Re: Moderately improved map of Microsoft tying evidence

[Dave Sieber <dsieber@terminal-impact.com>]

  Hans Reiser wrote:
  
  >    * Visual Studio requires MSIE to install (needs a URL to the
  >      original sjmercury discussion group posting, so that we can
  >      request affidavits)
  
  Well, this one is certainly true. Actually, the installation program
  informs you: "...setup needs to update or install Microsoft Internet
  Explorer components required by the Developer Studio InfoViewer". If you
  click on "Cancel" at this point, the entire installation quits. If you
  click "Install", you get a message saying "Installing System and
  Internet Explorer Components". Alas, instead of just "components", you
  get a complete installation of IE3, including an "Internet" icon on your
  desktop and an "Internet Explorer" entry in your Start menu. Perhaps the
  currently shipping version installs IE4.
  
  The real oddity is that InfoViewer (the online help and documentation
  viewer) used to work fairly well, but in the latest revision the entire
  help contents have been, for some unknown reason, converted into some
  form of HTML (but compressed and not accessable by any "browser" other
  than InfoViewer).  It's far slower than the earlier edition, and the
  formatting is in many cases fouled up -- it looks like a bad rush job.
  Many negative comments appeared on MS's Developer Studio discussion
  group over the new "feature", which adds only the ability to browse the
  web from within DevStudio (the integrated InfoViewer is supposedly an IE
  window that appears within DevStudio). My favorite was from a programmer
  who declared that he didn't need or want "a web browser integrated into
  his compiler".
  
  --
  Dave Sieber
  dsieber@terminal-impact.com
  http://www.terminal-impact.com