Micro$oft punished for 500 Million €/$ by EU

[bond]

They support in the Apple way. But they certainly don't support DivX.of course it supports divx

[GodofaGap]

If you would have read two posts down a better explanation of my statement was given. I'm sorry for the inaccuracy in my first post about this.

But AFAIK QT doesn't support any MPEG4 ASP feature and it certainly doesn't support DivX subtitles and chapters.

Is this wrong?

[SeeMoreDigital]

Is this wrong?With the correct plug-in's QT can play MPEG-4 ASP video streams within AVI and MP4... From what I remember (but it's along time ago) 3ivx's (D4 4.5.1) codec suite offers this...

[smok3]

qt can play xvid in mp4 as well, when encode was done with some care :)

my old note says:
- no bframes
- only h263 quantization allowed
- simply put: nothing from "advanced simple profile" - like qpel, ect...

of course iam sure there is no way to play bastardized avi called divx, why would there be one anyway?

---

back on topic, quoted:
Available data already show a clear trend in favour of WMP and Windows Media technology. Absent intervention from the Commission, the tying of WMP with Windows is likely to make the market "tip" definitively in Microsoft's favour. This would allow Microsoft to control related markets in the digital media sector, such as encoding technology, software for broadcasting of music over the Internet and digital rights management etc.

from http://europa.eu.int/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/04/382&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en

This is the fact, and you don't need to really study some sort of statistic to get there...., however in some other thread it is quite clear that some people do not understand the danger and also stupidity included in such monopolistic approach. I was told by such person that ms uses a 'special/not for normal users' encoding software for bigger studios which is imho another nice case to open for any decent Commission.

[GodofaGap]

So now you make me quote the other part of my post. It's nice people actually read here...

I don't want to get into hair splitting with this, but a component is not out-of-the-box support. You can also install a DivX DirectShow filter for WMP.

[Sirber]

I've got another. How about getting rid of WinXP's embedded CD burning software? That can't be fair!Unfair and useless. Take twice the time to burn a CD (no DVD support yet) coz it's making a ISO first.

The firewall is weak too, only one way. Why bundeling things if they are weak and incomplete?

[SirCanealot]

Didn't MS have plans for a virus scanner a while ago?

It'd greatly amuse me if MS actually got it running decently and then the courts told them to remove that too :rolleyes:

[foxyshadis]

What exactly do you want? Every microsoft feature to come with a list of competitors' products that you can buy if you need more features or want non-microsoft?

smok3, um, not-for-consumers is a perfectly legal business model for high-end products, or hundreds of companies would get shut down overnight.

[zambelli]

smok3, um, not-for-consumers is a perfectly legal business model for high-end products, or hundreds of companies would get shut down overnight.
:goodpost: Thanks. Indeed, it's any company's right to make their software products available only to select customers. I wasn't aware that companies were suddenly required by law to make all their software freely available to all interested parties. :sly:

[zambelli]

The firewall is weak too, only one way. Why bundeling things if they are weak and incomplete?
Because some level of security is better than none?

If Windows shipped with a firewall superior to any other firewall product on the market - don't you think Symantec, McAfee, Zone Labs, F-Secure and others might find that, ummm, "abuse of dominant market position". :confused: At least this way you can say, "Sure, XP has a firewall, but if you want the best protection, you should get XYZ...", the same way you can argue that your new Honda Civic needs a brand new Sony CD-MP3 player because its stock one is "just OK".

I really don't understand this conflicting attitude where people want MS to ship an OS with every feature superior to anything currently available on the market, yet they complain whenever a particular area of the software market gets cornered due to this very same practice. You have to understand that for every person that complains because Windows doesn't come with an integrated RSS reader or Podcasting solution, there will be another person that will complain about the very same feature being integrated into the OS. How can any company win that battle?

[Sirber]

Because some level of security is better than none?True, but is allowing any running software to add itself to the firewall something "secure"? Best no security than a false sense of security. Same goes for uPNP ;)

[foxyshadis]

Does that happen when running as a normal, non-admin user? If not, then you forgot the first rule of computer security: If untrusted code is running in a priveledged account, it can do anything it wants, you've already given up all security. No checkbox can do more than slow its creator down while he figures out how to bypass it.

Any firewall that asks you whether software running as root should be allowed access, is doing it as a courtesy; any malware can instantly either add a trust for itself or shut the firewall down.

[Sirber]

Do you run in "normal, non-admin user"? Under NT it's not viable. Most software require to be run as admin, else all you get is My Documents :sly:
I'd love a linux-like desktop, where you have to enter root password to do system modifications, while in user mode. So you ahve the protection AND the power at the same time :)

[foxyshadis]

Runas works, and tools exist to automatically prompt for runas instead of immediately failing whenever you perform a security-limited action.

It's actually getting easier as the years go on to run all but a few packages as non-admin, though it's still easier for me to regularly use 2 different accounts depending on what I need. (I'm willing to hunt down the registry permissions and even make appcompat shims for some vital software, like quickbooks for work, but for some things it's just less annoying to use switch user.)

[cabal09]

I wonder if the computers used by the EU during their investigation ran on Windows?;)