PCWorld is reporting that the US Department of Justice (DOJ) is expressing concerns at Windows XP SP2 and the upcoming Longhorn Operating System, ensuring that they comply with the antitrust case against Microsoft.

Following a ruling in 2002 Microsoft must comply by ensuring that users can use 3rd party products like internet browsers or media players. The DOJ tested XPSP2 with 3rd party software through 100s of tests ensuring the software behaved correctly. The DOJ alerted Microsoft to the fact that it may not be in compliance with the judgement and the government is assessing Microsoft's responses.

The goverment wants to work with Microsoft to ensure that the Longhorn operating system will allow venders to develop products that work with its operating system. Microsoft is due to meet with DOJ respresentatives next month to discuss Longhorn and the XPSP2 concerns.

Longhorn is the next generation of the Windows Operating system due out in 2006.

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Are you talking about that thingy to "disable" (NOT!) IE, wmp, etc which was included with sp1?

He's talking about the option for people to use third party programs as their default media player, browser, etc.

Dodgy M$ .

That's what I meant. But it's not like it really works. I remember having set it to disable wmp, but when I used IE and there was some media on the site, it used wmp

You can't play the media in the browser with other programs (say WinAmp) because WinAmp has no browser support

then is should be opened in winAmp, not in the browser. Else, it should say that it can't be played. If I told winxp to *NOT* use wmp, then it should *NOT* use wmp. It would be even better if I could remove it.