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----------------------------------------------------------------------- Microsoft says removing browser makes Windows 95 inoperable ----------------------------------------------------------------------- WASHINGTON (December 18, 1997 3:30 p.m. EST http://www.nando.net) - The battle between Microsoft and the U.S. government escalated Thursday as the software giant maintained that removing its Internet browser from Windows 95 will prevent the operating system from functioning. "If any computer manufacturer avails itself of the option of not installing Internet Explorer 3.0, it is an inescapable fact that the remainder of the operating system will not function," Microsoft said in a letter to the Justice Department released Thursday. "That is one reason why Microsoft opposed the Justice Department's request for contempt sanctions and why we have appealed the preliminary injunction entered by the Court," it said. The salvo from Microsoft came one day after the government asked a federal court to find the company in contempt of a preliminary injunction and to impose a million-dollar-a-day fine on the company. The injunction on December 11 barred Microsoft from requiring computer makers to install its Internet browser Explorer along with its dominant Windows operating system. Microsoft has appealed the injunction. The ruling came in response to a Justice Department complaint that Microsoft had violated a 1995 agreement by conditioning the installation of Windows 95 on the inclusion of the Explorer browser. The government claims Microsoft has used its dominance in the operating systems market to achieve a monopoly in the separate browser sector. In the letter Thursday, Microsoft senior corporate attorney David Heiner said the court issued the injunction "apparently based on the Justice Department's express representation that deleting Internet Explorer would not adversely affect the operation of Windows 95." While Microsoft then told computer manufacturers they were not required to install the browser, removing it cannot be done "without substantially degrading the operating system," Heiner said. "Although the Justice Department may ardently wish the facts were otherwise, Internet Explorer 3.0 is an integral part of Windows 95," he continued. A ruling in the overall lawsuit against Microsoft is not expected before next summer. Copyright 1997 Nando.net Copyright 1997 Agence France-Presse <http://www.nando.net/newsroom/ntn/info/121897/info26_4922_noframes.html> ----------------------------------------------------------------------- janet [log in to unmask]