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Internet Explorer 7 To Be XP Only
WindozeSux writes "The new Microsoft browser, Internet Explorer 7 will only be available for users of Windows XP. However, due to the fact the that a large amount of Windows users do not own Windows XP, IE7 is expected to boost the amount of Firefox users. From the article: 'Improvements in Firefox, along with IE 7 restrictions, could lead to a dramatic increase in the open-source browser's market share, according to Dotzler.'"
....they'll release versions of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows 2000 and Windows ME as well. Heck, they should release IE 7 for Windows 98 and Windows NT 4. There are still tens of millions of users (like myself) still using these older versions of Windows, who don't feel like "upgrading" to XP, and who won't have an updated Internet Explorer browser. However, the latest Firefox is readily available for every Windows version that supports Win32 except for Windows NT 3.x. If Microsoft truly cared about trying to steal Firefox's thunder, they should port Internet Explorer to a few older versions of Windows. I don't know too many people who would spend $100+ for an operating system just for a browser.
Well, it doesn't look like I'm giving up Firefox on my Windows NT laptop. Long live Firefox!
I think most people (though not you) find dropping support for a 5 year old OS pretty reasonable.
IIRC Microsoft has specifically stated they will NOT support CSS2 - they claim it's a "flawed standard".
Typical.
And you can bet they'll add a number of "extensions" to maintain control of the Web market - no doubt about that at all. "Featuritis" is the terminal Microsoft disease and they WILL add incompatible "features" to the new browser that idiots will take advantage of, thus perpetuating the browser problem for another five years at least.
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Until then, 2k does everything I need.
Except, perhaps, be supported by it's manufacturer?
What are you going to do when the next worm comes along that exploits a flaw that MS fixed in XP but not 2000?
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Uhm, where did Microsoft say it was going to support CSS2.1?
Also, I think the issue is that Microsoft doesn't want to support ANY of CSS2, let alone the flawed parts. It's not like Microsoft has a problem with only supporting PART of a standard, right?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
It didn't say it was going to support CSS 2.1, but it hasn't said it wouldn't either. CSS2 is a flawed standard, and MS is right for saying they won't support it. 2.1 is a different story, and MS has not commented on whether they will or won't support it.
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Okay, I'm naive, but I don't see this. The primary reason that MS IE is the main browser is simply that people aren't changing from the default on their PCs. This isn't going to change simply because a new MS browser is released. I imagine that most of the XP users won't upgrade either, unless it's forced on them as a security upgrade. (Which may very well happen.)
The people running older versions of Windows will merrily keep running whatever dreck was originally installed as the browser on their machines.
What I see happening will be that MS IE 6 will take a hit in market share, which will be taken up by MS IE 7. If there is a significant difference in the browsing experience, people may react to the change by moving to another browser (I have to admit that is likely firefox, though I am not an FF fanbot) but this will not be the common trend. The greater portion of MS IE users will just keep trundling along.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
There have been about half a dozen major attacks in the last couple of years that suggest otherwise.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Wrong. Windows 2000's mainstream support was retired on June 30th, 2005. See here.Microsoft will continue to support Windows 2000 for corporations that have purchased the extended support license until 2010.
However, according to this site, Microsoft is going to support IE6 until September 2006. I'm not really sure what that means since they haven't updated the browser significantly in 2 years or so.
IE7 will be bundled with Longhorn, and people will likely continue to use whatever is bundled on their PC's... I don't see IE's dominance letting up anytime soon, despite Firefox being a superior browser (in my opinion).
Karma police, arrest this man, he talks in maths....
Microsoft went this route already with DirectX, which is why nobody who likes computer games runs Win95 (or Win98 non-SE) anymore. You need at least Win98SE to use DirectX 9.0b/c, and they plan to require Win2k to use DirectX 9.0d.
However, this leverage actually has some effect, because a lot of games don't include both DirectX and OpenGL support, and hardware manufacturers have no interest in writing new drivers for old OSes when the DirectX component won't even work on the old OS. So, in order to play the next generation of games, users are forced to upgrade.
On the other hand, in the web browsing arena, any competent web browser gives you the same functionality as IE (if not better), and there are several to choose from. What's more, the current crop of web browsers is not under threat of obsolescence, since web standards don't change nearly fast enough to make that happen. IE7 not working in anything earlier than XP might not create a mass exodus to Firefox, but it also won't cause mass upgrades to XP, as long as IE6 still works.
Note that I'm not saying that Microsoft's original intentions related to either DirectX or IE7 were to coerce users into upgrading. However, I'm sure that once their team of marketing wonks got ahold of the idea, any concerns held by the programmers about unsupported users were quickly cut asunder.
Oh yeah... like it is such a big thing that IEX 7 is for the XP only. What is the big deal? Another product out of Redmond will be buggy at first and soon the updates will be following. So folks will change to Firefox..big deal or.. even switch to Apple with Safari.(the best choice ofcourse) And those still using 98SE/ME/2000? Let them..at least they don't have to worry about those frequent patches/updates..
" Always look on the bright side of life "
I don't know what that post is parodying. And I wrote this back in http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=153936&cid=129 12975. So I would like to know.
CSS2.1 is CSS2.
(Disclosure: I'm one of CSS2.1 editors and I wrote that blog post.)
I mean, let's be frank. There are a *horde* of basic bugfixes that are meant to be in IE7; things which will bring it into compliancy and free an awful lot of people using an awful lot of broken implmentations.
This was supposed to be a real gift and boon to the Web - something Microsoft was finally going to do right. They were going to release a version of IE which fixed most of the glaring bugs, fixed PNG transparency, brought forward a lot of basic technology that all of the other standards-based browsers have.
And now? Now they're not releasing it for the majority of platforms that people are using.
They've just taken that goodwill that they were building on, and chucked it out the window, because now they're giving us just another browser, one which will take much longer to "trickle down" into the main browser population. Their gift of the shiny red apple turns out to have a worm in it.
No, this sucks. In every possible way, this sucks. This decision guarantees a future where our work just got harder. I see nothing good in this decision for anyone but Microsoft; it certainly isn't in the users' best interest, nor in the best interest of the web or the quality of the web on IE platforms. Nobody's going to care about new features in IE7 when they're still stuck supporting IE6, and Microsoft deserves the compatibility it will inevitably end up with.
-- A mind is a terrible thing.