Windows 7 in EU without Browser!

[saahne]

More on the "Get the Facts" campaign:

IE8 "Get the Facts" campaign gets it wrong

Thinking about upgrading to IE8? Think twice

Two clues Microsoft is losing its way

[TimButterworth]

I think Opera wanted Microsoft to open the windows update for third party application so that there are equal circumstances but instead of this MS preferred to remove to IE for not being forced to open the windows update.

This is the best reason I have heard so far and something I would like to see forced on a much larger level than just Microsoft Update. I would support this if the EU's proposed fix reflected this as their intended goal.

I am not sure how technically relevant only targeting Microsoft Update is anyway. Windows Vista and Windows 7 will not install updates directly from the windows update website and it instead directs you to launch the Windows Update program from the start menu. The only thing you can really do from the website is to setup Microsoft Update, which can also be done through control panel, to add update support for other Microsoft products and third party drivers. Also installing one or more third party browsers on Windows does not mean that IE must be removed so it could still be used to interact with Microsoft owned websites if the need arose or other IE crippled Microsoft web servers.

It would be nice to be able to download hot fixes, service packs, etc for Windows machines that have Internet connectivity problems from a non-windows platform without Microsoft Genuine Advantage validation getting in my way.

The biggest issue for me with Microsoft web technology for me is still that there are websites that will not allow me to access them from Linux with Konqueror, Firefox or Opera. This is the only reason why I am still forced to keep a licensed version of Windows even after multiple attempts I just can not completely get ride of it. This is what I would like to see the EU set out to fix with there anti-competitive finding.

In the US this will never go anywhere because any company can legally refuse service to anyone for any reason they choose, OS type and web browser choice are not excluded from this. Which is why it will likely never make any progress their.

I just check Konqueror on KDE 4.3 beta 2 and it at last has the option to set the browser ID to IE7 on XP finally. My issues are temporarily resolved again until the force install of IE8 starts rearing its ugly head.

[consused]

Originally Posted by saahne

More on the "Get the Facts" campaign:...

It's the masses of not so clued-up users you need to convince. You may just be preaching to the converted here.

[saahne]

Originally Posted by consused

It's the masses of not so clued-up users you need to convince. You may just be preaching to the converted here.

The post wasn't preaching to anyone. I was just providing some links with commentary on the "Get the Facts" site.

Personally, as stated before, I don't understand who they think they are targeting with the Get the Facts site. Whatever the merits or lack of merits of IE8, it doesn't seem like it would be very effective marketing strategy.

[hito_kiri]

I personally don't understand why there is not more of an effort to support open source software by governments. I work at a community college and they are tight on money, but for some reason the IT department tries to stuff every MS product they can on every computer, they don't bother to install Open Office or Firefox.. And when the engineering department, who is separate financially and technologically from the rest of the school, uses open office and can't read the stupid docx files THEY are supposed to buy MS Office 2007. Even though it would be so much easier to tell people to select a different format. But that is too hard for people to do I guess. In my view it is a school that is supposed to be helping people learn better skills to get a better job or go on to a better school; shouldn't they be teaching people more about computers?

I mean linux was barely mentioned in the intro to computers class when I was in it and only one other person besides myself had heard of it. Now, the class is centered around Office 2007, they barely even learn anything about computers.

I don't understand why governments wouldn't want to use oss, I mean it would save money for one thing.

That might have gotten a little off topic, but someone had mentioned that the government computers in EU probably don't have anything but IE and it made me think about this.

[TimButterworth]

Originally Posted by hito_kiri

Sun has an Open Document Format ODF compatibility pack for Office 2007 SP1 to read and write to ODF. You can download it free of charge from their web site Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 SP1

I wish Microsoft would just move to ODF as their default instead of pushing their OOXML nonsense. Why would the world need two International standard document formats?

[Confuseling]

Originally Posted by TimButterworth

...
I wish Microsoft would just move to ODF as their default instead of pushing their OOXML nonsense. Why would the world need two International standard document formats?

Are you new?

I've heard it said that Belgium has two Esperanto societies. Some people, for whatever reasons, simply don't like cooperating.

[syampillai]

Originally Posted by TimButterworth

Sun has an Open Document Format ODF compatibility pack for Office 2007 SP1 to read and write to ODF. You can download it free of charge from their web site Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 SP1

I wish Microsoft would just move to ODF as their default instead of pushing their OOXML nonsense. Why would the world need two International standard document formats?

OpenOffice (I'm using 3.0.0 that came with openSUSE 11.1) can read/write OOXML files. Initially, it was not recognizing it but then, I configured the appropriate file associations for docx, xlsx etc.

[saahne]

Originally Posted by TimButterworth

Sun has an Open Document Format ODF compatibility pack for Office 2007 SP1 to read and write to ODF. You can download it free of charge from their web site Sun ODF Plugin for Microsoft Office 2007 SP1

I wish Microsoft would just move to ODF as their default instead of pushing their OOXML nonsense. Why would the world need two International standard document formats?

Office 2007 SP2 has support for ODF built in. You could work in ODF and never use OOXML. And it isn't hidden away in some obscure submenu.

[syampillai]

Originally Posted by saahne

Office 2007 SP2 has support for ODF built in. You could work in ODF and never use OOXML. And it isn't hidden away in some obscure submenu.

I read somewhere that ODF files created by M$Office does not conform fully to ODF format (as expected).