EU Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes has ruled out a "friendly settlement" with Microsoft in the EU regulator's long-standing fight to force the US company to respect a 2004 antitrust ruling.

Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of a competition law conference at Fordham University in New York, the commissioner brushed aside Microsoft's criticism that Brussels has always chosen the path of conflict and refused to negotiate in the case.

"It's not about a friendly settlement, but respect for a decision by the commission imposed on Microsoft and which the company has to respect," she said on Thursday.

"That's why more than two years after our decision, Microsoft was still not respecting -- even though the (European) Court of Justice refused its request for suspension -- that I had to propose to the commission in July imposing daily fines," she said.

After a five-year investigation, Kroes's predecessor Mario Monti took the commission's biggest competition decision ever in March 2004 in ruling that Microsoft had broken European Union law by using a quasi-monopoly in personal computer operating systems to thwart rivals.

The European Commission levied a record fine of 497 million euros (631 million dollars) and ordered the company to sell a version of its Windows operating system without Media Player software and to divulge information on Windows needed by makers of rival products.

Although Microsoft has paid the fine, it has fought tooth-and-nail over the information it is supposed to reveal to competitors.

Frustrated with Microsoft's defiance, in July the Commission slapped on daily fines adding up to 280.5 million euros for failing to fully respect the 2004 antitrust ruling.