No IE7 For 2k, Now In Extended Service

Yankovic writes "Looks like MS will not support IE7 on Windows 2000. 'It should be no surprise that we do not plan on releasing IE7 for Windows 2000... [S]ome of the security work in IE7 relies on operating system functionality in XPSP2 that is non-trivial to port back to Windows 2000.' While security fixes will still be available until 2010, I guess that means the only browsers with tabs for W2k will be Opera and Firefox." All the details about an MS product's fall into senility available at the lifecycle page.

Comments

One More Reason to Keep Win2K

[geomon]

My choice is to upgrade from Win2K to WinXP for IE?

Hah! I'll keep Win2K and Firefox, thanks.

Re:One More Reason to Keep Win2K

[Patoski]

The point is that 2k starts its EOL cycle in June and goes into extended support (security updates only). Why would they spend all this time back porting stuff from XPSP2 to an EOL product. Guess what, 98 isn't getting IE7 either, is that an anti-trust violation or simply because 98 is in EOL status?

Maybe because ~60% of their corporate userbase is still Win2k? Or how about the fact that they haven't released an enhancement to Win2k in over two years? C'mon folks, Win2k is only 12 months older than XP. The question real question is why wouldn't MS give Win2k users some love considering that the browser wars are starting to heat up again?

So let's sum up the past two years of "Mainline Support" from MS for Win2k users: no Service Pack 5, none of IE6 security enhancements in XP will make it to Win2k and no IE7 for Win2k users.

MS is really giving Windows 2000 users the middle finger. MS is partly responsible for the security mess that is Windows 2000 and they should do *something* to help fix the situation. It isn't my fault as a user that MS hasn't released an operating sysytem for going on four years now. Why would I now pay for an OS that is over 3.5 years old?

It is really starting to feel that, at least part of the reason MS is going on an on about security is just another ploy to try to get customers to upgrade to the next greatest version of their product more quickly.

If this story is accurate, then this is a huge misstep by MS. MS is really opening the door for Firefox to further accelerate its adoption.

Terrible Sunday News

[fembots]

Does that mean I'm stuck with Firefox, and cannot utilize Microsoft's intelligent autoupdate which automatically downloads security patches once every 3 days?

This raises an interesting question - Why/How can Firefox, which runs happily on W2K and others, offer better security, while IE cannot do the same on an OS developed by MS itself?

I'm sure Firefox will be laughed at if it said it could not develop a browser for Windows because some of the security work in Firefox relies on operating system functionality in Linux that is non-trivial to port to Windows.

Re:Terrible Sunday News

[Ride-My-Rocket]

Why/How can Firefox, which runs happily on W2K and others, offer better security, while IE cannot do the same on an OS developed by MS itself?

According to Microsoft, IE is integrated into the operating system itself -- it is no longer a standalone application. Ostensibly they did this to allow greater desktop-to-Internet integration, but given the inherent insecurity of ActiveX, the tendency for the forces of evil to use it maliciously, and the inability of users to lock it down, it's not exactly a hot selling point these days.

Firefox, on the other hand, stands to benefit immensely from all this. It offers a free, lightweight, standalone browser whose programming environment makes it easy for developers to extend its functionality without coopting its security (so far). It does this without any hooks into the operating system, and offers a variety of ways to combat malware, popups and generally obnoxious behavior (Flash movies, rampant advertising, etc).

Microsoft might claim that they won't be releasing any further security patches or functional upgrades to Windows 2000 or IE6. But as of September 2004, ~49% of Windows users still use Windows 2000 or lower (98, 95, NT, etc). Trying to scare users into upgrading their OS, so they can take advantage of a marginally improved, questionably more secure Windows, doesn't seem to be working anymore. And I'm by no means a Linux zealot -- I'm an ASP/SQL programmer, have been using Windows since v3.1, and am a huge fan of Microsoft's development tools / languages.

Besides landing my most recent job, discovering Firefox was the best tech-related thing that's come along in recent memory. It's inspired me to start learning more about client-side development again, after seeing what's possible with AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript And XML), standards-compliant CSS and XHTML. Once Dean Edwards' CSS-based IE7 stylesheet matures a bit more, developers will be able to instantly upgrade the set of standards-compliant available to IE 5/6 users. At that point, who will need IE 7? The days of developing wonderful new HTML and CSS tags that are only supported by one browser are in decline...... Firefox's market share has risen to just under 10% in the past year, while Microsoft's market share has dropped to under 90% for the first time since Netscape was still relevant. IE7 won't become ubiquitous for a long, long time, especially if Microsoft doesn't plan on making it available to users of its older operating systems. Why would developers of any web applications besides IE-only Intranets/Extranets create products that utilized features only available to a very small set of the installed user base?

So whatever, Microsoft. Dig your own grave, if you insist upon doing so. I'll continue to use your server-side tools, provided something better and easier-to-use doesn't come along, but at this point, you've lost me as a client-side developer of IE. Not that you should care, of course..... but if you can lose a devoted developer like me, I have to wonder how many others you've push away. It appears it's not all about "Developers, Developers, Developers!", as Steve Ballmer & Co. would have us believe.

I... can't tell

[Anonymous Coward]

Is this a good thing or a bad thing for the Win2K users?

bad move on Microsoft's part

[kalpol]

Many people are sticking with Win2K because of the draconian licensing and validation process required with WinXP. They will begin to lose a significant portion of the browser market as people realize how easy it is to get Firefox and the benefits it offers over Explorer.

Re:When

[Anonymous Coward]

Games like "How many Botnets can my computer participate in at one time?"

The cost of Internet Explorer

[yotto]

So, Internet Explorer is no longer free, to get a secure Microsoft Browser (Yeah, I'm making a few assumptions here, but let's just live in the hypothetical word for a moment) I have to buy a new version of the OS? Or I can get a secure version of Netscape (That they call Firefox these days) for free. I wonder what I'll choose.

Re:Sounds like

[cpereda_yahoo.com]

http://www.google.com/search?lr=&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8 &q=USB%20for%20NT%204.0