Windows 7 WILL have IE

The EU fuelled saga of IE8 in Windows 7 has taken another turn now-it seems Windows 7 WILL included Internet Explorer here in Europe. Microsoft have instead agreed with the EU’s idea of having a “ballot screen” allowing users to choose and download other competing browsers such as Firefox or (the instigators of this whole thing) Opera…This is a bit of an about-turn as MS were dead set against this idea initially.

The interesting thing is how this affects the availability of Windows 7 upgrades in Europe. The last minute creation of “Windows E” meant that an upgrade version wouldn’t be available in Europe so users would need to do a clean install-which wasn’t an ideal situation. However with this change, perhaps we will get the ability to upgrade after all?

It seems that Microsoft will continue with Windows 7 “E” until the EU formally accepts the Ballot proposal. Hopefully that won’t take too long (in the work of international law) to go through and Europe will be able to get it’s upgrade on! The RC installation of Windows 7 doesn’t expire until March 2010 so if they can get it wrapped up before then-that should suit everybody…expect those who’ve pre-ordered!

Thanks to Mary Jo for this and as she updates, I’ll update 🙂

*Update* It seems that Windows 7 E may well still be the plan!

*Update* There is now an official statement on the Microsoft PressPass site here. The most exciting bit is:

“Under our new proposal, among other things, European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a ‘ballot screen’ from which they could, if they wished, easily install competing browsers from the Web. If this proposal is ultimately accepted, Microsoft will ship Windows in Europe with the full functionality available in the rest of the world.” (Bold mine).

The EU should accept it as it was their/Opera’s idea in the first place so hopefully we’ll all be doing nice upgrade installs on our machines soon-whoo hoo!

Check out my sweet photo editing skills 😉

*Update* Opera now want the Ballot screen to be logo free (See techflash)! I’ve said it before that Opera are, and pardon my French, taking the piss…as formerly funny fellow Northerner Peter kay once said “Too far (Tony), too far”!