Microsoft: No browserless Windows 7 after all
It looks like there won't be a browserless version of Windows 7, after all. — Microsoft said late Friday that it won't ship the Windows 7 “E” version of Windows even though Europe has yet to sign off on its revised plan.
Context & Ripple Effects
This closes a loop opened in February, when Microsoft laid out the full Windows 7 line-up while under European Commission pressure over Internet Explorer bundling — its answer then was a separate, browser-stripped "E" edition sold only in Europe. Late Friday the company reversed course, saying it will not ship the "E" version even though Brussels has yet to sign off on its revised approach to browser choice.
The reversal lands days after Microsoft detailed Family Pack and Anytime Upgrade pricing, keeping its pre-launch push intact; with the stripped SKU gone, the open question shifts entirely to what mechanism the EC will accept before Windows 7 reaches European buyers.
First-order effects
- European PC makers are spared building, testing and certifying a second browserless Windows 7 image, and Microsoft can ship a single worldwide edition instead of a region-specific SKU.
- Rival browser makers lose the guaranteed absence of Internet Explorer in Europe — their route onto new Windows 7 machines now depends entirely on whichever choice mechanism the EC approves, not on a stripped-down build.
Second-order effects
- Pressure concentrates on the European Commission, whose approval cadence — not Microsoft's engineering — becomes the gating item for how Windows 7 and browser distribution land in Europe.
- Whatever choice screen or mechanism Microsoft has proposed effectively becomes the negotiating surface: browser competitors' distribution prospects rise or fall with the EC's response to that single revised plan.
Third-order effects
- If the pattern holds, European antitrust enforcement against platform defaults shifts from forcing stripped-down regional products toward regulator-approved choice mechanisms layered onto one global build — a template other bundling disputes could inherit.
- Microsoft's willingness to scrap an already-built SKU mid-launch cycle shows regulator relations now shaping product planning directly, not merely triggering post-launch litigation.
The trend: Operating-system makers are replacing region-specific de-bundled builds with regulator-approved browser-choice mechanisms as the settlement path for distribution disputes in Europe.