http://europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=IP/04/382|0|RAPID&lg=EN&display=

Short version: Microsoft has to pay a 497000000? fine, they have to disclose the interfaces Windows uses in SMB communication and they have to offer a Windows version without the 'media player'. As usual, they won't do this, of course.

This doesnt really bother me, for what I want media player is OK, also it doesnt seem to mind me using the Creative software for my Nomad MP3 either, havent come accross any conflicts myself. So no complaints from me there.

If only they would give us an OS that didnt have a browser integrated into it *sigh*.

I was afraid the EC would force Microsoft to incorporate Real Player into Windows. Let's face it, for Windows, the Media Player is far superior to Real Player. I'm still using Media Player 6, which shipped with Win98, and never had a problem with it playing streaming media. But try to run old versions of Real Player, without all that garbage, and you'll see that new streams require you to upgrade. For once, Microsoft has become the victim of its own superior technology (as unlikely as it sounds).

Superior to Real Player - big deal

I find Real Player, quite possible, the most annoying thing in the world ever.



If the open source market could come up with a serious rival to MS Office, there would be a good chance MS would package that free with the OS as well.

But the shame in all these fines and lawsuits is that now MS will probably never package Office for free with windows for fear of the inevitable $billion fines for doing so, and thats bad, because Office is good.

Hehehehehe, great joke

It is! There is a multitude of worse products out there, that 359.5 billion people have to sit in front of 8 hours a day.

You pursuade me of a better one, and good luck to you

If you had read the recent thread 'Linux Distribution', you'd know I consider 'Office Suites' to be the most useless group of software ever, so don't count on that.

All I know about 'Microsoft Office' is what I hear from others. And that is constant moaning how yet another file has gone corrupt, how some setting has again changed itself and so on and so on.

Edited by Mr Creosote at 22:03 on March, 24th 2004

I've never had a file gone corrupt from the word processor in office. This is mostly due to the program crashing 10 minutes into me using it. One time I deleted a bunch of those windows updates and it stopped crashing. But then blaster came along and I had to install them all again and, alas it crashes again. I now use Open Office, and the only thing it lacks for me is that there are a few Excel worksheets that do automated stuff I would like to use, except they are in VB while OO uses Java.

I'll never understand how people can spend a lot of money for a software like "Word" if you can get better software for free...


Real Player:
Media Player:



And how do you write text pages that need a layout? HTML?

Fretz: use openoffice.
Unless you use a lot of macro's, it will outperform M$ Officer greatly.

There is only one single purpose I need 'formatted text' for, and that is university. For that, however, all these 'offices' are really, really bad. I'm using LaTeX instead - lame name, great system.

OpenOffice sucks. At least the version I tried; it hijacked my desktop. That said, there are cheaper alternatives to MS Office, which are also far superior.

Take, for example, Corel WordPerfect Suite. It can handle Office extensions, and it is much easier to use and much more powerful. For example, try to create a Word document with several images. You'll soon find that moving them around is a torture, and you'll most likely end up printing the pictures and the text separately, then cutting and pasting them on a piece of paper and copying them. WordPerfect, on the other hand, is nearly as powerful as QuarkXPress, the No. 1 desktop publishing software. While OpenOffice can claim the same (as does the 602 Office Suite), WordPerfect is much easier to use.

Or, printing envelopes. Word always prints to the default printer, and if you have more than one printer you've got to change the default. Not so in WordPerfect. We used Word in the office, where we have three networked printers, and the people here usually ended up typing the envelope addresses on a typewriter. Ever since I installed the WordPerfect Suite, this is another problem that got eliminated.

(This message was brought to you by Corel, Inc.)

Oh, and one more thing. Slashdot posted a story of why it's better to choose MS Office over Open Office. Have fun: here

Do a search for freeware and word processors or office suites, and you'll find plenty to choose from. Star office is rumored to be good, although I've never tried it. There's one called 602 (http://www.software602.com/products/pcs/download.html) that I tried a while back, and it was good.
http://www.hlrnet.com/freeoffi.htm


Real player is horrible. It has very few features, and constantly nags you to get the pay version (which is almost as bad as the free version).
Windows media player is ok, but nothing to write home about.
I use winamp for everything (including real media files). It has a good interface, plenty of audio features (although it's video features, options, and controls are rather limited), and with the proper plugins, it can play any media currently available.

Nice - part of that is actually on-topic. You'll notice the part about 'SMB Messaging'.

As far as I know, software602 or whatever it's called cannot open .ppt files. Not useful if you need to give a presentation.

NetDanzr: What happened? and what version was that?

About the article: LOL.
Microsoft refuses to give out the full stats on their file formats and then blame others for being partially incompatible!

Cypherswipe: I'm still using Text 602 for DOS. It's a very old precursor of the full suite, and it's by far the best text editor that I know of. However, I'm not too fond of the new suite's interface.

Johann: Huh?

NetDanzr: I understood it like this:





As for ''free' 'office' 'suites'', there's also Siag Office.

Oh, that. Don't know what version it was, bur instead of my normal desktop, a new one appeared, with a white background and only icons to the office programs. I got rid of it only by uninstalling OpenOffice.

(I'm sure there is some way to set the preferences, but without any documentation included in the download and without a more intuitive interface, I couldn't find it.)