Microsoft Under Fire for more Anti-Trust issues... Again!

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Denaes

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http://zdnet.com.com/2100-1104_2-5176508.html

I'm starting to wonder if Microsoft thinks people are stupid.

Now the EU (European Union) is telling them to take out media player and make it a download (or I guess an installation option).

Microsft says that this too is not possible. They hardcoded part of it into the system.

Microsoft claims that if they took Media Player out, that windows is fully incapable of playing songs and movies, even with other software like RealPlayer.

You'd think after the whole internet explorer crud, MS would make moves to program their components componently and not hard code them into the system.

Personally I don't care if Windows Media Player is there, or if Internet Explorer is there on the machine. Hard drive space isn't that much of an issue.

What I do mind is how Media Player is an awful, one of the worst, media players and and it has a habit of just grabbing the reins and reassociating with all the files. One version I had, you couldn't get the files to associate with anything else.
 
They'll probably continue to do that ! If they can obligate governement to stop pursuit because they can't separate they soft from the core...

But one day I hope that someone will claim that the Windows Core is monopolistic so it'll be sanctionned (or at best free source ?)

A dream !? maybe... we'll see...
 
I think mostly MS is playing on the part that it's their buisiness and others don't understand it.

I understand they may have designed it in such a way that these elements could not be taken out. I also understand that it can also be designed in such a way that they can be taken out.

Mostly they rig up their own dependencies. They have 30 programs running off the DLLs supplied with IE. If IE isn't there, those programs don't run. Of course if the DLL's are there and IE isn't, they'll still run.

I had this issue with windows 98. I took internet explorer off and a LOT of programs stopped working. I reinstalled it (as non integrated) and they all worked fine, and I could use Netscape (which was still viable at the time).
 
And at the end you'll have to live with Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, etc, if you don't like this, stop using Windows
 
iebidan said:
And at the end you'll have to live with Windows Media Player, Internet Explorer, etc, if you don't like this, stop using Windows
Click to expand...

I don't live with WMP, it's one of the worst out there. I use another.

I don't live with Internet Explorer, I use Firefox.

I can deal with WMP being there, its not a huge deal.

IE is more of a deal as its there sucking up resources whenever you open up a window to view files.

I think I'm more of a fan of "who cares whats on the hard drive, but let the user choose what runs"

As of now, I havn't "tuned" my computer since the last install. Its running so much background crap that I'm afraid to look. It gets pretty bad when you need to have a 10 page crib sheet on which file does what so you can choose what you want running.
 
I challenge any of you to create a seamless and smooth user experience without relying on shared components. It's one thing to be righteous and state these dependencies are monopolistic, but another to come up with a decent solution. Until someone does, criticizing Microsoft for this practice is at best shortsighted.
 
I find it hard to believe that MS can't remove components such as the media player. Or at least the UI exe.

But I'm starting to think more and more that MS needs to break into 3 or more companies (OS & servers, Development and Office & tools), to stop the lawsuits, and to prevent it from relying too much on itself.
 
I find it hard to believe that MS can't remove components such as the media player.
Click to expand...
How then would developers embed movies into their applications? How would developers embed Web pages that embed media? I think this is where people miss the point. Microsoft can remove everything down to kernel32.dll and explorer.exe, and in the process generate one of the worst user experiences since DOS.
 
I must agree with Derek, OS's need too many things to work, I want to see developers creating every single component, class they need for their app.
 
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