The company is integrating its Internet Explorer browser and Microsoft Network content into its Windows operating system, a process that will culminate with the "Active Desktop" planned for Windows 97, due out in a few months.

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Finally, new content options arrived from Netflix and Redbox, and we were smitten by Dish Explorer's second-screen solution.

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Under the contracts, content providers featured on the "Channel Bar" of Microsoft's Internet Explorer browser were required to promote the Microsoft browser exclusively on their main Internet pages.

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Microsoft wanted to persuade leading Internet content providers--including the Disney, Intuit and National Geographic websites--to side with Explorer.

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We spent a few minutes poking around Explorer, and the app seemed to work well, with an intuitive structure and useful added content, such as a Rotten Tomatoes rating atop each film's cover art.

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