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Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker, is being probed by Taiwan's Fair Trade Commission after an activist group filed a complaint saying consumers are being forced to buy its Windows Vista operating system.

``We have received the complaint and are now conducting our own investigation, which may last around six months,'' Chou Ya- shu, the antitrust regulator's spokeswoman, said in a telephone interview today. Microsoft can face fines of as much as NT$25 million ($796,000) and be ordered to halt illicit practices if found guilty of fair-trade breaches, she said.

Sophia Chang, a spokeswoman for Microsoft in Taipei, denied the company forces people to buy Vista and declined to comment further on the case.

Microsoft should be fined for using its monopoly to force consumers to adopt Vista after the company ended sales of Windows XP in June, Taiwan's Consumer Foundation, a non-profit group, said in its complaint posted on its Web site on Aug. 15.

Microsoft, based in Redmond, Washington, stopped selling XP individually and pre-installing the operating system in most computers in June to spur Vista sales. Vista, which was released for consumers in January last year, requires more memory capacity and greater processing power than XP.

``It would be a very unusual and creative interpretation of antitrust law to say that a company is obliged to keep selling a product,'' said Brendon Carr, an attorney who advises multinational companies on antitrust issues at the law firm Hwang Mok Park in Seoul.

Demand For XP

The Consumer Foundation said its research showed 56 percent of consumers buying a computer with Vista would reinstall XP, while 67 percent oppose Microsoft ending the sale of the earlier operating system. Windows XP remains available preinstalled in some low-cost computers such as Acer Inc.'s Aspire One laptop.

Under Taiwan's Fair Trade Act, a company may not ``use incentives or other devious means to induce a business to alter a consumer's shopping choices,'' the foundation said in the statement.

``The Fair Trade Commission should fine Microsoft a large enough amount that would strip away its profits from selling Vista,'' the foundation said.

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