The week in your words: news roundup

 

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Posted on 26 Oct 2007 at 18:32

In a week that saw Microsoft finally cave in to the EU, the UK government announce that it was ready to legislate on file-sharing and the US move one step closer to banning internet companies from cooperating with China, we take a look at what the PC Pro faithful have made of it all.

First up then, Microsoft's decision to concede its three year struggleagainst the EU's 2004 antitrust ruling, a decision which was met with typical restraint on the boards.

"About damn time," notes bioreit. "Now maybe everyone concerned can get on with doing proper work, rather than just making rich lawyers even richer."

Indeed, surely it's time to put this entire thing to bed? Not likely, especially with mrstevenrogers around to stoke the debate.

"The 4th change that should have been enforced is the removal of IE from the system, and please don't tell me it can't be done ..."

Okay, we won't... though, _wolfman certainly tried

"It can indeed be done very easily - it comes under "Windows Components" in the "Add/Remove Programs" Control Panel."

Any takers? Ah yes, pcernie

"You're quite right, and watch as it messes up your Windows installation - something to do with rendering apparently."

Stealth Updates

And speaking of messing up Windows, we turn to the news that Microsoft has been up to its old "stealth update" tricks again, installing Windows Desktop Search automatically, even on computers set up to update only existing programs.

As accusations flew and words like "evil" and "hacker" did the rounds, the software giant found some unexpected support... from a Mac user.

"I am slightly confused," begins regular poster ChurchCat. "Why is this a problem? A nice extra search engine should be a good thing shouldn't it? I have not used the Microsoft version but Spotlight.app which I presume is pretty much the same thing is a great feature on the Mac."

Over to you red3dwarf.

"The problem is that Microsoft is trying to drive people to its search site rather than to Google's, because it wants the ad revenue. To that end they are surreptitiously installing an app on the taskbar that does that task. If Google wants to have an app on your taskbar then it has to persuade you that it will add value. If Microsoft wants to have an app on your taskbar then it does it under the guise of security updates and patches."

Microsoft muscles in on low-cost laptops

And while we're talking about Microsoft, we might as well mention its attempts to muscle in on the low cost laptop market, which has so far seen it promise a version of XP for the Eee PC and announce it was working on XP lite for the OLPC laptop. How could this not go down well with our readers?

"How evil can they get?" Amnesia10 wonders, plunging straight in. "The choice of Linux was as a free OS, now by offering XP for the OLPC they are effectively tying them into the huge periodic upgrade costs and all that malarky. This is nothing but pure evil on Microsoft's part. Imagine the shock when some poor kid in Soweto gets the bill for his OS, and then all the problems that come with Windows, viruses and malware. Linux was a safe free environment for those without much computer knowledge."