Software giant Microsoft is reportedly facing the European Union's biggest ever anti-trust fine.

As well as fining Microsoft, EU Competition Commissioner Mario Monti is expected to set limits on its practice of bundling software and services in with its Windows operating system, which is an important part of the software firm's commercial strategy.

Leaks circulating in Brussels after that meeting suggested the fine would be 497m euros, according to both the Reuters and Dow Jones news agencies.

The EU's investigation has found Microsoft to be an "abusive monopolist" which has skewed the market for audiovisual software to the detriment of its rivals.

Reports say Microsoft will be forced to share proprietary details of its Windows software with rivals, making it easier for them to tailor their products to run on it.

Windows-XP has a "feature" (???) with which it is possible to manually crash a system by simply holding the right CTRL key and pressing the "Scroll Lock" key twice. This feature can be turned on by the following steps:

1. Start regedit. (If you are unfamiliar with regedit, please refer to this FAQ)
2. Navigate to:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\i8042prt\Parameters
3. Create a new DWORD value and name it CrashOnCtrlScroll
4. Right-click on this newly created value and click on Modify
5. Enter 1 in the Value data field and click on OK.
6. Close regedit and reboot your system.
7. Now you can blue screen (crash) your system by holding the right CTRL key and pressing "Scroll Lock" twice.

Microsoft has broken European Union antitrust law and must face sanctions, according to a draft decision expected to win endorsement on Monday from an advisory committee of the 15 EU states.

EU regulators have found that the world's biggest software company has refused to halt its violations. Since continuing settlement talks have produced no deal, the ruling sets out detailed plans to impose changes.

First, Microsoft tried to hurt rival makers of audiovisual software by bundling its own Windows Media Player with its ubiquitous operating system, the sources say.

Microsoft says Windows Media Player is an inherent part of the operating system and cannot be stripped out. RealNetworks used demonstrations at an EU hearing to argue it can be.

Software firm Lindows said that it has been threatened with a €100,000 per day fine if people in Luxembourg, Belgium and the Netherlands attempt to access its site.

The request to levy the fine was made to a court by Microsoft.

The CEO of the firm said that as it was impossible to comply with a broad court order blocking visitors from Benelux, and so Lindows has withdrawn its products from these markets.

Microsoft argues that Lindows, a graphical version of the Linux OS, is similar to its own non-Linux Windows, and users might get confused between the one and the other.

Microsoft has been mailing free copies of its pricey Office productivity software to government employees, but CNET News.com has learned that at least two federal agencies are warning recipients to return the gifts or risk violating federal ethics policies.

Since the launch of Office 2003 last year, Microsoft has given out tens of thousands of free copies of its flagship software, which retails for about $500, to workers at its biggest customers. The giveaway was expanded to government workers this year, but ethics offices at the Department of the Interior and Department of Defense have said the offers constitute unauthorized gifts and must be returned.

The Department of the Army went a step further, calling on Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates to stop sending the software to Army personnel.

"Not every government organization, as we're learning, finds it to be a valuable program," Hodson said. "We would like to think that there will be a variety of government organizations that will find value in the program."

Microsoft is writing to software developers to warn that some of its programs will not work on Windows XP after the new service pack is introduced.

It has asked developers to test out their software on the beta of Service Pack 2, because it is pretty sure that some will not work.

The Redmond Giant said that this was because the new service pack is designed to enhance security and some of the older applications were simply full of holes.

Tony Goodhew of Microsoft said: "It may surprise some of the developers that we are changing some defaults, and that may affect the way some of the older applications run."

He added that applications that don't work on SP 2 are insecure. SP 2 will focus on browsing security, memory protection, network protection and email security.

The SCO Group filed lawsuits this week against DaimlerChrysler and AutoZone, but the Unix seller's attorneys also had prepared a complaint against Bank of America, according to a document.

A Microsoft Word document of SCO's suit against DaimlerChrysler, seen by CNET News.com, originally identified Bank of America as the defendant instead of the automaker. This revision and others in the document can be seen through powerful but often forgotten features in Microsoft Word known as invisible electronic ink.

A feature in the word-processing software tracks changes to documents, who made those changes, and when they were made. These notations typically are invisible to someone reading a Word document. But as some lawyers, businesspeople and politicians have learned the hard way, Word can also display so-called metadata in the document--including the original version and all subsequent changes. This information is available by viewing the document under "original showing markup" or "final showing markup."

BEIJING, FEB 27: For years, China has been trying to end Microsoft Corp.'s monopoly on its computers. It has tried to develop its own operating system. It has appealed to the patriotism of consumers. Now, it is turning to the law.

"When the government purchasing law comes out, Linux will win a piece of the market," said Fang Xingdong, chairman of China Laboratory, an independent software consulting firm. "Of course, the party that will be most affected will be Microsoft."

"If a software program is dominant for a long time, it's harmful for the development of the software industry," said Li Wuqiang of the Ministry of Science and Technology.

Dan Geer lost his job, but gained his audience. The very idea that got the computer security expert fired has sparked serious debate in information technology. The idea, borrowed from biology, is that Microsoft has nurtured a software "monoculture" that threatens global computer security.

After he argued in a paper published last fall that the monoculture amplifies online threats, Geer was fired by security firm @stake, which has had Microsoft as a major client.

In biology, species with little genetic variation -- or "monocultures" -- are the most vulnerable to catastrophic epidemics. Species that share a single fatal flaw could be wiped out by a virus that can exploit that flaw. Genetic diversity increases the chances that at least some of the species will survive every attack.

Neowin has learned of shocking and potentially devastating news. It would appear that two packages are circulating on the internet, one being the source code to Windows 2000, and the other being the source code to Windows NT. At this time, it is hard to establish whether or not full code has leaked, and this will undoubtedly remain the situation until an attempt is made to compile them. Microsoft are currently unavailable for comment surrounding this leak so we have no official response from them at the time of writing.

This leak is a shock not only to Neowin, but to the wider IT industry. The ramifications of this leak are far reaching and devastating. This reporter does not wish to be sensationalist, but the number of industries and critical systems that are based around these technologies that could be damaged by new exploits found in this source code is something that doesn't bare thinking about.