At first, Microsoft were going to sell Windows 7 in Europe without a browser, but with a browser-choice screen at setup, so that the user could choose which browser they wanted to use as the default browser, without having IE8 installed from the offing. This version of Windows 7 was to be sold only in Europe in accordance with the European Commission’s wishes, with an E suffix, as in Windows 7-E.

This may seem rather silly and much ado about nothing – But in Europe we pay millions of Euros to have a bunch of elected representatives who are elected in a mid-term-anti-governmental-protest-vote in each respective country to make crazily-overly-pedantic regulations to make everyone’s life as difficult as possible so that they can impose multi-billion-dollar fines on all and sundry to pay for their so-called “productivity-bonuses”.

Microsoft are one of this regime’s biggest victims: The European Commission targets them particularly because they have oodles of money, and can pay multiples of multi-million-dollar fines imposed upon them through EC victimisation.

Suddenly Microsoft have decided; in light of the EC’s sloth in deciding whether to accept or reject the proposal of an E-version of Windows 7, that they’re going to ship the same version of Windows 7 to Europe as they are to the rest of the world; at least initially.

Dropping the E-version is good news for the Softies: They can now give consumers more choice at launch, as they simply didn’t have enough time to remove IE8 from the Windows 7 discs that they intended to sell as E versions.

It’s not 100% clear what’s going to happen now by any means; and things could change overnight anyway. It appears that Internet Explorer 8 will now be incorporated into Windows 7 as the default browser, but there may or may not be a browser-ballot-screen included, similar to the original plans, so that the user can choose which browser they’d like as default on installation.

This does, nevertheless, seem fairly pointless: Computer manufacturers are going to choose IE8 as the default browser for the sake of simplicity when they pre-install Windows 7 on their machines. – So what’s the point? The point is to attempt to satisfy the whims of the grossly-overpaid European Commission who made the rules in the first place.

Remember; when you pay for Windows 7 in Europe, you’re paying partly towards payment of the huge fines imposed on Microsoft by the EC; and fine them they will, whatever they do: Heads the EC win; tails Microsoft lose. Do you agree? Please comment.