In order to comply with European competition law, Microsoft Internet Explorer 8 will be removed from the European versions of Windows 7. Microsoft made the decision to drop the web browser in order to stay on the right side of the European Commission and avoid further possible fines. Versions of Windows 7 released in Europe will have an E suffix to show that they are European versions that don’t include Internet Explorer.

Despite this fiasco, computer manufacturers will still be able to pre-install any browser that they wish to install on computers that come with Windows 7 pre-installed; and the betting is that they’ll install IE8; which makes the whole exercise rather self-defeating. nevertheless, it keeps the Eurocrats happy, and it prevents Microsoft from getting fined further, so at the end of the day nobody loses, despite another bit of mindless bureaucracy from Brussels.

According to vice president and deputy general counsel at Microsoft, Dave Heiner. "The worldwide launch of Windows 7 is fast approaching, but a pending legal case raises concerns about the sufficiency of competition among the web browsers that are available to Windows users in Europe. In January the European Commission provided its preliminary view that Microsoft’s ‘bundling’ of Internet Explorer in Windows violated European competition law."

Every operating system needs a browser of some kind. It’ll be interesting to make a note of how many manufacturers include browsers such as FireFox instead or supplementally to Internet Explorer along with Windows 7: It’ll serve as an additional indication of who’s ahead in the browser wars.