August, 2004

We’ve just launched a new Community site for Internet Explorer to help support end users. This is linked from the main Internet Explorer page on www.microsoft.com . It includes links to other Internet Explorer sites, downloads and hints and tips. This site is focused on providing resources to end users but we also have sites with information for other parts of the wide audience for Internet Explorer: Resources for developers at the Internet Explorer Developers Center on MSDN Resources for the IT...

There have been some questions about how pop-up blocking works in XPSP2 in the comments. Jeff Davis , one of the IE developers who worked on this feature in XPSP2, has put together a post ( http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffdav/archive/2004/08/25/220737.aspx ) that gives more details on what we consider a user initiated click. If you want to get better sense for how it works, please take a read through his latest entry - mouseDown + mouseUp = click . Thanks. Scott

I have noticed going through the comments for our entries, that some people have started posting comments that are specific asks for help with IE issues. This blog is not focused on being a support forum, but we will try to help people as we can. If you are looking for more expedient and focused help please see the Microsoft Internet Explorer Support page - http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/support/default.mspx . Also please use the Contact link ( http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/contact.aspx ) as mechanism...

My name is Bruce Morgan, and I am another one of the development managers on the IE team. I manage the developers who work on the User Experience of IE – the UI and related infrastructure. I spend most of my time focused on the features “outside the rectangle” of the page the user is browsing, such as Favorites, History, the “Internet Options” dialog, and the like. Essentially, John is focused on security and platform issues, Dave is on web developer issues, and I’m all about the end-user feature...

As we recently shipped security update MS04-025, I thought it would be good to talk about the testing coverage that we do for each security update. Testing is about risk management, and we have to make judgments about where to invest heavily in testing and where to invest less in testing to achieve the highest quality IE when we release. Code change is one main driver of this (test where the code is changing), but another important part of the process is to understand the larger landscape of what...

As we’ve been posting we’ve been mentioning our titles, but we haven’t really explained what those titles mean or what we do on the IE team, so I thought I’d explain. Like many Microsoft product teams, there are three primary job functions that are dedicated to IE: Development, Test, and Program Management. In addition to these roles, we have key members of our virtual team who are shared with other parts of the Windows organization; these are jobs like SDK Writer, Localizer, Designer, Product Manager...

The comments system for blogs.msdn.com was recently upgraded and the default was changed to block automatic posting of comments. I have changed it back, which means all comments should show up without having to be published and I also published any comments that were pending. Scott

Channel 9 has just released a video where Dean discusses the exciting challenge of leading the Internet Explorer team. It’s well worth watching this and all the other videos on Channel 9 which often give an understanding into the motivation behind the projects we undertake. For those of you who aren’t aware, Channel 9 was established by five guys at Microsoft to allow you to get an insight into Microsoft and as a forum for discussion. If you aren’t a member then join up, it does require an email...

Hi, I’m Tony Chor, the Group Program Manager for the Internet Explorer team. As you may know, we’ve been working hard on IE for Windows XP Service Pack 2, and we signed off on it last week. You can get a very detailed description of the changes on MSDN. (This is lovingly referred to internally as the Book of Springboard – Springboard was the codename for XP SP2.) However, I thought I’d give a high level description of the kinds of changes we made and why. First, as with any project, we set our goals...