, and Trident. Trident is something you can't remove from Windows, as the shell would die horribly without it. You can happily drag Internet Explorer to the recycle bin (with one caveat: Windows will try replace it without some coaxing).

        As you can see, the Safari and Internet Explorer arguments are one and the same, and people need to stop pretending that the Mac OS setup is somehow different.

    • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

      by shutdown -p now (807394)

      Upon the release of Win7 in the EU, MS will be inundated by support calls with "Why is the Internet broken!" or "How do I get on the Internet!". Guess what browser they are going to tell them to install?

      Did you RTFA? It doesn't work the way most people expected the whole thing to work (some sort of selection screen at install time).

      In this case, the OS is still shipped with a browser - OEM decides which once (I assume IE is still there by default in a clean system, but it is uninstallable). When user starts up his system for the first time after installation, and only if he has IE installed and configured as the default browser by that point, he'll see the "browser ballot screen" (which is really just a we

Search
No man in the world has more courage than the man who can stop after eating one peanut. -- Channing Pollock

All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2010 Geeknet, Inc.