After suffering two days of embarrassing gaffes, Microsoft said the new version of the videotape was produced in the presence of government lawyers and computer experts.
The tape of Microsoft Senior Vice President James Allchin performing the test was scheduled to be played in court this afternoon.
"I think that we've been able to resolve once and for all any questions about the videotape production," said Microsoft spokesman Mark Murray.
The videotape presentation that backfired in court this week was intended to support Allchin's testimony that a program devised by a Princeton University computer scientist to turn off the company's Web browser degraded the performance of Windows.
The issue is key to the government's allegation that Microsoft welded the Web browsing software, Internet Explorer, into Windows to crush competition from Netscape's rival browser. Microsoft argues Windows 98 is a single integrated product created to offer consumers better technology, not to foil competition.
Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson scolded Allchin yesterday after the witness acknowledged the videotape might not accurately represent the tests he had previously performed in the laboratory.
"It certainly casts doubt on the reliability--on the entire reliability--of the video demonstration," Jackson said then. "It's very troubling, Mr. Allchin. I'd feel much better if you made the tests yourself."
"I did in the laboratory test," Allchin said. "But that is not what I am seeing here," the judge replied.
Allchin had conceded under cross-examination that the videotape may have depicted more than one computer instead of a single machine during the four-minute segment. The videotape showed the disappearance of one of nine desktop icons, indicating more than one machine was being used to film the demonstration. The icons appear on the initial screen users see when they turn on their computers.
"The demonstration certainly didn't turn out as it was intended," Allchin sheepishly told the judge.
Allchin, nevertheless, stood by the substance of his testimony: removing Internet Explorer impairs the operation of Windows.
Lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department and 19 states have argued that Microsoft violated antitrust laws in part by combining its Internet browser program with its Windows operating system merely to trample competitors.