Windows 7 to be shipped in Europe sans IE

[Night Hawk]

While the typical user won't want to be stuck you will have to thank the EU for that one! Despite the popularity of other browsers the average novice user will take one look and gasp right away upon seeing no expected IE in a brand new version of Windows! :shock: "wa daa Foobar is this ...?"

Meanwhile the EU will be all smiles ranting on "we won! we won! " right!

 

[G2gCya]

why cant eu has ie integrated? sorry i really don't know...

 

[petrossa]

People, people people. It's so very simple:

EU is MS's biggest (paying) customer.
EU makes the law.
MS tries to play the same game as in the USA, but unfortunately there's way to many senators to be bought, so that game is just stalling the inevitable.

End result: No matter if it's bad or good for MS or the enduser, the decision made by the EU will be final and binding and MS has to adapt.

Myself, i don't care. Never have used IE seriously, never will.

 

[Barman58]

It would be interesting to see what Browser the EU IT Dept actually provide on all the PCs and Laptops that the good taxpayers of the member nations pay for.

 

[Night Hawk]

It most likely won't be Chrome, Opera, and certainly not the one from the orchard variety!

 

[petrossa]

Well, amazingly i must admit, the EU is reasonably knowledgeable in the ICT department. Sofar they made some quite wise decisions ( internet freedom for example, anti-piracy laws), so who knows what they may come up with. It may actually work. Or not.

What i do understand is, that the committee which regulates these affairs is very irritated by MS's powerplays and are determined to make them toe the line at any cost.
This is more about who's the boss, and the browser issue is a handy instrument.

And anyone who has ever tried to talk his way out of a parkingticket should know that fighting against a collossus is just going to get you flattend.

And as rich as MS may be, as many lawyers they may have, the EU still outguns MS without even spending pocketchange.

 

[jfar]

It would be interesting to see what Browser the EU IT Dept actually provide on all the PCs and Laptops that the good taxpayers of the member nations pay for.

They might use the old reliable, and the new, EU BROWSER, SNAIL MAIL.

 

[Barman58]

Or, judging from their IT decisions, something running on Win 98 in a DOS box

 

[petrossa]

Or, judging from their IT decisions, something running on Win 98 in a DOS box

Which IT decisions do you find to be so bad? They're actively pushing open source, they sank Sarkozy's ridiculous anti-piracy law, they made internet a basic neccesity, unregulated for the most part.

 

[Night Hawk]

All I know is if MS or anyone else tries to slip something past the EU nose they'll end up facing some character like this... :shock::shock::shock: :roflmao:

 

[Exesperated]

lmfao, yeah! how we suppose to download other browsers when we dont have any? telnet? CMD? LOL *yea get installer from your other pc, but wthe?"

Eh, e.g. like this, or thousands of other ways?

@ECHO OFF
ECHO This will download and install Mozilla Firefox.
CD "%TEMP%"
ECHO USER anonymous > "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO [email protected] >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO cd pub >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO cd mozilla.org >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO cd firefox >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO cd releases >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO cd 3.0.11 >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO cd win32 >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO cd en-US >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO get "Firefox Setup 3.0.11.exe" >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO bye >> "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO Downloading, please wait...
ftp -n -v -s:"%TEMP%\ffinst.txt" releases.mozilla.org > NUL
ECHO Done! We will install now! Please wait...
"Firefox Setup 3.0.11.exe" /S
ECHO Mozilla Firefox has been installed on your computer.
ECHO Cleaning up...
DEL "%TEMP%\Firefox Setup 3.0.11.exe"
DEL "%TEMP%\ffinst.txt"
ECHO Now we will run Firefox for the first time.
"%PROGRAMFILES%\Mozilla Firefox\firefox.exe" "www.microsoft.com"
ECHO Done, bye!

Save the above as FF.BAT and double click...

 

[DrWho]

Well, if you copy that batchfile text to your computer, DON'T use WordPad.
It will make a mess of the file, putting "par" at the end of every line.
Use only Notepad and it should be OK.

Once again, I've opened an oyster and found a pearl.

For us who know our way around a PC, we should already have FF (latest version) on a CD or flash drive, so we can quickly install it to any PC we like.
Hopefully anyone who calls himself or herself a Computer Tech will already have FF and the necessary Add-Ons on their Utilities CD.

My only big concern about an OS without I.E. is all those sites that are written to require I.E. and its ActiveX.
I solved that here by just installing the I.E. Tab add-on to FF.
I hope that will still work when there is NO I.E. anything in the OS.

In any case, I'm hanging on to that Batch File.

Thanks again!
The Doctor

 

[petrossa]

My only big concern about an OS without I.E. is all those sites that are written to require I.E. and its ActiveX.
I solved that here by just installing the I.E. Tab add-on to FF.
I hope that will still work when there is NO I.E. anything in the OS.

well, that's what you get for letting a monopolist set the standards. Sites only accessible with their product.

That's what the EU overlooks, MS's ActiveX malware has already taken over a big chunk of the internet.

People who are not computer savvy but install something other then IE will find themselves confronted with ActiveX infected sites working badly or not at all. They'll blame the browser and switch to IE.

 

[Boris]

well, that's what you get for letting a monopolist set the standards. Sites only accessible with their product.

Bingo, i agree 100%

 

[PhreePhly]

well, that's what you get for letting a monopolist set the standards. Sites only accessible with their product.

That's what the EU overlooks, MS's ActiveX malware has already taken over a big chunk of the internet.

People who are not computer savvy but install something other then IE will find themselves confronted with ActiveX infected sites working badly or not at all. They'll blame the browser and switch to IE.

Well, go back and check your history. No one was creating standards and no one had a browser worth crap. MS saw IE as a great vehicle for the newly emerging web interactions. ActiveX is nothing more han a plugin, not unlike NSAPI plugins from the Netscape days.

Nothing is stopping those sites from implementing newer and probably better mechanisms but themselves. And to be fair, their aren't that many of those sites around anymore. Most of those sites are internal sites for businesses.

It would be different if MS had pushed another standard out and replaced it with their own, but that's not what happened. Nobody had a worthy plugin system capable of doing what ActiveX does. What's MS supposed to do?

Also, remember that the EU is punishing MS for things that happened almost 10 years ago. All of these additional punishments stem from the EU's perceived notion that MS is still abusing it's position, which is crap. Look at the last couple of issues. The last major slap on MS was that they overcharged for licensing their technology (which is crap, they were in line with what everyone else charges). When MS agreed to lower the price, the EU commission then hit them for releasing the standards too slowly. WTF??

PhreePhly

 

[petrossa]

Mm, i don't when you were born, but ActiveX was developed by MS to kill Java. Which they luckily didn't succeed but got us this crappy mess all the same in trying.

And the question is not if it's fair or unfair. It isn't about being fair, it's who makes the rules. And in MS's case it's the EU and the EU doesn't like their businessmodel that much.

So don't go crying if a bigger bully then you takes your lunchmoney. (or all the lunchmoney you extorted from the other kids) That's life

 

[PhreePhly]

Mm, i don't when you were born, but ActiveX was developed by MS to kill Java. Which they luckily didn't succeed but got us this crappy mess all the same in trying.

And the question is not if it's fair or unfair. It isn't about being fair, it's who makes the rules. And in MS's case it's the EU and the EU doesn't like their businessmodel that much.

So don't go crying if a bigger bully then you takes your lunchmoney. (or all the lunchmoney you extorted from the other kids) That's life

First of all, ActiveX was not developed to kill Java, it was developed to provide a better framework for OLE/COM. It was meant to interact with not just IE but Office apps, Media Player, Visual Studio, etc.

It could be written in many different languages, C++, Visual Basic, Borland Delphi, etc. I was probably born well before you, and played with these technologies when they were emerging.

I absolutely agree that the EU will do what it wants, but I can still call out what is fair and unfair. Oh, and MS is still crying all the way to the bank. They are enjoying their lunch money quite well. The EU is looking more and more petty, and if that continues, they will lose their significance.

PhreePhly

 

[Boris]

The EU is looking more and more petty, and if that continues, they will lose their significance.

PhreePhly

@PhreePhly

MS is a monopolist. The EU foremost represents the EU customers, not so much other companies in this case. Maybe you should take a look in your own backyard and see what happens when there is no regulation. I give you a clue: "sub loans". Thank you very much

 

[SGT Oddball]

The EU foremost represents the EU customers

Rubbish, the only thing the EU represents is the loony unelected bureaucrats that run it.

 

[z3r010]

Rubbish, the only thing the EU represents is the loony unelected bureaucrats that run it.

+1.