Yes. Damn them to hell for developing software for kids.

How dare they.

In amongst this /scathing/ critique are the words "beta programme"... i wonder if this is why some parts are patchy around the edges? Nahh, couldn't be that. After all, MS *are* pure evil.

Yes. The 8 year olds are much better off downloading pr0n and warez off Kazaa. Regardless of what the filenames are.

btw, I don't know which version of devil-worship-media-player Yoz is using, but mine streams MP3s and plays MPEGs pretty well. I doubt the other computer-company-who-would-be-a-monopoly-if-only-they-had-enough-smarts would make an evil move like that.

two-legs good, four-legs bad. never mind.

Think you missed a lot of the point, Bunga -- sure, they developed software for kids, but, yet again, they've used it as an excuse to piddle about with the set up of the PC that it's installed on and install all kinds of cynical spyware and corporate branding and advertising.

re: WMP 7 dropping .mov support, it probably bears mention that according to a guy who works on WMP, support was dropped for .mov files because they only correctly displayed QuickTime 1 and 2 files, and no QTVR or 3,4,5 or6 files. It's a simple user experience issue that you don't want to grab a file type that you can't adequately handle. Seems downright reasonable of them, to me.

From the article it looks like the "spyware" that's installed consists of: XP Service Pack 1, the latest version of MSN messenger, software that sounds analgous to JXTA and some extensions that enable the software to communicate via IPv6 (that'd be the Teredo bit).

So, while it is unfortunate that MSFT removed the ability to hide ads in the latest version of Messenger, I don't see that they're installing "all kinds of cynical spyware and corporate branding and advertising". They're just updating the machine. Horror of horrors!

woot: i'll say again "it's BETA". if it's an excuse to install spyware, it's a limited and expensive way to do it.

I should specify:

1) As pointed out at the start of the article, this is a beta and I am a heat-seeking beta bunny. I happily click through all the "This may gloriously fuck up your machine" warnings. I knowingly take the risk. As such, while I am a trifle annoyed at what the new add-ons did to my set up, I admit I have only myself to blame.

2) I didn't say "spyware" anywhere.

3) The stuff I complain about being shit is, really, shit. I mean, that install screen. The website. Come on. And while Anil excuses the .mov thing, I've heard no good reason for the more recent changes.

I discovered recently that "mplayer2", which is included in my install of WinXP, is the original lean media player from the old days. If you don't want weird as non-rectangular MSPaint drawings around your movies, try it!