It may be too little, too late though.

[link|http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/20/technology/20soft.html?hp|NY Times]:

The federal government and the states were planning to file a joint status report by midnight on Tuesday in the consent decree proceedings that outlined the changes Microsoft would be making to Vista. State and federal lawyers were exchanging drafts of the report Tuesday evening. They said they had reached agreement on a remedy, although there was still some disagreement over the report\ufffds language. The disagreement reflected tensions between the Justice Department, which initially sided with Microsoft in the dispute, and some of the states, which have supported Google and advocated a more aggressive stance.

Richard Blumenthal, the Connecticut attorney general, said Tuesday evening that he had not decided whether Connecticut would sign on to the settlement, although most of the other states were comfortable with the agreement. He said that he was continuing to press the Justice Department to permit Google and other competitors of Microsoft to participate in a hearing on the matter next week. He added that as a result of pressure from the states, the Bush administration had taken a position closer to that of the states that found merit in Google\ufffds complaint.

[...]

The settlement closes another contentious chapter in the long-running antitrust proceedings involving Microsoft, which have been marked by tension between federal and state prosecutors.

In a letter sent to state prosecutors early last month, Thomas O. Barnett, the Justice Department\ufffds top antitrust lawyer, had urged the rejection of Google\ufffds complaint, state officials said. Google had circulated a white paper outlining its complaint to federal and state prosecutors a few weeks earlier.

But the Justice Department reversed course after state attorneys general reacted angrily to Mr. Barnett\ufffds letter and said they would proceed against Microsoft without the Justice Department. The change in position was a rare recent instance in which the Justice Department\ufffds antitrust division toughened its position in response to pressure from the states.

[...]


Even if everyone's on board now, it only takes a "Security Update" to break the "solution" - as users of OS/2 for Windows no doubt recall.

"It looks like you're searching for a file. Running a 3rd party search application is a security risk. Should I run Microsoft Search instead? YES cancel"

Cheers,
Scott.