Microsoft Corp released its Service Pack 2 for the Visual Studio 6.0 set of software development tools yesterday, marking its compliance with the preliminary injunction won against it last November by Sun Microsystems Inc (CI No 3,541). The November 17 ruling ordered Microsoft to change all new products shipped so that they pass Sun compatibility tests within 90 days. Microsoft still has plenty of other tools to fix – it claims it has around 1,000 products affected by the ruling, and last year asked Judge Ronald Whyte’s court in San Jose for longer periods in which to comply, ranging from periods of 30 days to 90 days. The preliminary injunction ordered Microsoft to implement Sun’s Java Native Method Interface within its Java Virtual Machine, rather than use its own alternative interface and also required Microsoft to add dialog boxes to its tools to warn developers when they attempt to use Microsoft’s additional Windows-specific keywords and compiler directives that in Sun’s words, they will lock them into the Windows platform.
