Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer once dismissed antitrust concerns by declaring, famously, that the company was within its rights to put anything it wanted into Windows -- even a ham sandwich. If that's the case, Microsoft's Windows 7 news today was the equivalent of adding an à la carte section to menu.

[Update: See correction of quote here.]

The Windows team acknowledged on its blog that it will be giving Windows 7 users the ability to switch off Internet Explorer as a feature. The post confirmed reports from earlier this week. But it went further to explain that "off" switches have also been added for features and programs including Windows Media Player, Windows DVD Maker, Windows Media Center, Windows Search, and the XPS Viewer and Services.

Officially, Microsoft says that the new removal options are meant to add "more control, flexibility and choice in managing the features available in this version of Windows." But if that list reads like a roster of potential antitrust targets, it's no coincidence.

Windows 7 was still taking shape in September 2007 when the European Court of First Instance rejected Microsoft's appeal of the European Commission's crackdown on its bundling of Windows Media Player into the dominant operating system.

That ruling gave the European Commission new firepower against Microsoft and others -- which the commission is now using as it pursues the Redmond company over its bundling of Internet Explorer with Windows, a practice that Opera Software contends gives the Microsoft browser an unfair advantage over its rivals.

Microsoft said in a regulatory filing in January that one possible punishment could be a requirement "to disable certain unspecified Internet Explorer software code if a user chooses a competing browser." In that context, the new ability to easily switch Internet Explorer off in Windows 7 makes a lot of sense, as a practical matter.

What's more interesting is the addition of the "off" switch for all those other programs. Simply making the additional programs removable may not, by itself, prevent antitrust claims against the company. However, the move could at least make it easier for Microsoft to comply with any future ruling that an emboldened European Commission might hand down.