My take on the uninstall and code separation issues:
I have had problems after uninstalling various versions of IE from Windows. However, I had no problems with Netscape installed afterward and IE 'pushed aside' and Netscape as the default html browser.
Recently, I installed MS C++ 5.0 on a system I had disabled the IE on and got an error message from the installer scolding me about IE not being there and informing me that certain things could not be done in the installation because IE was the only browser that would be allowed (my interpretation) to download the software parts or whatever I needed from the microsoft website, or to be able to register on line.
I had one box where I deleted all of IE I could find (did the uninstall, then I deleted the IE directory.) That box behaved very badly afterward, so I reinstalled windows, without IE, and it started working OK.
So here you can build a case that they may have made it difficult to completely get rid of IE, with proprietary rather than technical intent. But Under some circumstances you could continue to function.
As a programmer I know that all that is involved here is some Windows and IE functions and data that are optionally in one library or another. Those libraries optionally can be loaded with one product or another. Additionally, there may be some overlap between versions of these Windows functions that are hooked into IE and those that are not. Typically I would expect the older builds to have fewer of these proprietary hooks.
So far, not a case that it is extremely difficult to take these things out. Not technically. That's what that great code control and build system is for, right? It tracks dependencies, history, etc. That's what systems like that are for. I understood they used to rebuild all of NT every day. And they obviously knew where all the parts were.
However, as they hav been merrily building the IE interface into everything under the Windows label, presumably they may have versions of Word, Excel, etc etc etc that look a *lot* like IE, and vice versa. You will remember how hard they pushed to have Excel and Word file formats be an accepted internet data type, until that embarassing business with the word macro virus. If the IE interface goes away, or if there are *two* GUIs, the Windows gui and the IE gui, what happens to Word, to Excel, etc?
Maybe a whole year of development has been dedicated to the idea that this 'IE is the OS' thing would fly. So they would have some expense throwing out IE dependent application code, but that wouldn't affect the OS per se.
You could understand how this might happen. I vaguely remember crowing about how the internet/HTML interface was 'becoming the universal OS' here and elsewhere the last couple of years, as were others in the business who wished to be freed of Bill and his churlish minions. Suppose somebody in Redmond thought the same evil thought?
Then they would have said, 'By God, if the browser is going to be the OS, and that's going to replace Windows, it had damn better well be our browser!'
So, naturally. Literally an effort to extend the desktop monopoly into an internet interface monopoly.
And a million strands of code to make it all 'inevitably' happen. Via that 'tyranny of code' thing.
Now the thing is, it appears that the whole process has really not gone so far as to make reversal particularly difficult. The '14 million lines of code' business while perhaps literally true is also just obscuranta. True, they have made little inconveniences along the way for those of us who were too stubborn to cooperate. Some of those you could ascribe to the ordinary mistakes that plague the software industry.
But this is not to say that they could not retrace a couple of months work and extricate IE from Windows. They could even leave some of that new good code in. Why? Because they would leave it in with a published interface to guide Netscape and others as to where those facilities were and how they were to be used, and IE would use them in the exact same way as Netscape, and everybody would be on a level playing field. They would still extract the literal browser application, or sufficient of that portion so that the application remaining would contain all of the 'competition' for browser market share.
In the end, perhaps the consumers would benefit from that, because all browsers would benefit from the new, underlying Windows support for browsing.
Not it is obvious to me, and probably all of the other programmers and engineers here that this could be done. So why doesn't the judge order that?
BTW, is the total abcense of all MS people here lately due to the suit? Have they all been silenced except for the lawyers?
Chaz |
