I thought i would post to try to clear things up
First, im so sick of people bashing microsoft. If microsoft includes java in windows, people say microsoft is using there desktop monopoly to hurt sun. If microsoft removes java, people say microsoft is acting like a little kid that didn't get it's way. No matter what microsoft does, people bitch, and im sick of it.
Second, after Dec 31, 2003, microsoft cannot include any form of java in any new operating systems. This is because sun sued microsoft, and microsoft settled because they were sick of sun trying to beat microsoft in the legal system, rather than the market place. If you want to bitch about microsoft removing java, bitch to sun. Microsoft can still distribute java security fixes, but only until 2008, after which microsoft will not distribute java in any form. Again, this is what sun wanted.
Java will be in xp sp1. Every windows version other than xp has java included in the os, so if you upgrade to xp you'll still have java. The only reason why you would want to download java, is for troubleshooting. However like has been previously mentioned, you can download java at any site searching google. It's not that big of a deal.
The only thing i can see that microsoft did wrong, was they yanked java without any notice. It would have been nice if they would have given people a week notice, but hey that's life.
Isn't it nice to have someone just post the facts, rather than tirades against microsoft
If i wanted to read rants against microsoft, i would have gone to slashdot.org.
-gosh