JB> Microsoft does have an inferior product, the people aren't given a choi
 JB> begin with.. (I'm speaking of Win95 here).
 MA> OS/2 and Unix are offered
 MA> plus Apple is still out there  plugging away. A choice most
 MA> certianly does exist for those who  desire it. It is not a questionof
 MA> lack of choice, simply lack of a  reason to exercise that choice.
I'd like to know one major preload vendor who will load OS/2 or Unix and give 
support..  As far as I can tell, the folks who have purchased Macs have made 
informed decisions, but that is truely the only option available for those 
that even know about Apple..  IBM (w/respect to OS/2) doesn't want to deal 
with the home market (unfortunately).
 JB> Do you know why?  Microsoft took out more than just IE, they reduced
 JB> functionality across the board..
 MA> No, not quite. Microsoft rereleased
 MA> Sr1, the version before  Explorer was built into the operating
 MA> system.  Sr2, the current  version, fully integrates Explorer
 MA> and creating a new version, absent  all Explorer code, would be a
 MA> task on the scale of writing an  entirely new version. Yes, Sr1
 MA> lacked some of the features of Sr2,  but do you really expect
 MA> Microsoft to release a special edition just  to satisfy a pack of
I'd suggest you check your facts..  Microsoft is currently playing a little 
game where they say that removing Internet Explorer also removes other 
functionality within the system.  It's their way of trying to show that IE is 
integrated within the OS, which is a total crock.  Secondly, OSR1 and OSR2 
both come with IE, neither one is any more integrated with IE than the other.
 MA> lawyers?         Let me ask you this...how long  does it take to drag
 MA> the Explorer icon into the recycle bin? 10  seconds?
Me?  About 2 seconds, but then I know what I'm doing..
 MA> Why no just let the marketplace take care of  itself?
That might just happen, especially with names like IBM, Novell, Netscape, 
Sun, and others who are teaming up to make Java-based applications a 
reality.. With Java, it is no longer inherent that the OS running those 
applications comes from Microsoft.  Do you realize that the reason Microsoft 
is in the position they are in is because of their strangle-hold on the 
preload market?  When Microsoft can no longer leverage the market with 
proprietary applications running on top of their own OS, they are in 
trouble..  I'd rather see things happen this way instead of whatever the 
goverment is trying to do.  It turns out that Microsoft might just have a 
better excuse now for Windows97 not being released until late '98, and NT5 
not making it out until mid '99..
 MA> I would most certianly consider Sr2 superior to Sr1.
 MA> It runs  FAT32 and sees drives larger than 2.5gig.
FAT32..  Just another kludge on top of an already outdated file system.. 
FAT16 could see 2.5gig drives just fine, the problem was that you couldn't 
format that drive into anything larger than 2.1gig sections, giving you a 
cluster size of 32k.  32k clusters usually amount to at least 100m per 1g of 
wasted space.  With FAT32, you can format any size drive available today as a 
single partition, usually using 4k or 8k clusters.. The funny thing is that 
the entire file system takes a hit in speed because of the huge number of 
clusters..  Nothing superior there..
 MA> write code, it concerns me.  If you think Windows is  a pain now,
 MA> wait until Congress rewrites it.
I know Windows is a pain, hence the reason I use OS/2..
JB
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