Micro$oft, ever the one to smile whilst driving the poignard deep into the vitals, has released a beta version of Windows Media Player 9. Not a big deal, probably worth evaluating, can always uninstall it if need be, right?
WMP9 has no uninstall feature on WinXP and WinME (it uninstalls on Win2K just fine). That’s the case both for the beta and for the final version to be released. The only way to get rid of it — sort of — is to use M$’s System Rollback feature. But that not only doesn’t remove the files, but it rolls back everything you’ve installed since that point.
One of the things that M$ was supposed to be doing — and claimed it was — under the loosy-goosy preliminary agreement they had with the DoJ was to allow the removal of “middleware” … just like WMP9. The big tool they released to do this, though, doesn’t actually remove such middleware, though — it just removes the icons to it. Big frelling deal.
And, in the meantime, M$ continues to move it’s “middleware” into being an inextricable part of the OS, as this exercise with WMP9 demonstrates. Hell, you can uninstall Service Pack 1 to WinXP — why can’t you uninstall the frelling music player (a music player that no longer supports certain file formats or sources)?
M$ claims that media playing is now a deeply embedded function, so uinstalling it would actually break the OS and expectations that other software has of it.
Of course, you could point out that M$ made it that way. But better perhaps that you complain to the DoJ about it. If they’ll listen, that is.
UPDATE: Of course, it all makes sense when you visit thesource.ofallevil.com.
UPDATE: And this seems to fit right in …