had been consumer satisfaction. In fact, by forbidding OEMs to remove the most obvious means of invoking Internet Explorer, Microsoft diminished the value of Windows PC systems to those corporate customers, for example, who did not intend for their employees to browse the Web and did not want a browser taking up hardware resources. Incidentally, there is no merit in the hypothesis that OEMs might cause problems in the functioning of the rest of Windows by removing Internet Explorer's desktop icon and program entry, because Microsoft still allows users to do exactly that. 223.  According to Microsoft, its restrictions on the ability of OEMs to insert programs into the initial Windows boot sequence are meant to ensure that all Windows users experience the product the way Microsoft intended it the first time they turn on their PC systems; after all, there would be little incentive to develop a high-quality operating-system product if OEMs were free to alter it for the worse before handing it over to consumers. This argument might be availing were it not for the fact that Microsoft currently allows several of the largest-volume OEMs to make major modifications to the initial Windows 98 boot sequence. Microsoft permits each of these OEMs to configure its own splash screens, tutorials, registration wizards, Internet sign-up wizards, and utilities so that they run automatically when the consumer first turns on a new PC system. Either Microsoft stopped caring about the consistency of the Windows experience in 1998, when it tempered its