After arguing for years that Windows Media Player was inextricably linked with the operating system, Microsoft is about to release a version of Windows without Media Player:

Microsoft is giving European computer manufacturers the choice of buying Windows with or without the company’s favored Windows Media Player, which lets computer users listen to music and watch videos. Both versions of Windows will be offered for the same price, and the company said they will be available through retail channels, but only in European outlets.

Why only in Europe? Because that’s where the courts ruled that bundling Media Player with Windows was an antitrust violation.

I’ll be curious to see whether Windows Reduced Media Edition (makes it sound appealing, eh?) actually sells many copies. The price is exactly the same, so computer makers have no incentive to sell a version of Windows without a media player — all they get in return is increased tech support headaches. The only way this could take off would be if a competitor with a major media player (iTunes or RealPlayer, for instance) can convince a computer manufacturer to give it an exclusive deal on all new computers.

The pictures of Chairman Bill were a huge hit, so I thought I would follow them up with this video tour of the legendary Microsoft Bob (alas, that clip circa March 2001, via The Screen Savers, no longer works, but here’s a replacement). I once had a copy of the software, but alas it has been lost to the ages, and all that survives in my office is this semi-priceless baseball hat, somewhat dusty and never worn, with the Bob logo:

(Props to Slate editor-at-large Jack Shafer for the link.)

And woohoo! My old PC Computing buddy Rich Schwerin just sent me this shrink-wrapped copy of Bob:

I used to have boxes and boxes of floppy disks. Today, I think I have maybe a dozen disks in all, and I would have to do a pretty thorough search to find them all. For the most part, floppy disks are completely unnecessary. I can boot from a CD to accomplish most maintenance tasks. For simple point-to-point file-transfer operations (“sneakernet”), USB flash drives are much more effective. For archiving files, I use writable CDs or, increasingly, DVDs.

In fact, I’d gladly throw away those remaining floppy disks, except that Windows XP still uses them for two essential tasks:

• Creating a Password Reset disk. (If you don’t have one of these, you should. Open User Accounts in Control Panel and then click Prevent a forgotten password in the Related Tasks sidebar.)
• Supplying a system driver during Windows setup. I built a new PC last month with an SATA drive as its system drive, but my Windows XP setup disks didn’t include the proper drivers, and the only way to provide the driver is using a floppy disk. Because that new PC didn’t have a floppy drive, I had to create a custom Windows setup CD with the correct drivers.

Frankly, I’m amazed that both of these legacy operations are still hard-wired to accept only floppy disks as the target. Please, Microsoft, don’t let these restrictions survive in Longhorn!

Update: In the comments, Chris Hedlund mentions that he’s about to put together a similar system and wants to learn more about creating a custom Windows XP install disk that contains the SATA drivers. I did it, and it was surprisingly easy, although you might not think so when you first see the instructions!

Start with this thread from the TechIMO forums. Scroll about halfway down to the post entitled “Install SATA drivers without floppy disk.” Follow the instructions carefully, and be prepared to visit this page at the Elder Geek’s site for instructions. If your copy of Windows XP is pre-SP2, start at the beginning with the Elder Geek’s instructions for how to create a Slipstreamed Windows XP CD Using SP2. The Elder Geek has special instructions for extracting the necessary Microsoft Corporation image file, or you can download it from the link included in the TechIMO Forum post. It sounds daunting, but the actual process is not that bad.

Neowin has details on the current Microsoft internal schedule for Longhorn, the next major release of Windows. Their report says the first beta release is due on May 25, with a second beta on October 12. The internal schedules say the product will release to manufacturing on May 24, 2006, almost exactly one year after the first beta.

Take all the dates with a shovel full of salt, of course. But regardless, I know what I’ll be doing for about a year when I get back from vacation on May 23!

Update: Steven Bink has a slightly different set of dates.

John J. Fried is a syndicated columnist for Knight-Ridder. In his most recent column, he offers a piece of popular advice that I think is completely misguided. In response to a question from a read who complains that his computer is slow, he writes: 

Even if you treat your PC with kid gloves, delete temporary files of all sorts, defragment, uninstall programs rather than delete them, keep viruses and spyware off the system and update drivers and programs, it is still likely the PC will turn on you.

Endless wanderings on the Internet, the installation and uninstallation of programs and the addition and removal of devices, among many other things, take their toll on the Registry and other crucial files as unavoidable errors in them crop up and multiply.

 As much as you hate to hear it, what you should do every 12 to 18 months is wipe the record clean by reformatting the hard drive and reinstalling Windows and all your programs.

In fairness to Mr. Fried, he’s not the only one who believes this. For what it’s worth, I completely disagree.

If you’re experiencing a problem with Windows, there is likely a specific cause for it. Usually that cause is an unsigned driver or a program you installed. It might be an unrelated hardware problem. Whatever the cause, the best thing you can do is track down the actual cause of the problem so that you can fix it. If you simply blow everything away and start over, the most likely thing that will happen is that sooner or later (probably sooner), you’ll reinstall the driver or program that caused the original problem, and you’re right back where you started from.

The logical flaw in this advice is that installing and uninstalling software and devices causes “unavoidable errors” in Windows. No, it doesn’t. Installing a buggy driver (usually one that’s unsigned) can cause errors, as can poorly written programs and uninstallation routines that leave system files behind. But none of these errors are “unavoidable.”

I watched the Bill Gates keynote at the Consumer Electronics Show last night. Well, most of it, anyway. The high-speed feed had a little trouble keeping up with the demand, so I occasionally lost the picture. But I saw a few things I liked, and Conan O’Brien was a good foil for Gates, better than Jay Leno.

Joe Wilcox at Microsoft Monitor has the best high-level summary of what the various announcements all mean. Read Microsoft CES: Clarifying the Message for the details.

One quibble with Joe’s otherwise-excellent report. He writes, “Apple’s iTunes supports MP3 better than WMP 10, which requires third-party MP3 encoder support to rip to the format.”

This is not true. A basic installation of WMP 10 includes full support for the MP3 format at bit rates of up to 320K with no additional software required, either from Microsoft or third parties. The default format is WMA, but it takes one click in a dialog box to choose MP3 as the default format.

Update: I sent a note to Joe, and after we exchanged a few e-mails he edited his original report.

By the way, Microsoft announced that there have been 90 million downloads of Windows Media Player 10 in less than four months. That’s a staggering number. To put it into perspective: The folks at Mozilla.org are justifiably proud that they had 15 million downloads of Firefox in just under two months. And no one is questioning that Firefox is an enormous hit and a big story.

As long as I’m sticking my toe into the Mac waters… I ran across this post from Jeffrey Zeldman today, which explains how users of Mac OS X can safely update to the latest version of their OS. (In other words, install the latest Mac service pack.)

Apple’s 10.3.6 update to OS X Panther worked wonderfully well for many users. But it created problems for many others, including slow startups, bizarre internet connection delays, and the sudden failure of networked drives.

Apple has just solved that problem by introducing version 10.3.7, which unfortunately creates problems for some users including slow startups, bizarre internet connection delays, and the sudden failure of networked drives. Oops.

The recommended procedure for installing this service pack … er, update involves the following steps:

• Use a third-party tool to delete all cached fonts
• Use another third-party tool to “repair permissions, run cron scripts, prebind the system, and clean system, user, and internet caches”
• Run a full backup
• Turn off all third-party startup items and
• Remove all external hard drives from the desktop

At that point, you’re ready to perform the update. Apparently you need to hold your breath and face Cupertino while you do this, because after the update is complete you have to delete the font caches again, use that third-party tool to do all those bizarre techie tasks, slowly bring back the third-party startup items, and then…

After working with the Mac for a while without experiencing problems, run another full backup.

OK, can anyone explain how this is less complex for the average person than installing Service Pack 2 for Windows XP?

Over at eHomeUpgrade, Will Wagner indulges in a little science project: How-To: Boot Windows XP Off a Compact Flash Card.

This article describes how I was able to get BeyondTV Link, a .Net application, running Windows XP Home using an inexpensive compact flash card. As a disclaimer, please note that your mileage may vary when doing this procedure so please don’t blame me if things go badly, your spouse leaves you, and/or your dog bites you as a result of this article.

He started out trying to boot from a USB flash drive and decided it couldn’t be done. Sounds like a challenge. Anyone want to try?

If you set up multiple PCs regularly, it’s useful to have a single CD that can install Windows and the most recent service pack. The Elder Geek has crystal-clear instruction on how to create your own Slipstreamed Windows XP CD Using SP2. Works like a charm.