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But the commission, in a statement, dismissed the offer, saying the move would not further its goal of promoting browsers that compete with Internet Explorer.
Instead, Microsoft and European authorities appear on course for another legal collision over the software maker’s bundling of major applications into Windows, which, according to the research firm Gartner, runs more than 95 percent of computers in the world.
One reason for the quick rejection, according to competition lawyers in Brussels and a commission spokesman, is that the European Commission did not want to repeat a mistake of the first Microsoft case, when it ordered the software maker in 2004 to sell a version of Windows in Europe without its media player.
Microsoft responded by selling its so-called N version of Windows for the same price as its full version, and consumers rejected the stripped-down system. The remedy also did not significantly improve the lot of competing media players. Microsoft said it sold only a few thousand copies of the N version.
This time, the commission has indicated it may want Microsoft to distribute Windows with competing Web browsers preinstalled and then allow retailers and computer makers to decide from a “ballot screen” menu which browsers to install. About 95 percent of computer operating systems are sold preinstalled on new computers.