SillyDog701

[Antony]

Microsoft said Monday that it is prepared to "put a stripped-down version of Windows on the market if its appeal to suspend a March antitrust ruling that found in favor of the European Union," according to the Associated Press. The original landmark decision included a "record €497 million (US$600 million) fine as well as orders to hand over software code to rivals in the server market, and to change the way it packages its own Media Player software into Windows."

"We'll certainly be ready to comply," Microsoft's chief lawyer, Brad Smith, said at a news conference. He said the U.S. software giant had "spent millions of dollars over the past few months" to prepare a version of its ubiquitous operating system that would satisfy EU regulators.

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[Don_HH2K]

I remember reading about this on CNN awhile ago. The interesting thing (to me) is that it was put out to appeal to Linux users. Well, not only is Linux free, but it also supports complete multitasking, while XP Lite only works with three applications at one time. I seriously doubt that this will help MS in any way. Plus, since it only has plans to be introduced in Asia, they're losing out on it in other places that might be able to use it.

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[Mandrake]

This isn't the 'Windows XP Starter Edition' you are thinking about, this is something totally different.

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[Don_HH2K]

This isn't the 'Windows XP Starter Edition' you are thinking about, this is something totally different.

I guess this is what I was thinking of, because they call it XP Lite in the title but XP Starter Edition in the body.

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[Antony]

That Asian edition (in Thailand I guess) thing (Windows and Office) only available selected countries where their governments are considering moving to open-source, and the average income of those countries are considered to be low. Microsoft won't give out cheap price for no reason.

Another evidence, [sdt=4602]the Welsh localisation of Microsoft products[/sdt] as reported earlier. It was simply the open-source community (Linux) had better Welsh localisation.

A company like Microsoft won't waste resource to help community for nothing.

Microsoft is not your friend.

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[xtremeleafan]

Perhaps this is a bit off topic but does anyone know where to get the Wallpapers shown in XP light ?

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[Antony]

Wait until XP Lite releases?

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[DJGM]

Microsoft has lost it's appeal against the EU ruling against the company earlier this year . . .

MS loses Europe appeal, will ship WMP-free Windows version

By John Lettice
Published Wednesday 22nd December 2004 12:40 GMT

Microsoft is to start shipping a cut-down version of Windows in Europe from January, following the failure
of its appeal to the European Court of First Instance over penalties imposed by the Commission earlier
this year. Microsoft hasn't run out of appeal routes, but the Court ordered the company to begin
carrying out the Commission's decision immediately.

This, according to Microsoft general counsel Brad Smith, means OEMs will get the version of Windows
without Media Player next month, with it being available to other customers from February.

Judge to rule against Microsoft in European case

Microsoft unlikely to be appealing

By INQUIRER staff: Wednesday 22 December 2004, 10:05

THE COURT of First Instance will rule that Microsoft will have to immediately comply with
a verdict passed earlier by the European Union, the Wall St Journal is reporting.

That means that Microsoft will not only have to produce code for its competitors, but
also to make a version of Windows without the Media Player it bundles with the OS.

The EU also fined the Vole €497 million when it released its verdict in March this year.

More at TheRegister.co.uk, TheInquirer.net, and at BBC News Online . . .

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[Andrew T.]

This is great news to hear, and will hopefully lead to European consumers having the option of not having the latest version of Windows Media Player preinstalled and "integrated" on new Windows systems in the near future.

It pays to wait and see what actually happens, however.

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[Al]

And hopefully EU will not allow IE onto Windows lite

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[DJGM]

If only the other high profile anti-trust case against Microsoft (vs the US DoJ) had ended up going this way.

If only the EU ruling had included the disintegration of MSIE from Windows, as well as the Media Player.

If only the EU could force MS to bundle iTunes and Firefox with Windows, instead of WMP and MSIE.

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[Don_HH2K]

Good luck with that hope.. They'll give you Windows 95 or NT4 with Firefox or iTunes instead, and claim that "Windows 98 and higher support Internet Explorer as an integral part of the operating system" and that "removing it would impact the overall user experience".

It would make me wonder, though, how Windows XP would function without Internet Explorer. For all we know, by now Internet Explorer has become the operating system itself.

And about WMP in Windows. Windows works completely fine with all its IE integration and all without Windows Media Player. A great example of this is Windows 98 First Edition, which shipped without WMP (yes, it had the ActiveMovie AX control, but that can just be deleted by removing actmovie.ocx). Unless Microsoft has decided to have all their UI animations/visual effects based on Windows Media, I can't see any real problem with removing WMP from Windows.

Either way, I'd love to see the heads roll when this thing releases.

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[Al]

XP/2000 Lite XP/2000 without IE5/IE6, how is that intergarted?

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[Don_HH2K]

2000 would work fine. Most of XP's wizards, though, would need IE to function, since most of them are ActiveX controls. To take out IE from XP would give you 2000 Pro with a bit more eye candy.

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[Al]

2000 would work fine. Most of XP's wizards, though, would need IE to function, since most of them are ActiveX controls. To take out IE from XP would give you 2000 Pro with a bit more eye candy.

I think Xp' eyecandy is useless

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