Was the "Set Program Defaults" ability in SP1 (WinXP) not enough for you? Seriously, Windows without the media player...reduced media. What do you want them to call it? Maybe they could release all kinds of diffrent versions of Windows and confuse the hell out of everyone. One version won't have media player, the other without Internet Explorer, another with a blank CD and a Win98SE boot floppy in the box. W00T! W00t!

This anti-monopoly and anti-competitive BS is starting to be as moronic as where political correctness has ended up.

First it was the browser.. now it's the media player... So, when will they decide that including a calculator or notepad is anti-competitive?? Can I send the EU an invoice for the cost of downloading the WMP from MS that everyone else in the world gets included? gee... thanks EU SOOOOOO much for protecting the innocent and upholding the values of the greater good..

What next? Maybe China (or any communist country) should demand a plain red desktop background as default as the blue/green default is too "free thinking"?

The EU should be ashamed and spend there time and effort doing more worthwhile things.

leave the name as windows xp and put a download link right on the desktop that would still comply with the EUs ruling.lol

EU has now annouced it will open it's own O/S design an marketing division. It will use Microsoft's source code and market the new O/S under the name Microsoft Windows: The EU court system version.

Laywers and Judges are now deciding what user interface you should see on your operating system, what software you will be able to use with your operating system.

This is the only way competition can be fair, if the government owns and runs it.

I for one welcome this change as Microsoft has really been screwing up by including viewing software with the O/S. By default the O/S should not be able to view any sort of information, including your file system. This dates back to the dir command in DOS which I find offensive and anti-competitive.

The only thing the O/S should be allowed to do is boot your computer into blank screen which does nothing until you install 3rd party software. This makes it real user friendly for people, since out of the box the computer will not do anything wrong since there will be just a blank screen.

Thank you.

Wow schools in the USA still not teaching bout what is going on outside the country? Yes right EU is a country and the USA is a province uh? Right... Australia is just a little Island and Cuba is made out of Cigars. Disney was the founder of the USA and Universal made it all real for the Amercians. And there is Gates who invented M(SOS) who was kicked in his a** in the first place by his own people telling to have a monopoly... So a fax went down to EU telling them to do the same, to fine MS and to send some percent of the fine back to good 'old' USA. Guys guys before you start to scream take your lesson first and go through history to see where it all started... It was your own country who started to blame Bill Gates and trying to get some billions out of him... To bad it didn't work that way so why not using the EU where laws really protect, and indeed it worked MS has to remove their media player... Silly move yes, as what is the difference if I get lots of other apps free with MS so they want to remove all those apps and forcing people to buy from others? What is the difference if I still can download all MS apps anyway for free. With a fast Internet connection just a matter of seconds. And the Disney story goes on... Cheers...

Too bad I am from Canada...

I don't care about the EU, the US economy, US patriotism or whatever you were ranking about.

I just think it is stupid any legal system being involved in O/S design and marketing.

Does your mommy still breast feed you?

497 million euro fine for a free media player?
If I was microsoft I would pull out of their market along with all other US O/S and let them make thier own from scratch. I love everything about windows and what it comes with. I dont want the, why cant we be rich, wannabies of the world stripping my free programs.

the only problem is that the "EU" is not only one country ... it's a TON of countries banded together. You'd be alienating a HUGE portion of the market to no decision other than Mac etc.

good 1

will the eu be regulating the naming of all products sold in europe now? that just might be more productive than stripping media players out of OSs.

That's all this really is. It's EU saying to the press that they can't be pushed around by big American companies. They know they can push MS around a bit because they're not as dependant upon their products and services as they are with some other (unnamed) American companies. Of course, the whole Linux cheering crowd doesn't hurt either. They (EU) also don't want to appear to Al Queda like they're American puppets, so they can feel like Al Queda approves of their resistance to American ideals.

That's just rediculous.

I think MS should buy the EU and then kick all those clowns out.

Well, that's what I would do.

I'd love to see MS buy EU and rename them.

"I think MS should buy the EU and then kick all those clowns out."

So let me get this straight, you think that Microsoft should buy Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, The Netherlands and the United Kingdom and kick us all out?

If that was a joke, then it ain't funny so shut up.

Fadeblack (who said: "If I was microsoft I would pull out of the country"), the EU is not a country. dumba**.

Some of you, including other discussions, are saying the EU is bad, the EU is robbing an American company and what not. Well actually it's one of the five EU institutions that has made the decision, the EU Commission, not the entire EU, which consists of 25 countries (excluding applicants). So please don't go slagging of the EU or Europe (that contains countries that aren't in the EU).

Thank you.

However, having said all that I myself think the decision by the EU Commission is one of the dumbest decisions yet and their complaint about Microsoft's naming is just a farce. Microsoft should do whatever it wants with it's products. Simple as that.

"If that was a joke, then it ain't funny so shut up."

Ain't ain't a word.... to coin a phrase.

Stop bas****ising the english language.

'Reduced Media Edition' was an underhanded slap at the ruling, and we all know that. Essentially what Microsoft tried to do was circumvent the ruling by using a name that at its surface sounds quite unappealing.

There is nothing underhaded about the name at all. The title truthfully represents what the release is. The only underhanded thing taking place, is the fact that the EU is even requiring MS to do this in the first place.

Come on, it is a "Reduced Media Edition"! They forced them to take out the (now get this) "Media Player". Ergo reducing the media playing portion of the OS. What is it with people not understanding this? Do we need to mail EU dictionaries?

Just an observation, but I find it interesting how a lot of users here have criticized MS in the past, yet are defending it to the death here. Kind of hypocritical if you ask me?

Your point? Seeing how there are things that people will stand up for no matter how they feel about the whole.

Repeat post. Sorry.

I have been a long-time supporter of MS. Though you did say "a lot" and not everyone, I did feel inclined to respond.

If they're not allowed to sell the OS without the Media Player, I'd just name it the same thing and sell it that way and not give the consumers the choice of having WMP or not.

Punish the EU for their legal bitc*ing. Have one of those opening velcro flaps or something similar that says, "PLEASE NOTE THAT DUE TO THE TERRIBLE LEGAL SYSTEM YOUR GOVERNMENT EMPLOYS, THIS PRODUCT DOES NOT INCLUDE WINDOWS MEDIA PLAYER 10.0. IF YOU WISH TO DOWNLOAD THIS AS AN ADDITION TO YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM PLEASE VISIT (INSERT WEB PAGE). WE ARE SORRY FOR THIS INCONVENIENCE, BUT YOUR GOVERNMENT WISHES FOR YOU TO HAVE A CHOICE IN YOUR MEDIA PLAYER. THIS OPERATING SYSTEM ALLOWS YOU TO CHOOSE WHICH MEDIA PLAYER YOU INSTALL."

I wonder what they'd do with the installation screen. In a few places it says something about the WMP10.0 being better than anything before in the Windows OS's... It'd be kinda funny if they made it go, "Thank you for installing Windows XP. This tutorial will install your operating system and also tell you some new features that this operating system has in store for you!"

"Windows Media Player 10.0. The most comprehensive and one of the best players on the market that comes absolutely free with the operating system. Oh. Wait. Your government MADE US TAKE THAT OUT. Nevermind! <:-D"

good 1!!!!

HA HA HA HA

i hav always loved microsoft. bill gates was blessed with alot of $$ and is giving away $$ by the millions to charities. he says he wants to give bak something like 95% of his money to help the world. think about this--THERE WOULDNT EVEN BE A MARKET FOR APPLE OR LINUX IF MICROSOFT DIDNT COME ALONG. so these people should shut up and realize that w/o micrososft computers would be crap

They are really messed up and need to be nuked.

ahahah, when i saw this i alost fell out of my chair XD

Just... Wow.

(Insert expletive here) the EU Commission.

Why resort to name calling and the like? That is likely the only thing that the EU can understand, as it is apparent that have issues upstairs.

or
-Windows Euro-Politician Payoff
Version
-WindowsBNN (Baby Needs New Shoes Version)
-WindowsRAC (Rob American Company)

How about no mo crap installed by default edition?

I kind of like that.

Why should the 'commission' care if the new windows is 'unappealing'? They got what they asked for and the nameing is too the point.

I agree, the EU has some problems. I mean they wanted a program without Windows Media Player, so they got one with an honest name. If people really do want a version of Windows without WMP, they will buy it. I highly doubt though people would pay the same amount to get a copy of the operating system with less (even if WMP does suck to some degree). People can always install their own media players. Removing 10 megs from the operating system is not going to give people more freedom of choice. I've installed at least 10 other media players, and having WMP there also has never bothered me. The EU is just stuck up and just wants to screw MS. I don't see why MS doesn't have the right to add value to their operating system by installing their own media player. MS doesn't even have monopoly over the Media Player market. Almost everyone I know has alternate media players installed on their computer. For the rest they wouldn't know what to do if Microsoft didn't hand them one. It just add's more confusion.

Yeah, I don't know what the big deal is over MEDIA PLAYER of all things. Internet Explorer though is a real problem.

I believe that WMP has been removed because it's been proven to be technically feasible without compromising the core functionality of the operating system (wow, I almost sound like I know what I'm talking about!).

Internet Explorer, on the other hand, is used by a ton of inbuilt apps, including Windows Explorer, and the HTML Application (HTA) architecture is used by a few other parts of the operating system (including, bizarrely, the Add/Remove Programs system). I know the EU were pushing for removal of IE as well, but as I understand it, it was judged that it wouldn't be possible.

Either way, I think the EU are just applying this punitive punishment as they really have no other way of justifying the vast amount of money they've spent pursuing MS. There are certainly days that I regret living in a member state of the EU.

I have IE installed for windowsupdate and thats it. The last time I installed windows XP (bigger hard drive upgrade) I left it out and found it worked fine. However it is the only thing that will let you scan your computer for the updaates.

Not that http://www.microsoft.com...rch.aspx?displaylang=en wouldn't work just as well, but I'm lazy.

Out of curiosity, how did you remove Internet Explorer? As far as I'm aware, it's possible to remove the shortcuts and deny access to the executable pretty easily, but the IE rendering engine and core is pretty much impossible to remove.

Removing IE from the Windows Components menu in Add/Remove Programs seems to only uninstall the shortcuts, MIME-type handlers, and protocol handlers, but leave the executable around.

Take a look at nlite: http://nuhi.msfn.org/

It lets you create a custom Windows (2K/XP/2k3) CD with whatever components you want, and removes the ones you don't. You can take out IE altogether, or (I think) just leave in the core components for other programs that need it.

I think Microsoft has the right to do whatever they want with THEIR products. If they want to include a free media player then, that is good for the consumer who won't have to pay for another. The hell with EU. And if Microsoft wants to call it Reduced Media Edition then they should as it really will be. If I was Microsoft I would goto war with these idiots.

EU as well as US has anti-monopolistic laws which are being enforced here. The way they are being enforced is disputable but not the fact that we need those laws and that Microsoft is guilty of walking all over them.

Hear hear!

Exactly, they should also have to remove the extract compressed files fuctionality, the defrag fuctionality, the backup functionality, paint brush, explorer, movie maker, sound recorder, hyperterminal, remote desktop connection, security center, system restore and any other functionality that has a third party competing product. This will give the consumer more choices and prevent Microsoft from violating anti-trust laws. BTW, I have purchased competing products anyway so hmmm I guess I wasn't really prevented. FireFox will continue to improve market share because it is a better product not because it's free or is available on the desktop.

Existence of non-free competing products was not the motivation in forcing Microsoft to remove Media Player. Get yourself familiar with basic facts of the case before making wild accusations.

"they should also have to remove the extract compressed files fuctionality, the defrag fuctionality, the backup functionality, paint brush, explorer, movie maker, sound recorder, hyperterminal, remote desktop connection, security center, system restore"

WOW, what a concept. Yes, they should do exactly that. Removal is extreme, but at least make them optional. How about this, they remove the components and make them boxed products again reducing the cost of the OS back to $45 where it belongs? Maybe they could sell a boxed set with boxed copies at a combined cost of the current OS.

Wait you have to pay for WMP? Could have fooled me. They want you to have choices to install whatever you want.

BTW there are programs that you can use to backup, compress, defrag, etc. -- and you have to pay for it. Are they crying b/c they can't sell their products? NO! You don't have to use their software, but they specialize in that technology. For instance Photoshop doesn't complain that MS installs MS Paint or has a picture program installed with some Office 2003 versions. They know they have a superior product and because of this don't need to do that.

Now if someone were to say, "Which do you like better -- iTunes or WMP?" I would say hands down WMP. It's better looking, works better, plays more files, plays them BETTER, etc. The only thing it does not do is have the functionality to put songs on my iPod correctly. Hmm.

Hmm, maybe the prices are so high because groups such as the EU keep slapping them with senseless fines. Just a thought :)

if they removed ie what whould everyone use to go download netscape?

let's kill all muslims and get all troops out of iraq and bomb the hell out of it then we can start fresh with no crappy muslim countries stinking up the place

Naah, Bill's wallet says otherwise.

;-)

I second that.