A European court on Wednesday upheld most of a massive fine levied against Microsoft by the European Commission's competition watchdog, closing a case against the software giant that began in 1998.

In an appeals ruling, the General Court of the European Union rejected Microsoft Corp.'s request to dismiss the fine levied in 2008, but did trim it by €39 million to €860 million ($1.1 billion). Counting two earlier fines, the case has wound up costing Microsoft a grand total of €1.64 billion.

That's the most ever resulting from a single antitrust case in Europe, though in 2009 Intel Corp. was hit with the largest single fine, €1.09 billion.

The court in Luxembourg said its decision "essentially upholds the Commission's decision and rejects all the arguments put forward by Microsoft in support of annulment."

The €860 million fine is a "penalty for noncompliance" with the watchdog's 2004 order for Microsoft to make computer programming code available that would allow competitors' products to interface properly with Microsoft's server software.