A civil lawsuit is likely to be filed against Microsoft over some of the features being built into Windows XP, says Gartner Group. In a research note published this week analysts Michael Silver and Thomas Bittman say that Microsoft's loosening of OEM licensing arrangements regarding IE is just "one more step" in the legal process, and that the government legal case is "far from over."

Gartner also says there's some chance of such a lawsuit delaying shipment of WinXP beyond Q4. Given the timescales, however, this would require a successful application for an injunction covering the same kind of territory as Judge Jackson's preliminary injunction over IE integration (that one was later overturned).

Essentially, this week's changes in the IE terms and conditions are relatively minor. OEM licensees will be allowed to remove the IE and MSN Explorer icons from the desktop, and from the start menu. Their rights here however simply go as far as being allowed to remove easy user access to IE, rather than to remove IE itself. Microsoft will be putting IE back in the add/remove programs routine, so the users will be able to take it out. But if they don't know it's there because the OEM has taken away access, why would they? Life's a puzzle, sometimes. The conditions for a new, civil lawsuit certainly exist, but who's going to mount it?