Windows 7 E a flash in the pan

I wrote about it in my column this week for Windows Secrets Newsletter.

I don’t think Windows 7 E will ever see light of day. It’s a ploy by Microsoft. A brilliant one at that.

Microsoft has just made a formal proposal to the EU, offering a so-called “ballot box” screen during Windows 7 installation that allows the user to choose which web browser they wish to install.

It’s a little more complicated than that, really. Microsoft is proposing that the “ballot box” appear when European customers crank up Windows for the first time. The ballot box draws on browsers stored on the Web. And the way you get to the Web is through IE, of course. Read the fine print:

European consumers who buy a new Windows PC with Internet Explorer set as their default browser would be shown a ‘ballot screen’ from which they could, if they wished, easily install competing browsers from the Web.

Gotcha. Note that the press release says nothing about boxed copies of Windows 7. And the offer’s only on the table if IE is installed as the default browser on new machines.

Brilliant.

I doubt that Windows 7 E will even survive the weekend, in the hearts and minds of European customers. It’ll be interesting to see what Microsoft does with all of those early orders for Windows 7 E: folks in Europe are paying extra for the full version of Windows 7, when all they’ll need (I bet) is the upgrade version.