IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

Mike — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:42:10 GMT

Here's an idea: don't time bomb the images. That way I don't have to reinstall, and MS doesn't have to update anything.

I'm telling you, that company has made annoying customers and developers into an art form!

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

PeteL — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 22:53:39 GMT

@Mike,

Microsoft is giving you a copy of Windows XP to test with. We can't give away an un-timebombed image as we would be giving away a free copy of Windows XP.

The option of building your own VPC image is certainly available to you. Doing it yourself will not require time bombs or updating things yourself.

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

rbonser — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:18:14 GMT

Here's an even better idea, create a stand alone version of IE6 & IE7 so we can run both without having to use Virtual PC.

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

Eric — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 17:40:50 GMT

@rbonser

Lucky you... I've still got IE4 and IE5 users hitting our .COM (although, I admit, I no longer even attempt to test for those versions).

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

Grayson — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 19:11:00 GMT

I have an even better idea - you should force your customers to update to IE7 or any newer IE-version available in the future.

Just timebomb the browsers and call it a security feature that prevents people from using possibly insecure browsers!

The customers will get used to it - Firefox checks for an update all the time and tries to convince the user to update which seems to work well.

I guess web developers all over the world would love you for this!

@Mike: I think Microsoft is has a split personality - the intelligent developer part and the dumb business school marketing guys screwing it all up...

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

Bob — Fri, 30 Nov 2007 18:53:37 GMT

Sell the VM as a stand alone machine for $50.00 with no time expiration. Keep VPC as an application alive for the long run so that old VM images with special software installed can be managed more effectively by IT shops.

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

Dave — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:28:11 GMT

First, I appreciate the work that is done in support of keeping IE6 available to developers and I will say nothing bad about either MS or the individuals who help create this. It is a life saver for me and its a free solution so small businesses like the one I work for have an option that doesn't break the bank.

I do like the idea of selling the standalone version with no time expiration, but essentially that doesn't quite fulfill the requirement at hand...which is basically to not give away a copy of XP.

I would build my own if I could ensure that the pre-activated key/WGA/validation wouldn't be a problem....for example, if I could use a license key that was specific for this type of VM application and that wouldn't fail validation or continuously report activation failure.

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

dave — Tue, 04 Dec 2007 01:29:50 GMT

is it possible to sysprep the image? or does that cause probs?

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

Dave — Wed, 05 Dec 2007 18:54:34 GMT

please, please, please. It's Wedneday and I'm getting deja-vu from the last time.

Please.

re: IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

Stuart — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 15:26:46 GMT

Where can I find these VPCs?