The government filing included revealing depositions from two Microsoft executives who said they had decided to press ahead with the development of the company's Windows 98 operating system and ``not think about'' a troubling court order issued last December.

That court order said Microsoft could not bundle its operating systems with its Web browsers. Instead, it had to offer computer makers an alternate version.

Microsoft decided to do something about that December order this week. The company on Tuesday asked a US court of appeals to stay the application of the order to Windows 98.

The justice department argued Microsoft had known about the problem for five months and could have acted long ago.

In any event, the government argued, Microsoft should have asked the lower court judge -- who originallyissued the injunction -- to solve the problem before it went to a higher court.

``The only responsible course would have been for Microsoft to seek the district court's guidance,'' the justice department argued. ``To this day, however, Microsoft has failed to discharge this responsibility.''

The justice department said Microsoft is trying to gain a tactical advantage by filing in the appellate court and wants to present the court ``with the fait accompli of Windows 98 implemented without regard to the district court's order.''

To buttress its views, the justice department included excerpts from two depositions.

Those depositions could be used in a new and unrelated case that may be filed within days by the justice department and more than a dozen states.The state and federal governments may charge Microsoft with violating the Sherman Act, which is aimed at preventing monopolies from unfair competition practices.

In a deposition taken on March 19 at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond, Washington,company vice president James Allchin told a lawyer for Texas -- one of the states in the investigation -- that the company was stunned by the December order.

``We had a meeting to review the judge's order and when it touched Windows 98 for the first time, his last paragraph there was very broad and sweeping, which stunned us,'' Allchin told the Texas attorney.

Allchin was referring to the last paragraph of US district judge Thomas Penfield Jackson's December 11, 1997, preliminary injunction.

Jackson ordered the company to ``cease and desist'' from licensing ``Windows 95 or any successor version thereof'' to computer makers on condition that they also ``license and preinstall ... Microsoft Internet browser software.''

Allchin said the Microsoft people decided, ``We're not going to think about it because it's so hypothetical about what we should or could do.''

Instead, the company forged ahead, as another deposition showed. Justice department attorney David Boies -- an outside lawyer retained by thedepartment -- questioned Microsoft group vice president Paul Maritz on April 3.

Boies asked whether Microsoft chief executive Bill Gates was in on the decision to move ahead on Windows 98 in the face of Jackson's December decision.

``In the weeks following the judge's decision, Jim (Allchin) and I made a determination to continue with Windows 98 development and I don't recall that being questioned in any way by Bill Gates,'' Maritz said.

Microsoft appealed Jackson's preliminary injunction on December 16, asking the higher court to overturn it. Written and oral arguments ended last month, but the appellate court has yet to issue a decision.

In its filing on Tuesday, Microsoft said that when it decided to appeal it did not know when it might be releasing Windows 98 and so it made no arguments about the new product.