Microsoft source code to go on state display

Microsoft is to be forced to open up its source code to the nine remaining states still pressing for more severe censorship of the company in the long-running antitrust trial against it.

Last week the US states requested a chance to look at the source code, to be able to verify whether it would be possible for Microsoft to offer a stripped down version, without features such as the browser and media player bundled in.

Microsoft maintains the applications are "features" of the operating system - fully integrated, and impossible to disentangle.

It argued it did not need to prove this by showing the states the source code.

However the presiding judge in the trial Colleen Kollar-Kotelly ruled late on Friday that Microsoft must show the source code, allowing the states to test whether it will be possible to unbundle the applications.

The nine states say the settlement reached in January between Microsoft and the US government does not go far enough in censuring the company's anti-competitive behaviour.