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Update for Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP (KB928089) Windows Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2

IE7 will be re-released today with the following changes (note that these changes are Windows XP only

But not all localized version are updated... am I wrong?

Menu visible by default! - Wow, it only took a year to figure this one out!, its too late, but better than never.

PS There is a "new" potential security issue posted here:

http://www.xs-sniper.com/nmcfeters/IE7-Local-Software-Enum.html

Which talks about how IE6 & IE7 (and likely all versions before that, but they are EOL) expose what software is installed on the end users PC.

As noted on the site, although this isn't a *huge* security issue, it certainly is troubling.

Will this be fixed in Automatic Updates soon?

Victor

There has been a lot of talk about IE not showing respect to the development community by leaving them in the dark.  Now that comments are open on this blog again, can you please indicate what is being done to resolve this scenario?

Some Attention:

http://dmassy.com/details.aspx?Entry=16

IE Team Silence:

http://dmassy.com/details.aspx?Entry=15

More IE Comments:

http://www.arcanology.com/2007/09/28/more-ie-comments-from-dave-massy/

Internet Explorer 8.0: The silence is deafening:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=761

Openness and IE or "Talk to us!":

http://www.arcanology.com/2007/09/27/openness-and-ie-or-talk-to-us/

Where is the IE Team:

http://www.dmassy.com/details.aspx?Entry=3

Internet Explorer 8.0 - The silence:

http://bink.nu/news/internet-explorer-8-0-the-silence-is-deafening.aspx

A Request for the IE Team - Embrace the community:

http://blog.hackedbrain.com/archive/2004/11/09/229.aspx

IE8:

http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=344521

Internet Explorer 8.0 - The deafening silence:

http://internetexplorer8.org/

Hints at IE8:

http://internetexplorer8.org/?p=5

Outside of non-MS resources, there is no information about the development of IE8 available.

Shortcuts tips are fixed? Windows Explorer (XP) can now read ie7 mui files?

@ieframe.dll,-881 does not work in XP

but..

@ieframe.dll.mui,-881 work file

is it fixed?

Kurzbeschreibung: Finalversion des Internet Explorer 7 für Windows XP SP2. Siehe IE7-Homepage und die englischsprachigen Release Notes. Kurzfassung der Funktionen in der Pressemitteilung vom 31.10.2006. Weitere Hinweise vorwiegend für Webmaster und Pro

Why is the WGA policy changing?  Is Microsof trying to increase marketshare? Is a safe internet more important than preventing piracy?

You'll have to forgive those a little too passionate about the subject matter at hand who allow themselves to keep themselves from resorting to childish phrasing like Roger above.

However, the point remains valid. You haven't exactly kept the transparency going, instead keeping everyone almost entirely in the dark. The only exceptions I've found come in the form of patting yourselves on the back (like your post today) or letting us know you've patched yet another security bug.

My post from April on the subject still remains entirely valid, and I would very much appreciate it if you could take a look through. And not in a "please give me more hits" kind of way, but more in a "please communicate with developers" kind of way...some of the insane garbage left in this browser continually boggles my mind.

http://whyiesucks.blogspot.com/2007/04/four-steps-to-better-ie.html

Siehe http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.aspx

Bringing back the menu was an error!

You claim to listen to what your customers want - but fail to realise who your real customers really are; i.e. who to listen to!

Among many, they do not need nor care to argue with Linux/Mac etc fanatics.

For instance, upon the install of IE, get a dialogue - like for the phishing filter - and see the response of your true customers.

It's amazing how the company who designed the interface of Office 07, thinks menu's is the way forward.

The way I see it why Apple is successful! Just look at the new touch phone (bar some flaws) - a work of art.

Any half-inteligent person can easily press ALT for the Menu and permanently configure any menu as required! Most don't need it.

I had 10 mins to spare...

I find these two statements confusing, how do existing IE 7 customers get the new online tour if IE7 will not be updated with this feature via AU/MU?

"The Internet Explorer 7 online tour has updated how-to’s"

"If you are already running IE7, you will not be offered IE7 again by Automatic Updates"

Is the online tour a set of local files on a customer's PC or a link to a Microsoft site  that now features updated content?

I can't see anything new here.

There's a certain group of PC users who hate the Windows Genuine Advantage validation, in which Microsoft checks to make sure you're not running a pirated copy of Windows XP or Vista before allowing you to download software updates....

I agree with "Yours Truly" -- bringing back menus as the default option is a bad idea, even if it's just in XP.  You should have just changed the welcome page to show people how to access it.

As much as I can't stand IE haters for their constant whining and complete lack of civility, there is a good point being made about the need for an open, marketing-free dialog with developers.

Any communications dealing with things like bug fixes and features should be factual bullet points, without a hint of "WTG!".

Thanks for keeping us informed.

During the IE7 development, it was so refreshing to see posts made here about the progress the team was making. That has stopped in the past year, what are we to read from that? Please don't let another IE6-to-IE7 interval go by before there are more meaningful changes to IE.

The browser *can* be a great platform for applications. I don't want to use Flash or Silverlight for most pages, so please don't use them as an excuse to stop work on better HTML/script support in IE.

I agree, there is nothing officially being said about IE8; although I can see the need for silence (cf. blabbing about all of Vista's features, which were subsequently a) dropped or b) implemented by Apple before Vista was released, thus leading to the charge of copying them, for example search), web developers at least need to know what to expect.

Also, for those who use IE7, the IE7Pro plugin is indispensable, if for no other reason than for crash recovery (by far the biggest annoyance I have is that it crashes too often but then loses all the tabs I had open; this fixes that).  

Additionally, it lets you "undo" the closing of a tab (though you do lose its back/forward history).

It also improves the in-page find, adding a firefox-esque find-as-you-type search bar at the bottom.

Other niceties include mouse gestures, flash/adblock, youtube download, super drag-drop (select and drag text, and it will open in a new tab if it's a URL or link, or search for it in a new tab if it's just text).  Basically everything all the snide Firefox users brag is in Firefox but not IE, IE7pro provides.

Here's hoping that enough people update to IE7 so that I don't have to support IE6 anymore! Hooray for progress!

I am guessing that this is in reaction to Firefox's growing market share. I am not surprised at this at all.

I have seen people who haven't been able to install IE7 switch to Firefox, which is not a bad thing at all considering how slow IE7 is and how different the UI is compared to IE6.

I'll be a lot happier if you can release IE7 with IE6's UI! What was the need to reposition every browser button? The UI may make sense on Vista's Windows Explorer, but not in a web browser.

Displaying the menu toolbar by default again is a positive step towards consistency of design.

However all browsers heavily fail at the fundamental basics of design: human interaction. Most non-savvy users can for example grasp the concept of what a download is though they have by default no visual method of finding that file after they have downloaded it in any browser.

As far as Firefox goes it's whatever the Firefox developers feel *they* prefer by default: unusable-minimalism. They have *their* preferred methods of getting to a downloaded file.

Here is an example of a minimally-usable set of toolbar buttons in Firefox...

http://img120.imageshack.us/img120/772/toolbarrj2.gif

Notice the ability to visually figure out where to access your downloads from.

At one point in time everyone reading this blog had no concept of what a computer mouse was or how to use it. In regards to computer software a fundamental part of design is understanding human interaction. Provide all users with a minimally-usable GUI complete with icons and text labels. If some users don't like it then perhaps they are savvy enough to adjust it to their liking. Software developers can go a step further by providing a choice during the software installation that advanced users can choose (determined perhaps by an internet pole conducted before the new versions release).

Besides a by-default minimally-usable GUI for IE8 I would like to suggest adding a feature that aids non-savvy users in accessing their most commonly visited websites to character limited titled favorites in their favorites link folder in the IE toolbar. For example webmasters could add a character limited title on their homepage such as 'bank', 'email', 'search', etc. Features are useless unless people are shown how to make use of them. This would be off via the advanced user option in the installation.

An improvement for the Firefox download button would be to get rid of the current two window setup and make it in to a drop-down list (a perfect example is Opera 4). This leaves less to track visually.

An irritating issue with IE is that addon toolbars/buttons and toolbar locking settings are shared with Windows Explorer. Cant you make them separate as well?

Ah, a new blogpost! That will finally give me the opportunity to reply to the last remark of John A. Bilicki III in http://blogs.msdn.com//ie/archive/2007/09/18/developing-safer-activex-controls-using-the-sitelock-template.aspx#5232028

It's about opt-in to standards compliance: requiring a new and seperate opt-in for real standards compliance in IE.Next is extremely harmfull for the following reasons:

- MSIE will effectively create a new kind of 'quirksmode' defined by the (non standards-compliant) behaviour of IE.Current for standards-compliant documents

- this will either force other vendors to follow MS's lead (having to reverse-engineer IE.Current's behaviour) and adding support for this switch as well, or ignore it and lose out on marketshare because IE renders some sites differently

- it hurts the developpers who are already doing The Right Thing: you force them to add additional nonsense just to have IE.Next handle it correctly

- it doesn't raise awareness among developpers who are not doing The Right Thing, so they will continue to cater to IE.Current (and thus the new quirksmode)

for some more opinion: http://therealcrisp.xs4all.nl/blog/2007/04/22/html5-microsoft-and-the-opt-in-catch/

Nice try to stop people from switching to FireFox. Sorry, to late. I have yet to see anyone using the IE7. I know that browser usage in Germany does not reflect world wide usage, but FireFox has outrun IE on all major sites.

The introduction of WGA in IE has only enhanced the trend, but removal probably won't stop it, maybe slows it down a little bit.

We'll probably see a significant IE6 to IE7 migration now.

Nice, it would be nice to push it out somewhat harder. Supporting IE6 is a pain as a developer, so the faster we can get rid of it the better. FireFox is pushing much harder to get people to upgrade, which also means that almost noone is using 1.5 anymore.

Now all you need to do is to fix that alpha filter on PNG32 images... (it removes the alpha channel on the image, instead of multiplying the opacity to it)

"I think this bears repeating: "Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users."  

I'm surprised. Is this really the "constant updates" we were promised? Looks like NeoSmart has hit the nail on the head.

http://neosmart.net/blog/2007/internet-explorer-7-updated-but-not-really/

Does this build contain any security fixes?

Opera has left IE7 and Firefox in the dust

I would have loved to see an update to where you middle click on a folder that resides on the LINKs toolbar and it open up all the links inside of it in new tabs.

I'm still waiting.  I hope IE8 gets this or IE7.5.

This is a boring/useless update, y'all! "Menu bar visible by default?" Well, gee, I better hurry on up to download the update! Just when I got used to (and love) the Menu-less look of IE, you bring it back.

Please do a post on what the team has in store for IE8 or even the next major update of IE7!

Talk costomization of the toolbar with a more traditional-looking layout. Missing options on the Page Command Icon (Re: Send page to Desktop). A spell-checker. That annoying "anchor" thing in the Favorites Center (I hate that name) in that I have to anchor the Favorites/History window or it'll close after I click on a link.

As an IE use and fan, I am disappointed in the slow-down of the IE team in not do anything great to IE7.

C'mon y'all!

"[...] IE7 is well on its way to becoming the most used browser in the world [...]"

What is the source for this?

Weekly I read in the news just the opposite trend: more and more people are switching away from IE. Honestly, I do not personally know a single person who uses IE anymore.

Brazilian version needs the "windows genuine validation"??? When I change the language, I need make validation to download it.

マイクロソフトのIEBlogで発表されたが、ちょっと改良されたInternet ...

"The menu bar is now visible by default."

Fat lot of good that does.

The address bar is still fixed in place and not movable, which is dumb as hell. the menu bar is supposed to go at the TOP not the middle. idiots.

terrible idea bringing back the menu bar

Menu bar: indicates the buttons on the tab row was not a great design choice.

Feature request 1: the ability to move Refresh and Stop next to the Back/forward, I really cannot think of a good reason to put them there. Why have two related locations 2000 pixels apart?

Feature request 2: the ability to show/hide/move the search box. I never use it cause it's 2000 pixels to the right.

"IE7 is the first – and still the only – browser with native support for Extended Validation SSL Certificates that help prevent online fraud"

Ya, see, that "still the only" part turns this into something negative rather than something positive.  

Being the faster runner sometimes just means you are the first one over the cliff.

http://blogs.dotnethell.it/vincent/New-Windows-Internet-Explorer-7-Build-available.__11862.aspx

Thank you.

What's about MSIE6 VPC images? Will they will be updatet automatically? Will they get new versions after expiring? Looking forward to hear answers from you.

please mad update to internit explorer

As someone who does HelpDesk support in a national call center, having to explain to many dozens, if not hundreds of people who use IE because it is the built-in browser, how to restore the Menu Bar, so that it works like IE 6 did (sorta), I applaud the fact that it is back by default.

It should never have been turned off when running under XP, anyway.

@steveg: I agree with your feature requests - Stop and Refresh should stay on the left of the Address Bar.

As for #2, go to -

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/default.mspx

and click on the Add Ons for Internet Explorer button below the Get It Now button.

On the next page, the Featured Add On is IE7Pro. Download and install IE7Pro, and it will give you the ability to move the Menu Bar back above the Forward/Back buttons (where it belongs), along with other good features.

Now, if only the IE7Pro team can add the ability to move the Refresh/Go and Stop buttons back to the left where they belong, the job of telephone support would be made a lot easier.

Not needing WGA checks is great news. Now how about doing the same for things as the Microsoft Calculator Plus?

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=32B0D059-B53A-4DC9-8265-DA47F157C091&displaylang=en

The number of things which require WGA checks is a joke.

P.S. IE7Pro will also allow your to hide the Search Bar, if you wish.

I just read somewhere that FireFox is now being used by 24% of Internet users and growing rapidly. With this update when I go to http://www.autoblog.com or http://www.dpccars.com the frames used in the site at different sizes then without the update.

"Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users."

If Microsoft was serious about the windows ecosystem they would drop WGA altogether.

IE7 is a poor cousin to FF.  I don't like it very much and use it rarely but off the top of my head, these are just a few things I don't like:

- Why can't I relocate the toolbar to the bottom?

- Why when I type a URL in the address space does it open in the SAME tab instead of a new one?  I have lost more page tabs because of this and it is really annoying to have to remember to first open a new tab prior to typing a new URL (or using the search block).

- Why do I have to confirm with each shutdown that I want to reopen the same tabs ("Do you want to close all tabs")?  Why can't IE remember this option?  Does "Do not show me this dialog again" remember this?  Stupid UI design!

- Why does it take a longer time to open a new tab when I have more tabs open?  

- And a carry over from IE6, why can't you provide detailed help for what the advanced tab options mean under Internet Options?

Microsoft rimuove il controllo WGA da Internet Explorer 7

the MenuBar is useless because all commands already are in new toolbar. I don't understand why they reintroduce it. People will never learn the new layout capabilities, if you keep the MenuBar enabled!

"the MenuBar is useless because all commands already are in new toolbar. I don't understand why they reintroduce it. People will never learn the new layout capabilities, if you keep the MenuBar enabled!"

So PLEASE disable the new toolbar. It's horrible, it's in an illogical position, it is inconsistent with the UI of other applications, it's just a really, really bad idea.

Are they deliberately trying to confuse users ?

Did the IE developers even subject the new UI to the 'mom test' ?

Doesn't Microsoft have human interface guidelines ? And aren't they supposed to follow them ?

Hey, through this update it should be possible to update the IE6-VPC-Image. So now IE7 can be tested on Windows 2000 as well.

Thats great news.

Well, if it works, anyone tested already?

Thank you Microsoft. But I'll still stay with Firefox.

Tssss,

That Foley woman is ripping my lines:

http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=761

If only IE would fix more of it's bugs. CSS, Javascript, SVG, etc. It's still in the stoneage compared to Firefox, Opera, or Safari.

Thank you Microsoft. Nice to see, that Security (Updates) is getting more important in Redmond.

When is IE7 going to be available for Windows 2000?

Does this mean that IE7 is going to be automatically installing on Windows XP machines rather then prompting for the install?

Or did I read into the no  genuine advantage thing too far?

I'm a Microsoft developer , here we only use internet explorer for custom web applications (asp net) and for intranet stuff (sharepoint,web exchange) and thats it , ff for normal browsing , even at msdn :). have you ever seen infinite postback cycles? at first i didn't care but when you find them at your clients ceo's laptop its so ... well you know , Microsoft.

Neat. Now how about fixing some more of the many remaining bugs??

steve ie7 will never be on windows 2000

Localized versions still require the same old WGA check. Is that intended or have will it just take some time to roll out this de-WGAing across the entire localized spectrum?

Microsoft’s Internet Explorer Team reports on a new IE installer release. They’ve changed a couple of defaults, updated their tutorials… and dropped the requirement for Windows Genuine Advantage validation:

Because Microsoft takes it..

For everybody who prefers a more compact toolbar layout with a resizeable address bar, I have develeoped an alternative navigation bar: see http://www.quero.at/

Due to the wide variety of legacy web apps I have to support we have not made an enterprise-wide move to IE7.  In fact I specifically blocked the installation of IE7 in WSUS.

This morning I get to work, and am rather suprised (to put it kindly) to find IE7 on all of our workstations.  This was an automated WSUS event that took place despite my specifically DECLINING this update.  The PCs are all configured by GPO to only receive updates from WSUS, and in fact are blocked at the firewall level from acessing any Microsoft update sites, so that I can ensure an audit trail for all updates to satisfy our auditors and regulatory body.

Although most of the major issues with IE7 have been resolved, there are still several apps that are not specifically certified for use with IE7 and have not been fully tested.

Can anyone point me to where I can find information on why IE7 would have been pushed out to our PCs despite our best efforts to keep it off?  I've spent the vast majority of the day so far holding our user's hands to get them back to their work.  I'm not a happy camper. :(

The "well on its way to becoming the most used browser in the world" is probably more PR spin. There's no concrete proof that this is the case.

>> Is Microsoft trying to increase marketshare?

I'm say so, especially when you notice FF has crept up to 12% and Safari is at 4%, the browser wars are gearing up again.

>> Is a safe internet more important than preventing piracy?

I think this is an absolute yes and I was very disappointed when MS required WGA for IE7 and for Defender.  Ever since XP SP2 Windows has become much more secure, despite, the negative reviews hang over their head and when they made some notable security improvements between these two projects (which work very tightly with the OS) they both should have been tradition download & installs from the get go.  I have to problem with WGA, but they shouldn't use it to prevent a PC from getting a critical security improvement, and I think the changes in IE7 and Defender go beyond a normal upgrade to more of a "must have" scenario.

Great...But the IE7 is Highly critical:

http://secunia.com/product/12366/

I use the Opera 9 :) It is the fastest&best&secure browser.

Jim S said,

>> I specifically blocked the installation of IE7 in WSUS... This morning I get to work and ... find IE7 on all of our workstations. ... I've spent the vast majority of the day so far holding our user's hands to get them back to their work.

Jim, the mistake is really on your lap, not because you couldn't block an updated installer, but because you're still outright avoided the problem.  IE7 has been out a fell year now, and if anything didn't work in IE7 that worked in IE6 (imho this problem was vastly exaggerated) then the fault is on your vendor.  You should have been pushing them since day on IE7 support, IE7 betas were available for months and your vendor has no reason to support IE7 from day 1.

Now it's been 12 months and there's no excuse such a critical update hasn't been applied.  Don't get me wrong, I don't like the IE7 UI, even though I know MS spends millions on UI, this is the first time where I truly feel MS's UI improvements were absolutely horrid (ps, I'm a UI designer).  On one hand IE7 is simpler, but it's so different it just feels weird.

Despite all this, nobody can avoid an OS update forever, if you could, we'd all be using Win98, or Win 3.11 today.  You have to move on, I can understand not wanting to be an early adopter, but any reason to not upgrade is an excuse, not a reason.  And now because you fought it so long, the upgrade was more painful than it should have been.

Finally, being "too busy" is not a valid excuse, I know, I've worked in those kinds of environments and it's bs.  There's always time, it's just that people choose to write off certain issues, particularly upgrades.

TravisO said,

>>Jim, the mistake is really on your lap, not because you couldn't block an updated installer, but because you're still outright avoided the problem.  IE7 has been out a fell year now, and if anything didn't work in IE7 that worked in IE6 (imho this problem was vastly exaggerated) then the fault is on your vendor.  You should have been pushing them since day on IE7 support, IE7 betas were available for months and your vendor has no reason to support IE7 from day 1.

Try dealing with some banking industry software vendors before you make such a bold statement.  Small to medium sized banks are not early adopters when it comes to technology, and the vendors that write the software for institutions of this size are even further behind.

It isn't a matter of whether it will work or not (for the most part things do with some minor exceptions).  This isn't really a technical issue at all.  It's a regulatory and compliance issue.  It's a matter of the control that we maintain over our systems, to operate them in the manner that best works for our situation in our industry.  That control was taken away from our institution last night with no recourse.  

The only way I can regain control I am required by law and by regulation to maintain is to either a) manually remove the application from hundreds of PCs spread across 6 geographical locations, or b) suddenly perform emergency testing of dozens of applications by myself over one weekend, testing that hundreds of developers from dozens of companies couldn't get done in a year.  Neither scenario is very appealing to me.  The only thing I'll be "too busy" for in the near future is having any time to relax this weekend.

TravisO, the mistake is really on Microsoft's lap, not because you couldn't block an updated installer, but because you're still outright avoided the problem.  HTML4 has been out a fell decade now, and if anything didn't work in IE that worked in other browsers (imho this problem was vastly exaggerated) then the fault is on your vendor.  You should have been pushing them since day on standards support, specifications were available for years and your vendor has no reason to support them from day 1.

Microsoft is the one making things harder by shipping half-baked browsers - better than IE6, but far worse than years old browsers, requiring other vendors to specifically adapt their applications for Yet Another Browser. They should've either delayed IE7 to complete standards compliance at least to the level of their competitors (they've have plenty enough time for that) or just save a lot of money/time and rebrand an existing browser as IE7.

Speaking of things not working with IE2007, My version of Quicken 2007 was never able to show the help files because of some IE 2007 bug.  Quicken support recommended that I revert to IE 2006.  I don't know if they have fixed this problem in Quicken 2008.

"customized versions of Windows Internet Explorer 7" (<a href="http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/ie/ieak/ieak7/guidelines.mspx">here</a>)

Is there any site with gallery of this customized IEs ?

So, are you telling us that blocking IE7 updates is no longer applicable?

If so, could you not have posted such info, a few weeks in advance, so that we could prepare for it!

Larry speaks of "new" rendering in this version of IE7.  Is this true? have their been rendering changes?  If so, can someone post a changelog so us developers can quickly go and adjust our sites and applications as needed. (and likewise, where the %$#@! was the advanced notice!)

Has the UserAgent string changed?

If I have the "previous" IE7, how should I go about getting the "new" IE7?

I won't go into the debate on everything else mentioned, other than to agree that the IE7 UI is horrid, stripping menus was a mistake, as was the location of the address bar (thank god there is a Registry Hack for that).

I'm going to have to side with other developers/IT Admins on this one too... forcing an upgrade is just wrong, way wrong.  I too know the big bank issues... they aren't going to make drastic changes overnight, because if something goes wrong, it _IS_ a huge issue for them.

Last but not least, glad to hear something on this channel, but news on IE8 would be much better.  When I read the title of this post, I was expecting to hear a 7.5 release or something..

For Roger it seems that MS only posts the topics, and won't reply in the comments.  Lets hope that the topics start turning out some useful info ASAP!

IE7 STILL has the untitled.bmp save-as bug from IE6 for any image that follows a redirect.  Is MS EVER going to fix this?

Yikes, losing that much marketshare to FF?

I tried IE7 a couple of times, but having the menu BELOW the toolbar was too disturbing, so I reverted back to IE6 (well I mostly use firefox, but for those few sites where I must use IE, I prefer the UI of IE6 even though I prefer the rendering of IE7).

"is well on its way to becoming the most used browser in the world"

Well, thats a far cry from "is well on its way to becoming the most PREFERED browser in the world"

I do consulting at some companies with a strict "no installing other apps" rule, that only allow IE for browsing.  Needless to say, you can see and feel the pain in the end users that have to deal with IE day in day out (and I'm talking IE6 or IE7 here).  Its torture for users that have the Firefox Safari or Opera experience at home to have to come in to work and have to use more primitive tools.

Its no wonder portable Opera and Firefox on a USB stick is so god damn popular!

hmm. i think it's unfair. i paid good money for my genuine windows, at least i should get more than others who are not running genuine copy.

I would also like to know where all the statistics always mentioned comes from... I wasn't even aware of any significant (or not, by the sound of it) update.

I was using IE7 since the first Beta release, and was very hopeful of its future in all that was promised and apparently going to be featured.

But then, it just seemed to fall by the wayside...  I am typing this from my EXTREMELY reliable Firefox browser, by the way.

A friend of mine, another IE user for years, has also switched to Opera.  Most web developers I know prefer to test in Mozilla-based browsers.  Why?

Standards compliance.  This is really something that Microsoft needs to start paying attention to.  Stop fighting what everyone wants - unfortunately, you apparently do NOT know better than your clients as to what they need.  Like battling the Open Document format.  People are tired of buying into inferior products when the free things are better.  At least I am.

As a freelance web developer, the only reason I still have IE on my computer, is to see how it breaks things that work fine in all other browsers, so that I can fix it for the multitude of people out there who still use it, simply because they don't know any better.

Sorry.

For many of us, IE 7 has fallen into the category of "different is bad".

And the bad different stuff is UI.

It is a real disapointment to not get the underlying improvements because the UI is so annoying.

You need to ship an IE6 UI shell that hosts an IE7 engine.

The menu is in the wrong place and the  UI is not as customizable as it was in IE 6.

Install the Google Toolbar and see how it intrgrates into the different browsers. How usefull is that little search box after I have a search toolbar.

I have switched to Firefox at work, on Vista :( , (still have IE 6 on this home machine) because with an IE 6 Skin, Firefox is more familiar to me than IE7.

I don't know about the Mom test, but in my house it failed the girlfriend test.

@ Tino, my site is standards compliant and when IE did triggers quirks mode in version 6 and earlier the quirks mode (best guess with gaps in the standards) was typically rendered as desired. IE's fixes in combination with not triggering quirks mode with an XML declaration seems to have been a wise choice as the bugs that would have appeared in standards mode were flattened out for the most part. While there are still some bugs on my site in IE they aren't too difficult to flatten out with a little help from conditional comments.

With the new opt-in mode and his recent and previous comments combined, as well as the side-approach of supporting certain things I have a feeling about how IE8 will support (X)HTML5 without having to support (X)HTML5. I could be wrong, but it's my best educated guess. If my guess is wrong it will be harder for arguments for the new opt-in mode however I will objectively decide how I feel about it once we know what it really is. Since not all IE news makes it to the IE blog directly I think when such news is posted that if it's not something simple to understand we should make polite inquiries. ;-)

So browser's don't check (X)HTML versions declared by the doctype? In that case I would imagine that <element clear="clear" in XHTML 1.0 Strict would trigger quirks mode as it's not a standard...so when web designers start using non-HTML5 on HTML5 written documents how exactly are browsers supposed to know how to render the page? It would seem simpler to program a browser to detect the version declared and then determine the rendering mode based on whether non-standard code appears contrasting the declaration.

@ Rob, ha-ha-ha; no. Opera only supports opacity, nothing else. CSS3 selectors are ok but Opera lacks properties support that Gecko and Webkit already have covered. Visit my site and enable CSS3 in Webkit, Gecko, and Opera and you *will* see what I mean.

Statistics are usually very inaccurate. Here are my stats for this month thus far. They're exceptionally accurate for my domain though I wouldn't claim they represent the actual browser shares worldwide. These are based on hits, not on the unique number of humans using browsers.

http://img527.imageshack.us/img527/2627/browserslw6.gif

As far as IE8's GUI it's clear that there will be more flexibility however how much flexibility remains to be seen. Personally I like Firefox's customizability though not it's default.

Pingback from http://www.soft4fun.net/article.asp?id=320

Today from Slashdot I found out that a new version of Internet Explorer (IE7) is released for Windows XP. There are a few changes made to the IE7 as stated below:- - The menu bar is now visible by default. - The Internet Explorer 7 online tour has up

Does this run yet?

http://validator.w3.org/

That is the real thing we should be talking about.

Yesterday, Microsoft released a refreshed build of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows xp that no longer

Safer? Easier? Surely you jest.

IE7 has a giant BUG in it's implimentation of SSL. And rather than displaying a warning when there's a domain name mismatch (Helloooo M$, welcome to the fact that 80% of sites are on SHARED servers!) along the lines of "Hey, there could be a problem, you should be sure this site is who they claim to be", IE7 responds with 2 choices:

Trust M$ explicitly; or

You're completely on your own.

NO option to view the certificate whatsoever. So the user either leaves the site right then (before even a PREVIEW!!!!), or they go ahead to the site without any real knowledge, just this dire error page from M$.

Is this user education??? Hardly. So while I'm trying to educate my users to make informed choices, I'll impart that an informed choice is using a decent browser. Or anything other than IE7.

Hey Steve, could you go ask Dean and Tony if it is ok if someone posts an actual blog response to all of the questions concerning IE8 and the last year of the IE team's life here?

It feels like the blog is being used for press releases, which is not the same as communication. People want to know what's going on. It's been a year after all.

Недавно в Microsoft приняли решения отключить WGA (систему валидации легальности установленной ОС) для

Σημαντικές οι ειδήσεις των τελευταίων εβδομάδων: H Nokia αγόρασε τη Navteq για 8 δις δολλάρια και δίνει

Try dealing with some banking industry software vendors before you make such a bold statement.  Small to medium sized banks are not early adopters when it comes to technology, and the vendors that write the software for institutions of this size are even further behind.

Σημαντικές οι ειδήσεις των τελευταίων εβδομάδων: H Nokia αγόρασε τη Navteq για 8 δις δολλάρια και δίνει

Pingback from http://vistarc.info/forum/?p=viewtopic&viewforum=4&viewtopic=705

So, it took you that long and all that additional loss of IE share to find out that WGA is an unacceptable harassment to your paying customers? Wow!

The changelog, as it were, was provided in the original post.  There were minor tweaks, as described, and nothing else.

Specifically:

1> There were no rendering changes.

2> The user agent string has not changed.

@Mara Alexander: The fact that IE's HTTPS implementation directs users to making the secure decision (close this page) is no accident.  

Users will will never encounter the certificate error page on a properly configured server.

Si Internet Explorer domine toujours le march&#233; des navigateurs (IE6 + IE7), la derni&#232;re version du navigateur semble avoir du mal &#224; s&#8217;imposer en Europe face &#224; Firefox 2. (source : Xiti monitor juillet 2007)

I downloaded IE7 but can't get it to launch. Keep getting error on page. Message says lines 31 and 81 character 5 does "object doesn't support this property or method."

Need help to correct this problem.

So I got a link back to an old post on this blog... like 2004, when the feedback started to roll in.

An initial quick tally of the feedback resulted in this list (compiled by Scott Steams)

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2004/07/23/193120.aspx

The List:

# Tabbed browsing

# Better Standards support (improved CSS, Transparent PNG support, XHTML, etc)

# IEv6x is the Courtney Love browser in a world of Kirsten Dunst browsers

# Better pop-up blocking

# People want people to download Mozilla Firefox

# Release an IE7/down-level release

# Fix the security problems

# Better performance

# Faster update turnaround

# Integrating browsing into any OS is a bad idea

# Developer tools are goodness for web devs

# A Windows Service Pack is not the same size as a Mozilla Firefox or Opera install

# Did I mention standards support already?

# I shouldn’t take this personally, people have been waiting for a while to vent on somebody

# People want to understand the roadmap for IE

Hmm, whats that last one? Roadmap?  yeah I think I've heard that like... every day for 3 years now!  you must be almost ready to post that huh?

Developer tools? yeah that sounds pretty sweet too? where are they?

Faster update turnaround? yeah, lets see... 1 year, no update (I'm sorry, but todays "update" was not an update)

Integrating browsing into any OS is a bad idea. Wow I could have told you that one. It ruined favorites in IE, and even Konqueror has given up on the integrated OS/Browser idea... it is just plain bad... real bad.

Did I mention standards support already? Wow! took the words out of my mouth!

I'm sure todays release will have fixed a whole bunch of stuff!... let me peek at that changelog...

12 Month Changelog for IE7s Standards, Scripting and Rendering:

========================================

EOF

Ouch!

Quote: "On Thursday Jan 13th at 10:00AM PST we’ll be holding our regular monthly Internet Explorer chat with team members."

http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2005/01/12/351549.aspx

Hmmm, whatever happened to those? oh yeah, IE7 shipped and then MS didn't care anymore.

ah so you are making IE7 available for pirates now? that's nice of you... but no thanks... i stick to Firefox... btw do you allow users to make their own plugins yet?

@Aaargh!

the toolbar is in the best position, because it's located in the space used by tabs and this means no additional space is used by toolbar i.e. we have more space for web pages.

IE7 compact layout is very cool, it's highly optimized. I don't understand why people complains about it.

Some may consider this whining, but I really want to stress that adding another IE-specific quirksmode-opt-out  mechanism which differs from doctype switching is *not* a good idea.

I don't want yet another thing like conditional comments (which are sadly necessary, but should make other switching mechanisms for IE all the more unnecessary).

If a page uses a doctype that has been known to trigger standards compliance mode for years in all major browsers and if that page contains invalid formatting anyway then this page has to be fixed. On the other hand, if the page is valid and has been triggering standars compliance mode for all major browsers for years and one single major browser like IE fails to correctly render the page, then that browser has to be fixed. And in cases where that browser is not yet fixed developers will have conditional comments to resort to.

Don't add more IE-specific bloat. Deliver a rendering engine that is comparable to other major browsers. I don't want to have to set a specific switch on every page just to tell IE that it should go into "really-standards-compliance-mode,-at-least-until-IE9-comes-out-with-yet-another-switching-mechanism-and-four-different-rendering-modes".

Where is this going to end? Why not have a pre-IE-6 quirksmode and a as-good-as-possible standards compliance mode?

reintroducing the menu is a big mistake!

All commands are in the toolbar, so the menu is useless!

Microsoft should stop to listen the stupid users' requests!

as for menubar i think bring it back was good idea at least on xp makes it easer for average joe to transition maybe ie8 can remove it

Microsoft stellt den Internet Explorer 7 nun auch für nicht lizenzierte Systeme zur Verfügung. Wie Steve Reynolds im IEBlog schreibt, soll ab sofort der Internet Explorer 7 auch auf nicht lizenzierten Systemen installierbar sein. Eine Installation des