09-04-2002, 11:00 AM
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Contributing Editor Emeritus
Join Date: Aug 2006
Posts: 8,228
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Pocket PCs banned in Greece!
http://news.com.com/2100-1040-956357.html?tag=fd_top
"The Greek government has banned all electronic games across the country, including those that run on home computers, on Game Boy-style portable consoles, and on mobile phones."
Pocket PCs, with contraband in their ROM in the form of Solitaire, a core part of the Windows operating system, would be subject to the ban. It is unknown at this point if Microsoft will remove Solitaire from the next Pocket PC or provide ROM upgrades with the popular handheld game removed. It is not really known if this is possible. Several times during the Microsoft Anti-Trust Trial, the courts tried to have Solitaire removed claiming it gave Microsoft an unfair advantage over its competitors that developed addictive card games, but failed each time. "We tried to remove SOL.EXE from the Windows operating system to demonstrate it could be done" said Jeff McQuirdy of OldCardGames.com which makes its own version of Solitaire "but when rebooted, the OS would give a bugcheck error. I guess it really is a critical part of the OS."
Thanks to Robert Litchfield for the link and the boneheads in the Greek legislature for passing this law. Now those of us in the United States can breathe a sigh of relief that we only have some of the dumbest laws on the books, but not the dumbest. 
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