San Francisco, June 20: Microsoft agreed to modify its Vista operating system to resolve Google’s complaints that the program’s design hurts competing search software in violation of a 2001 anti-trust settlement.

The accord, reached with the US Justice Department and state anti-trust regulators, addresses complaints by Google, owner of the world’s most-used internet search engine, that its desktop search program doesn’t perform properly on Vista.

Microsoft, the world’s biggest software maker, is barred under a consent decree from taking steps to disadvantage desktop software made by rival companies. The decree ended a government anti-trust suit.

The Justice Department and the states “are collectively satisfied that this agreement will resolve any issues the complaint may raise under the final judgments, provided that Microsoft implements it as promised,” the agency and the states said in a joint filing yesterday in the Washington court.

Microsoft will create a mechanism for customers and manufacturers to select a default program to handle desktop searches, and that application will be launched whenever a new window is opened to provide search results, the filing says

Vista will continue to display search results, and Microsoft will add a link that, if clicked, will launch the default desktop search program and display its results, the filing said.

A version of the changes will be available by year’s end, the filing says. Vista is the latest version of the Windows Operating System that runs on 95 per cent of the world’s personal computers.

Bureau Report

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