PeteL's Blog : ie

Running The IE VPC’s on other VPC Hosts?

PeteL — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 21:34:00 GMT

I’ve had a few people email me, or email the IE blog to ask about running the IE VPC’s on other VPC hosts than Microsoft VPC so I figured I’d post this to my blog.

I don't think anything has changed in the images since we've started producing them back in 2006. I'm pretty sure they've never worked on in Parallels, Fusion, or any other VPC environment than Microsoft VPC. For whatever reason, the hardware key on a non-Microsoft VPC host is different than that of the Microsoft VPC host, and so Windows thinks that the hardware has changed, and it requires re-activation. If you have your own XP activation code, you can use that and reactivate the image.

According to the EULA that the legal folks wrote, you're only allowed to run the VPC's on Microsoft VPC, not on other VPC hosting environments. I understand that this solution doesn’t help some of you.

If you have a Windows XP license, I'd highly recommend building your own VPC's. First you don't have to worry about re-activation or anything like that, but secondly, your own VPC images won't expire every three months like ours will. We time bomb the images because we are effectively giving away a free copy of Windows.

Hope that clears things up a bit.
PEte

UPDATE [9/15/09]: I've spent some time investigating this issue, and now understand that the VPC images used to work on other hosting environments, but with the latest release, don't any more. We have a better understanding of the issue now, and while we're looking for a solution, we don't have one right now. If you're using the VPC's, and they don't work any more, I encourage you to email me, with your name, how you're using them and the hosting environment that you're using.

Running Multiple Versions Of IE On The Same Box

PeteL — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 19:27:50 GMT

There are applications out there that will put IE4/5/6/7/8 on the same machine and let you switch between the different versions of IE, but there are a couple of problems with this. I typically describe this type of situation as a Frankenbuild. Any time you start messing with Windows core components, and changing OS level DLL’s, you’re setting yourself up for heartache. You also don’t know if you’re replacing the whole set, or just a subset of the DLLs. For example, if you’ve got IE8 installed on the box, and you put the IE6 rendering engine in, you have the IE6 rendering engine, the IE8 JavaScript engine and the IE8 networking stack. Hmm, no real customer is ever going to see that. You never know what the tool is replacing, if it’s the whole IE stack, or just the components.

Another example would be having IE8 installed, then putting the IE7 rendering and JavaScript components in. Great, so you’ve got almost the whole stack, but we made significant changes to how the Phishing Filter works between 7 and 8. What if what you’re looking at or testing will hit that, and you get a completely different behavior than what a real IE7 user would see.

There’s also a security issue there, who is to know if the DLL you just placed on your machine is a real IE5 component, or if it’s a Trojan that is going to send your browser sessions to some unknown host. While I’d say this is unlikely, it’s not impossible.

We strongly recommend people use VPC images for testing different versions of IE, we even make those VPC’s available for people to download. They’re time bombed, because we’re basically giving a copy of Windows away, but users can also build their own.

Setting X-UA-Compatible with ASP.NET Pages

PeteL — Wed, 15 Apr 2009 18:47:00 GMT

I got an email today asking about the best way to go about adding the X-UA-Compatible tags on ASP.NET pages where you’ve got a master page, and may want to over ride the X-UA-Compatible tag in some content pages, but not others.

After playing around with it in Visual Studio for a few minutes, I pulled together the following scenarios:

Access To The Server

The optimal way to do this, if you have server level access, is to add the IE=EmulateIE7 as an HTTP Response Header from the server. Then, any pages served from that server will be rendered in IE7 mode. If Internet Explorer finds the X-UA-Compatible tag in both the HTTP Response Header, and as a META tag, the META tag will win out. Thus, if you've added the IE=EmulateIE7 to the server, you can over ride it by using the following code snippet:

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
{
     HtmlMeta xuac = new HtmlMeta();
     xuac.HttpEquiv = "X-UA-Compatible";
     xuac.Content = "IE=EmulateIE8";
     Header.Controls.AddAt(0, xuac);
}

One quick note about the Page_Load method, you'll note I use the Header.Controls.AddAt(0, xuac) method. The X-UA-Compatible tag needs to occur BEFORE any code on the page is run, if it doesn't IE will ignore the X-UA-Compatible tag; so it's best to makes sure this is the first tag on the page.

No Server Access

If you don't have access to the server, and you want to put the X-UA-Compatible tag in the ASP.NET MASTER page, you could do something like this:

In the master page, I'd create a Content Place Holder:

<asp:ContentPlaceHolder ID="cphMeta" runat="server">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE7" />
</asp:ContentPlaceHolder>

Then, in the individual pages, where you want to override, and go to IE8 standards, you'd insert

<asp:Content ID="Content1" ContentPlaceHolderID="cphMeta" runat="server">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="IE=EmulateIE8" />
</asp:Content>

IE For Developers at Web 2.0 Expo

PeteL — Tue, 23 Sep 2008 21:21:00 GMT

Here's the slide deck from my session at Web 2.0 Expo last week. I cut out a few things in order to get it to fit in the 50 minute slot they allotted me, so it's kind of short, if you're looking for full details, check out the deck from Fronteers as it has a bit more detail on things.

I did add a bit about search providers to this deck, so there is a little new stuff there.

It was great to be in NYC for the week, and I met a lot of great people. It was exciting to see all the people who want to see IE8 and hear their excitement about standards and the new features! I can't wait to deliver!

Fronteers Session

PeteL — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 14:27:00 GMT

Here's the deck that I presented today at Fronteers 2008. Seems like people got something out of it, and was told by a couple of people that "wow, I have nothing to complain about any more"! Love it!

I'm Back!

PeteL — Fri, 01 Aug 2008 20:04:00 GMT

hello! i'm back. :)

a couple of months ago, I did an interview with Craig shoemaker about one of the session I did at TechEd this year, and he posted the interview a few weeks ago. I figured this would be a good place to start my blogging again!

Top Web Design Mistakes

http://getpixel8ed.com/shows/mistakes

Pete LePage is Product Manager of Internet Explorer Developer Division and he doesn’t want your web site to stink. Sharing from his talk given at TechEd 2008, Pete highlights 10 common web design mistakes and tells you how you can bypass the same blunders. Pete also tells us how future features of Internet Explorer will help your visitors leave your site with a smile.

IE VPC's - Which Ones Next?

PeteL — Tue, 05 Feb 2008 02:58:00 GMT

Apologies for going dark the last little while, I'm going to do my best to change that again. Lots of stuff going on here that I'm really excited about, but before I get into that, I want to do an unscientific survey.

We currently offer developers and designers the following VPC images:

XP + SP2 with IE6
XP + SP2 with IE7

We're looking at the next batch now, and I'm curious, if we were to add one more, which of the following would you prefer?

Vista with IE7
Vista + SP1 with IE7

Also, if you're a Mac user, and want to see either VPC images compressed with ZIP, or Parallels users, a comment would be appreciated. No promises on these, I just want to understand what is more important to you.

Thanks!
PEte

"IE8" and VPC's

PeteL — Thu, 06 Dec 2007 03:16:03 GMT

Two quick notes that I wanted to get out there.

IE8. Yep, it officially has a name now. Check out the post from Dean on the IE blog.

I've uploaded the new VPC images and am just waiting for them to propagate through the severs, now. I expect it to be live within the next 24 hours.

PEte

IE6 / IE7 VPC's Coming

PeteL — Wed, 28 Nov 2007 21:09:03 GMT

Just a quick note to say that the IE6 and IE7 VPC images are being updated as we speak, and I suspect the new versions should be online Monday or Tuesday.

Web Tools Or Tools For Web People

PeteL — Wed, 21 Nov 2007 01:22:16 GMT

A couple of days ago, I got an email from the guys at DebugBar letting me know that they had just released their Beta1 for Debug Bar 5.0. They've got a pretty good tool bar for doing web design and web development in IE. Their DebugBar adds features like a DOM Inspector, an HTTP Inspector, a JavaScript Console and Inspector, an HTML Validator among other things. It's free for personal use, and the commercial license is easy to obtain.

There are a couple of other tools worth pointing out as well

Fiddler2 a web debugging proxy written by one of the PM's on the IE team
IE Developer Tool Bar the Microsoft IE Developer Toolbar. There's lots of info on it here
IE6 and IE7 Virtual PC images
Visual Web Developer Express 2008 has great JavaScript debugging features
AjaxView a great tool from MS Research for remotely monitoring web2.0 applications for doing perf work
Nikhil's Web Development Helper is an add-on that helps AJAX and ASP.NET developers see what is going on with their code

Hope this helps!

PEte

Beginning Expression Web

PeteL — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 04:53:00 GMT

~~I have three copies of~~ ~~Beginning Expression Web by Zak Ruvalcaba~~ ~~to give away. Heck, I'll even throw in a copy of Expression Web!~~

~~First three people to email me with your full name, mailing address and phone number* get them :)~~

*Microsoft Legal wants me to tell you: One copy per person/mailing address. I'll delete your contact info once I've shipped the package to you. If you're outside the USA, you're responsible for any taxes, etc...

EDIT: These three books are gone. Thanks for the interest! :)

I'm not going to Click To Activate anymore (soon)

PeteL — Fri, 09 Nov 2007 00:04:26 GMT

Phew. I've been pretty heads down the last month on a couple of different projects, and one of the biggers ones just went live today! This morning, I posted an item to the IE blog announcing that we're removing click to activate from Internet Explorer! The first "preview" patch will be available in early December, and then it will be included in the April 2008 Cumulitive Update for IE.

I saw one person on the IE blog comment and ask why we're taking so long to just up and remove this. The simple answer is many customers don't like it when we make big changes to IE. It's that whole breaking the web thing that Chris keeps talking about. We do not expect any changes to the way web pages operate, but we want to give time for you to play with it and see for yourself.

For web developers and designers, this doesn't change anything. Your pages will still work in the same way that they did before. If you've been using the JS insertion method, great. If not, no worries there either.

And don't forget, MIX registration opened this morning!

UPS Package Tracking In Your IE7 Search Bar

PeteL — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:13:41 GMT

Confession time, I'm an online shopping addict. Amazon and I get along really well. Well, Amazon and my bank account don't get along well, but Amazon and I do. Along with many other online stores, I tend to do a good bit of shopping online. This morning, I got a tracking notification for a package that is being shipped to me, and it occurred to me this morning that you could easily create a search provider for UPS (or most other shippers for that matter) and have it appear in your IE7 Inline Search box really easily.

The easiest way to add it is to go to Add Search Providers to Internet Explorer 7 and in the "Create Your Own" box, add http://wwwapps.ups.com/WebTracking/processInputRequest?sort_by=status&error_carried=true&tracknums_displayed=1&TypeOfInquiryNumber=T&loc=en-us&InquiryNumber1=TEST&AgreeToTermsAndConditions=yes to the URL text box, then give it a name. Finally, click on the INSTALL button, and it'll add the UPS package tracking to your search provider.

Now, all you have to do is put a tracking number in your search box, and hit enter. Bingo, you've got results!

IE7 Installation Update

PeteL — Thu, 04 Oct 2007 19:40:46 GMT

It's crazy to me that I've been in this new role for just over a year now, in fact, it's just about 13 months. In that time, I've seen IE7 ship, taken on new products like Expression Web and Visual Web Developer, met so many fantastic developers and designers and have had the awesome opportunity to travel all over the place for work.

Today, we updated the installation experience to make IE7 available to as many Windows users as possible. As of today, IE7 will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation, and will be available to all Windows XP users. If you're not already running IE7, you can get it from the Internet Explorer home page on Microsoft.com. We've made a few other small tweaks to the UI, including enabling the menu bar by default, and created a new MSI installer that simplifies deployment for IT administrators in the enterprise environment.

But what changes did we make for developers? In short, none. The IE7 Installation and Availability Update is all about changing the packaging and setup. The binaries didn't change, so pages will render and behave exactly as they did with the version of IE7 many people already have today. We decided that rather than releasing a new build with a few small fixes now, we would put our major efforts into the next version of Internet Explorer. Keeping the browser text matrix small is important to most of the developers we talk to. This means that you don't need to retest your website if you've already tested it with IE7.

There is a KB article on the changes that we made available at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940767

I'm excited about what Internet Explorer has in store for the future, we're busy working on the next version of Internet Explorer; and I am looking forward to sharing it with you!

Free Windows Based Hosting

PeteL — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 02:48:00 GMT

Whew, I'm back from my 17 day cruise in the Mediterranian and while it's good to be back, I sure missed a lot! I'm still trying to get things sorted, but in the mean time I figured I'd share this little juicy bit with you.

Verio is offering free Windows based hosting for anyone who wants it! They don't require a credit card, and the offer is good through January 2010, so you get a good couple of years out of this. The offer is not available online (huh?), so you have to call and deal with a human. And since it's a 1-800 number, that'll make it a bit harder for those outside the USA.

In any event, if you want to take advantage of it, call Verio at 1.800.932.7483! And feel free to pass along