The European Commission sent a statement of objections which does not prejudge the final outcome of the investigation, informing Microsoft of its preliminary view that Microsoft has failed to comply with its commitments to offer users a choice screen enabling them to easily choose their preferred web browser.

The European Commission takes the preliminary view that Microsoft has failed to roll out the browser choice screen with its Windows 7 Service Pack 1, which was released in February 2011, in a statement of objections sent to this US company. From February 2011 until July 2012, millions of Windows users in the EU may not have seen the choice screen. Microsoft has acknowledged that the choice screen was not displayed during that period.

The Commission concluded that Microsoft's commitments would remedy its competition concerns and made the commitments legally binding on Microsoft in December 2009. However the Commission had opened proceedings to investigate the potential non-compliance with the browser choice commitments on 16 July 2012. The European Institution informed now to Microsoft of its preliminary view that Microsoft has failed to comply with its commitments.

In 2009, Microsoft specifically committed to make available for five years (i.e. until 2014) in the European Economic Area a "choice screen" enabling users of Windows to choose in an informed and unbiased manner which web browser(s) they wanted to install in addition to, or instead of, Microsoft's web browser. The choice screen was provided as of March 2010 to European Windows users who have Internet Explorer set as their default web browser.