Hehe, I know you understand it just fine, Daedalus. Most of us guys that are in the business know full well this will never fly. It may make sense on MS's part - crush the other OS's, but on the hardware vendor end it's an absolutely ludicrous though.
Wasn't wagging my finger at you in the least, the amount of press that 10+ year old tech is causing is just staggering. Everyone pulling the "Big Brother" quotes out of the hat seemingly won't even look into the tech behind this, lol.
I am not apologist for Microsoft, and they have done a lot of terrible anti-competitive things, but the idea they would pull this and the vendors would go along with it is absolutely preposterous.
MS cracks a fart in Europe, the trade commissions get uptight over there and start investigating them - rightly so, based on past MS business practices. MS aren't stupid enough to push this - if they were they might as well earmark a few hundred million dollars for the anti-trust settlements that will most assuredly follow.