In January we blogged about our plan to distribute IE8 via Automatic Update/Windows Update (for simplicity, we'll refer to this as Automatic Update for the rest of this blog post). This post provides some additional information about how users and administrators are in control of browser upgrades.
Last week, we released IE8 via Automatic Update to users still running pre-release versions of IE8 (Beta 2 or Release Candidate 1). The goal was to make sure users who chose to install IE8 have the latest up-to-date version.
Starting on or about the third week of April, users still running IE6 or IE7 on Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows Server 2003, or Windows Server 2008 will get will get a notification through Automatic Update about IE8. This rollout will start with a narrow audience and expand over time to the entire user base. On Windows XP and Server 2003, the update will be High-Priority. On Windows Vista and Server 2008 it will be Important.
IE8 will not automatically install on machines. Users must opt-in to install IE8. Users will see a Welcome screen that offers choices: Ask later, install now, or don’t install.
Users who decline the automatic update can still download it from http://www.microsoft.com/ie8 or from Windows Update as an optional update. For more information about the Automatic Update experience, see Jane Maliouta’s blog post from January 6th.
If an organization uses Automatic Update to keep Windows up-to-date but wants to manage its own deployment of IE8, a free Blocker Toolkit is available that will block automatic delivery of IE8. This blocker toolkit was released in January 2009 and has no expiration date. For more information, please review the information for IT administrators at the Windows Update/Microsoft Update site on TechNet, as well as the Blocker Toolkit FAQ. Organizations that wish to block the distribution of IE8 should have their blocking in place by the week of April 20th.
Organizations that use Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and Systems Management Server (SMS) can deploy IE8 in the same manner as they would deploy any other update. We will release IE8 to WSUS in July 2009; it will be classified as an Update Rollup and must be approved to install on groups of clients within the organization.
Eric Hebenstreit Lead Program Manager
PingBack from http://asp-net-hosting.simplynetdev.com/prepare-for-automatic-update-distribution-of-ie8/
Are you folks ever going to fix the wallpaper rendering bug that seems to occur when using XP, IE8 and setting the desktop to 'hide desktop icons?'
Whenever I do as much the wallpaper (that's normally stretched) reverts to its normal size, which is really aggravating.
It's actually the only thing keeping me from using IE8.
@benjamin: I've never heard of an issue there. Can you provide step-by-step instructions to reproduce this issue? thanks!
What behaviour will occur if a non-IE browser is set as default? Will IE take over if a user presses next until it goes away?
I know this is not the place to ask for help, but I couldn't find another way to contact the IE Team.
Since I installed IE8 the images in "Help and Support" are broken. I searched if anyone had the same problem but I found nothing.
Screenshot of the problem: http://img23.imageshack.us/img23/9321/vistahelp.png
Great move guys! And i'm saying this as web developer.
Congrats!
Kurzbeschreibung: Finalversion des Windows Internet Explorer 8 (kurz: IE8) für Windows XP. Der IE8 ist die Internet Explorer-Version von Microsoft, welche bislang Web-Standards in der Voreinstellung am besten unterstützt. Dessen Installation ist somit
Will some of the anoying slow addon issues be solved by then ? Any info from 3rd party addon makers on that (or even from the MS Office team)?
Will IE8 be updated prior to automatic update to overcome any issues found since it's release (for instance not being able to handle large amount of entries on the restricted sites list) ?
Are you going to fix the problem i have with ie8 when i view a certain Myspace profile that has lots of videos and pictures, and i scroll down the page, ie8 pauses for about 10 seconds, then scrolls down the page.
I don't think my pc is slow because it's a p4 2.8ghz with 512mb ram and i closed antivirus and all other programs that were running.
When i visited the Myspace profile and pushed ctrl atl del and looked at my pc's performance, it said it was using 100% cpu usage and i only had 11000 K out of 515056 K Physical memory left.
The particular Myspace page that causes this high cpu and ram usage and delay in scrolling is located here:
profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewProfile&friendID=67483231
I reported both issues to microsoft using the "report a webpage problem"
add-on when i was using ie8 rc1, but this problem still exists in the final version of ie8.
You know what is worst for IE8 distribution?
"IE is not faster, it loads slow" blah blah from most of my users...
You know why? All problems are caused because all toolbars and extensions that are not compatible, that is left as legacy from upgrade IE6 or IE7.
For God's sake, please disable all toolbars, if possible, all AX extensions while installing.
And inform users for new versions of major toolbars like "Google"s...
IE8 is fast as hell, just users don't understand it because of such extensions.
ryan: chances are that's a combination of flash, javascript, and the amount of images on that page. I get a very huge pause waiting for that page to load simply because, the way it's constructed, it won't display the text content before it's loaded some of the images.
I'd also add that, barring a new computer (I'm not saying yours is slow, but it wouldn't have been classified as "fast" 5 years ago), you would probably find many things ran smoother if you could upgrade your RAM to 2 gigabytes. If you don't want to splash out on a new system this would be a very cost-effective upgrade.
And there is still no MUI for Windows XP version of IE8. "Great"
Le blog de MSDN vient d'apporter quelques précisions sur la distribution d'IE 8 dans les mises à jour automatiques, que ces mises à jour s'effectuent par une fonctionnalité de mise à jour automatique ou par Windows Update.
What is the reason for waiting until July to release to WSUS? If it's ready to be released by automatic updates, it should be in WSUS too.