^ For those unfamiliar with what this poster is talking about.
tl;dr:
In a _beta_ release of windows 3.1 Microsoft included code to detect if the user was running authenticate DOS or a third-party clone and errored out if it wasn't the real thing. The code was disabled on for the actual release of 3.1 that went out to customers.
Internal memos about the code came to light during the government's antitrust prosecution of Microsoft. When this happened the new owner of the clone DOS system sued Microsoft and they settled to make the case go away and get the anti-trust headlines out of the news.
Clone isn’t quite the right term since Digital Research made the original CPM which Seattle Computing used as the basis for their 86-DOS which they sold to Microsoft:
^ For those unfamiliar with what this poster is talking about.
tl;dr:
In a _beta_ release of windows 3.1 Microsoft included code to detect if the user was running authenticate DOS or a third-party clone and errored out if it wasn't the real thing. The code was disabled on for the actual release of 3.1 that went out to customers.
Internal memos about the code came to light during the government's antitrust prosecution of Microsoft. When this happened the new owner of the clone DOS system sued Microsoft and they settled to make the case go away and get the anti-trust headlines out of the news.