Was the requirement of "scripts to control installation" ever tested in court?

Exactly. If you buy a new PC and it happens to have Windows 8.1 on it, you can just skip the Windows Store and use it as if it were Windows 7. I don't understand some people's insistence on a downgrade, especially because there's no big change in driver model like there was between Windows XP and Windows Vista.

I agree with you so long as a device is not connected to the Internet. I still run a game console made in the late 1980s, for instance. Devices connected to the Internet, on the other hand, are subject to attacks that were not foreseen prior to EOL.

One useful metric is how long one can get security updates without having to pay. By this metric, GNU/Linux distributions have only one "version" because users can upgrade from one major version to the next without charge. Someone who jumped into Ubuntu in the Hardy Heron era (mid-2008) and who has followed LTS releases can be running Trusty Tahr by now for the cost of bandwidth.

No, but I'm trying to give Microsoft the benefit of the doubt for a moment. This way I can get fallacies out of the way so that others can post the clearest reasons they know of for holding Microsoft responsible for wrongdoing.

I understand that. I have in the past made a combinatorial argument that only 105 million distinct 8-note melodic hooks exist, and I currently maintain a list of similar-sounding musical compositions. I just wonder what steps a visual artist, songwriter, or any other author should take to reduce his legal exposure.

Because Windows operating systems have a finite life cycle. Mainstream support will end three years earlier for Windows 7 than for Windows 8, as will extended support.

If this "side channel" does not allow the user to install a modified version of the work on at least some device, then it does not include "scripts used to control [...] installation of the executable" and is thus not "complete source code".

Apple should care about the misuse of its own trademarks because of the threat that they'll become no longer distinctive.

That might be true of Windows RT, but Windows 8.1 with Classic Shell is just as ready for production as Windows 7.

Google barnes noble nook windows 7 led me to this app that works on Windows XP, Windows Vista, and Windows 7. What do you mean by "proper"?

Let's remember that cell phones with quad-core processors can be docked to Bluetooth keyboards and HDMI displays these days. So to a first approximation, what makes it a general-purpose computer is whether the device's owner can make and run programs for it, as programming is a "purpose". A lot of popular devices do not qualify as general-purpose computers if the user hasn't paid a recurring fee for a developer license.

Who starts such companies?

Actually, blaming Clinton for the Digital Millennium Copyright Act and the Copyright Term Extension Act happens fairly often here on Slashdot, and it's bullcrap. Both bills were bipartisan and passed both houses through voice vote. Under the US Constitution, a voice vote needs greater than four-fifths assent, which is well over the two-thirds needed to override a presidential veto. So instead, I blame MPAA members' ownership of the news media.

But that's neither here nor there. I brought up the United States v. Microsoft wrist slap only as a contrast between antitrust penalties against Microsoft in the United States and those in the European Union. So long as there's at least one major market willing to prosecute Microsoft for anticompetitive conduct, Microsoft has to avoid the appearance of anticompetitive conduct.

I thought it involved ensuring that anybody possessing a usable copy can make and distribute usable and modifiable copies to other users, and Apple doesn't let app developers ensure this.

There's plenty of non-copylefted open source software in the Wii Menu, Internet Channel, and Wii Shop Channel. Nintendo's SDK license appears to just forbid use of copylefted software. If you want, I can hook up my Wii console and find exactly how to open the list of copyright notices for the non-copylefted open source libraries used in the Wii system software.