> Which is hilarious, because where else is your core HTTP fetching DLL, your core HTML parsing DLL, etc, going to go otherwise?
Microsoft insisted that the OS needed the internet explorer executable, not only the rendering engine components. You couldn't even run windows update without it opening IE - in order to load a native ActiveX component that then performed the work. They where desperate to make everything depend on IE without a plan of how to make good use of it, which shouldn't be surprising, back then any complex use of IE would have blue screened the entire system.
> vindicating Microsoft's technical decision.
Imagine a ChromeOS based on IE5 and tell me why I shouldn't break down in hysterical laughter just thinking about it.
