The Preliminary Injunction Case

    In December 1997, the DOJ asked the District Court to find Microsoft in contempt of the preliminary injunction, saying that MS had not complied with the ruling, because it offered only obsolete and unreliable alternatives to the Windows/Internet Explorer bundle, which were commercially worthless.

    Microsoft said the suit was a complete about face of the DOJ's stance during the previous trial. The government asked the Judge to order Microsoft to release a version of Windows with most of the Internet Explorer code included so that the features that had suffered in Microsoft's new licensing options would be returned to functionality, but with the visible means of accessing it (such as the Internet Explorer icon on your desktop) hidden from view so the end user does not have access to it directly. Microsoft said this marked an admission by the government that Internet Explorer had been closely integrated with Windows 95.

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