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It's here. You also can get it from your distro's reposotory.

It's very usefull to test pages in development. Also, you can install several versions of IE at the same Ubuntu computer. But it probably won't emulate this bug, so you won't have the complete experience of having your computer owned (by this exploit).

Funny thing is, it does exist a solution for running IE6 on a modern OS, and doesn't even require a licensing fee (besides IE6 licensing, that those companies already have). The downside, it only runs on Linux.

"XP is supposed to go out of support in a few years, and there's no IE6 for Vista or 7"

Ok, but there is for Linux! Microsoft will surely br glad that people have an alternative to upgrading after they EOL Win XP. (I'm sure those companies have plenty if XP install disks around to get IE from.)

Yeah an "if (OS = LINUX)" in a .EXE file would be so dangerous to a linux box, riiiiight.

It depends on whether or not Wine is on the box. On an Ubuntu or Debian box, for instance, .exe files are, by default, associated with wine in the GNOME mimetypes. Before you say "Yeah, but anyone bright enough to be running Wine isn't gonna just automatically click on an .EXE", realize that installing and configuring Wine is very easy these days with programs like winetools.

If Wine is on the box, all bets are off. The .EXE could easily embed a Linux binary payload and even execute it (or at least cause it to be executed).

Of course, if you don't run wine apps as root and you have taken reasonable security precautions, the damage that can be done is limited.

But desktop linux won't become popular enough until you can run down to Staples (or your favorite retailer) and buy some software for it.

Funny you should mention that. I built a new gaming PC for my wife running Mandriva 64 w/ wine and Cedega installed (to play World of Warcraft). Well since it's tax season she bought a copy of H+R Blocks (I believe) $20 tax prep software, she was about to pop it into her old Windows Laptop when I had her instead put the CD into her new Linux box. Well suprise it installed just fine and we did our taxes on her linux box.

Maybe we need to start convincing software manufacturers to get their programs tested under Linux with Wine and/or Cedega and have a corresponding logo that can go on the box if it passes. Where to start would be the big question though...

BTW, Wine setup is a breeze with winetools.

"as I doubt the lawschool's testing application runs in Linux"

Sorry to pop in slightly off topic. With the new Wine (post .9) it may be worth 5-10 minutes to download the latest wine and winetools and try her law program with the default wine install. You may be surpised as to how many obscure programs "just work" with wine now (most just need the Arial Font to look right). I know that we hesitated switchng some machines here to Linux because of a few proprietary business apps, but were suprised as to how readily they ran *well* under Linux. Worst case if it doesn't work, then winetools automates the process of downloading/installing additional MS components that may be needed to get a program to work (IE, Windoes installer, etc).

WINE

No, seriously, check it out. With Wine Tools to automate the install of basic components (like DCOM98 and Visual C++ redistributable), you can use most of your windows programs on linux. According to Wine Application DB, many version of quicken work just fine under wine.

Heck, I've even gotten a full Visual Studio 6 install going under wine...

to get it to work properly, you need dcom98 as well, it can all be downloaded and installed with winetools http://www.von-thadden.de/Joachim/WineTools/ . Quite apart from software requirements, licencing requirements are to have a valid windows licence, which probably makes it legally part of the same product, even if the reality is that it is separate.

Try http://www.von-thadden.de/Joachim/WineTools/

It will help you if you can't get the applications working by yourself. They recommend using 20041019. Microsoft Office 2000 fails to install with the latest CVS, but after it is installed it works fine with it.

They're working on support for Microsoft Installer

Meanwhile, you could try using Microsoft's Microsoft Installer. I'm not sure how well it will work without a good WINE configuration setup, or maybe the newly resurrected Winetools