Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court in Washington handed Microsoft a virtual victory:

a federal judge yesterday approved the company's antitrust settlement with the Justice Department and rejected virtually all of the stiffer sanctions sought by a coalition of state attorneys general. The ruling brought at least a temporary close to the landmark case filed nearly five years ago.

"While putting new responsibilities on Microsoft, this settlement also gives us the freedom to keep innovating for our customers," Microsoft's chairman, Bill Gates, said at a news conference at the company's headquarters in Redmond, Wash. "We're pleased to put another step of this case behind us."

Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court in Washington did impose some new obligations on Microsoft that were not included in the settlement last November, requiring the software maker to disclose more information to competitors about its Windows operating system and to install a compliance committee made up of Microsoft board members.

But taking a narrow view of the case, the judge imposed few new restrictions that would slow Microsoft's aggressive push into new markets.

She largely dismissed the contention by nine states that broader restrictions on Microsoft were necessary to restore competition in the computer software industry. Instead, Judge Kollar-Kotelly criticized the states for suggesting that Microsoft should be punished for actions beyond those a federal appeals court found it liable for last year.

"This suit, however remarkable, is not the vehicle through which plaintiffs can resolve all existing allegations of anticompetitive conduct which have not been proved or for which liability has not been ascribed," Judge Kollar-Kotelly wrote.

When the federal government and 20 states filed their sweeping antitrust suit against Microsoft in May 1998, the company dominated the personal computer business and was aggressively moving into the markets for software for hand-held computers, cellphones, television set-top boxes and data-serving computers.

More than four years later, little has changed. And there is little in yesterday's ruling on sanctions in the case by Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly of Federal District Court in Washington that will slow down the big software maker.

By endorsing most of the Bush administration's settlement with Microsoft, reached last year, the judge adopted a fairly narrow view of the case and showed a reluctance to meddle in Microsoft's business practices and product designs. She rejected calls by nine dissenting states seeking tougher measures, like requiring Microsoft to offer a stripped-down version of its Windows operating system or to publish freely the programming code for its Internet browser.

In doing so, Judge Kollar-Kotelly chided the plaintiff states, writing that some of the proposed remedies appeared to be intended "simply for the sake of changing the status quo." In a passage that echoed Microsoft's complaint that its legal problems were the work of its rivals, she wrote: "Certain of Microsoft's competitors appear to be those who most desire these provisions."

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