Slashdot Mirror
Internet Explorer Drops WGA Requirement
Kelson writes "The Internet Explorer team has updated the installer for IE7. Mostly they've adjusted a few defaults and updated their tutorials, but one change stands out: The installer no longer requires Windows Genuine Advantage validation. Almost a year after its release, IE7 has yet to overtake its predecessor. Was WGA holding back a tide of potential upgrades, or did it just send people over to alternative browsers?"
Lets see how long does wine take to install ie7 now ;)
The way I see it, most people that would need to 'avoid' WGA would likely already be using another browser. And the other half of the demographic that hasn't 'up'graded to IE7 likely has automatic updates shut off and won't be turning it on anytime soon.
Not that it was great, but WGA wasn't necessarily all that BAD, either, provided you just have a legit software copy. But that's the point, the point is just that noone cares about IE7 really.
It's finally clear where Microsoft's priorities lie. You can pirate until they have a dominant place in the market.
you really do get a big advantage, think about all the time you won't waste searching for porn because your computer won't work from a virus you got because of IE
...run on Linux?
I'd put money on it, that sometime in 2008 IE7
will become a forced upgrade path by Microsoft.
Perhaps folded into the next service pack?
Good thing my Windows machines are still running win2k.
...wouldn't have known it was there. The WGA requirement means that you actively have to log into Windows Update and say "yes, I want IE7" or actively locate an IE7 installer. Your average computer user won't even know which version of IE they're using, much less will have any idea there's a new version out and why they should bother installing it.
If IE7 doesn't have the WGA thing, then presumably it's going to be automatically installed with the rest of the updates whihc most users have set to automatic (since that's how the computer came configured).
So yes, expect the installed base to increase significantly, and I imagine a reasonably increase in usage as well - alot of people will find it better than any other browser they're using (stupid, uncustomisable button layout notwithstanding).
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
As far as I can see, it still does not support the /integrate: switch to slipstream it into your own install/rescue CDs, leaving only such crutches as nLite to silently install it over the already present IE6, and thereby wasting valuable space on the CD.
In my company, all the web based application that doesn't work well in IE7 and firefox were application developed with IEism and activeX components... Some have some minor displays bugs but vastly due to some IEism corrected in IE7 in the interpretation of the CSS :/
of a pirated Windows XP was that it never downloaded and force-installed the crappy IE7. After the sneaky updates, it seems it is the turn of IE7 now to get in on all XP systems. Whatever for?
If IE7 provides more security, then it should be available only for genuine editions. Why incentivise piracy? Now, the Firefox exploits that work only when IE7 is installed will start working on pirated editions of XP.... even though the user may be using FIrefox only. Way to go, I say!
If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
IES4Linux installs IE on wine in a matter of minutes, no WGA required ... :)
:)
In fact, I ran WGA a few months ago under wine, it validated my non-existent Windows license
Good thing my "windows" machines don't run windows. :-)
yeah I know it's cliche to post about running another OS, but honestly, what's the motivation to run windows anymore?
I recently swapped gentoo for ubuntu on my laptop, and out of the box ubuntu booted up to Gnome, had a bunch of useful software installed, was easy to add more OSS to it, it detected my wireless card, and even found my access point right away, sound works, etc. If I take an XP SP2 CD and put it in my laptop, it will fail to find my wireless AND sound. Yet, a free ubuntu CD does that and more. I just don't get what would motivate me to run Windows. This isn't a fanboy issue, it's just pragmatism. Windows is shit by comparison.
As for the issue of IE7, to be honest I'd rather run IE4 than either IE6 or IE7. Loads a hell of a lot quicker, and the interface is a bit more sane. Even without tabbed browsing it's still better than 7.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
How about rolling out the dropping of the Windows Genuine Dis-advantage to IE6? I hate IE7, and don't want it on my system. The only time I ever use the awful IE browser is because all other browsers point-blank refuse to work with the Windows Update website / properly.
Take Nobody's Word For It.
Alternate browsers! Not alternative browsers. That said, I'm sure many people use their browsers to view "alternative" material, but WGA might have pushed people to try ALTERNATE browsers.
[/nitpick]
Same problem at my work. Loads of shitty web-based corporate apps rely on IE6-isms that won't work in IE7, resulting in the entire enterprise being forced to use IE6 (plus severe update lags due to inefficient and ineffective testing of patches). As such, we've had a couple of breaches via 0-day exploits targetting unpatched IE6 installs.
Yay for the Intranet Microsoft Built.
Oddity: IT staff don't eat their own dog food, and everyone uses FF whilst telling the users they can't have it because intranet apps "don't work with firefox". However, bring IE into the equation and the same staff will tell you "the app is shit and won't work with IE". Odd how such a pro-MS shop changes the burden of proof depending on whether the target is asociated with Linux or not
Moderation Total: -1 Troll, +3 Goat
Yea, I'd hate to be forced to give up IE 6...
Geeks will install whatever they want to, browser-wise. I usually have several, and I switch back and forth depending on my mood/needs.
But for the vast majority of people, who use whatever browser happens to be in the task bar? Force 'em to IE 7! I don't know why they didn't do it in the first place.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
yeah I know it's cliche to post about running another OS, but honestly, what's the motivation to run windows anymore?
If you can't figure it out after this being the topic of discussion every single day on Slashdot, at least accept people have different needs from each other and stop asking the same question like a broken record.
M$'s website point-blank refuses to work with any other browser.
Patents Drive Free Software as Hurricanes Drive Construction Industry
Seriously, that's the complete list these days as far as I can tell. Not good news for Microsoft.
Read my blog.
As an IT guy in a big organisation, via the marvels of SMS2003 I've been shown to have Firefox on my machine. I've been asked to remove it on grounds of security...sigh.
(There is *kind* of a point to this in that we're ultralocked down for most stuff - can't change proxy in IE etc, and FF isn't centrally managed the way our standard software is. In this case it's just a particularly amusing example..)
I know its slightly off topic, but I still don't have IE7 installed on my only windows computer and won't until I hear from a reliable source that the bug mentioned here http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/07/26/1719236 has been fixed. I use firefox and am not even going to consider upgrading software I don't use to a more secure version if it introduces a security hole in software I do use.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
You have to realize that in Microsoft's landscape, Windows Users are not entitled to "choose" anything. Making the choice to use Linux is insanely difficult. You grow accustomed and comfortable after a while but its still really hard. There is no free market in computers. Proliferation of IIS and ActiveX will force people to IE.
Sometimes it's worth repeating because it's a valid rhetorical question.
You can edit documents, run spreadsheets (even multiply correctly!), design software/hardware, compose music, etc, just as easily in an OSS OS as Windows. And if people stopped worshipping Redmond they'd actually realize that *they* have the power to choose, not the producers.
Why isn't photoshop ported to GNU/Linux? Because customers aren't demanding it enough. Watch people hold up updating CS, demand Linux ports, and you'll probably see it happen. But if you just blindly do what they tell you, you get less options. And in certain cases the alternatives are better. I'd rather use OO.o than MS Office. I'd rather use firefox than IE7. I'd rather use pidgin than the MSN client, I'd rather use lilypond than Finale, I'd rather use mplayer than WMP, I'd rather use a lot of things than their "traditional proprietary" counterparts.
I'd suspect for 99% of computer users out there (home users included) they could get by just as well or better with a good Linux distro than Vista. Certainly my experience with Ubuntu has been such that if you can't figure out how to use/install it, you probably won't get much out of owning a computer anyways. It's just so damn simple to use, not to mention free, and gives access to an entire library of OSS software.
Tom
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Why are we still getting these spam posts that go to the error page where a picture that some might consider to be offensive used to be hosted?
I could understand spam posts going to a shock picture, but not an error message.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I'm guessing Microsoft wanted IE7 (and some of their other apps) to follow Office 2007's lead and get rid of the menu bar. This made sense for Office because the new contextual ribbon interface negates the need for a menu bar. It was hard to believe at first, but Office 2007 really does work better without the menu bar.
However, removing the menu bar from IE7 made no sense IMO. IE7 didn't implement a ribbon interface (which wouldn't work for this app anyway), but they still removed the menu bar and seemingly tried to put all important functions on the button bar. Requiring a keyboard shorcut ("Alt") to access the menu was annoying to me and probably frustrating to novice/intermediate users.
I think this simple change will significantly improve usablility. I'll still be an Opera man, though.
TO START
PRESS ANY KEY
Where's the 'ANY' key? I see Esk, Kitarl, and Pig-Up...
does this apply to all MS updates or just IE7?
"At first, we thought it was just another snake cult."
As a web developer I've been using Microsoft's own VirtualPC doodad which they provided - for free - with a working XP Pro image that had IE6 installed on it. Since you can't really run IE6 and 7 on the same machine this was useful. One IE on my real drive, the other in the virtual machine. The problem was, I really did not want to put IE7 on the real machine.
:-/
So anyway, I figured I'd just download IE7 on the virtualized XP Pro. Imagine my surprise when that copy of Windows, freshly downloaded from microsoft.com, failed to pass WGA validation!
Tredosoft came to the rescue of course with their various clever ways of getting different versions of IE to play (moderately) nicely together, but it still wasn't ideal.
Now I guess I can get IE7 to work on that XP image.
OMG!!! Ponies!!!
It is rather common for game manufacturers to remove StarForce or other cd-tethering protection after the game has been out for a while. So, like, MS issued a no-cd patch for IE7 then?
If J.K.R wrote Windows: Puteulanus fenestra mortalis!
...why I got last night another proposal to install MSIE7.
I was like "WTF, I already said NO. And dont remind me again AGAIN".
Hope it finally listens =)
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Why would you switch away from Gentoo? I'm not trolling, I'm genuinely curious. As a long term Debian user {formerly a Mandrake user}, I tried a brief fling with Gentoo a year or so back. It did everything Debian did, but it didn't really seem to do it any better than Debian. The biggest difference seemed to be that "apt-get install foo" was replaced by "emerge foo". I put up with it till the HDD in the box died the death, then went back to Debian for its replacement.
Had I discovered Gentoo before Debian, I'm quite sure that's what I would have eventually stuck with; I had reached the limitations of Mandrake {as it was then known} and needed a more powerful system with a bigger package repository. There's little to choose between Gentoo and Debian, IMHO. And Ubuntu is really just Debian, but pre-configured a certain way.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
In my company at least, many of the systems use HTTP. IE7 was tested, and none of these systems worked well enough on it. The same thing with the company I worked for before. It just isn't reliable enough.
You're a genius of comedy. When you die, you gotta donate your brain to a museum so we can all marvel at the complexity and intricate beauty of the mechanism that led to this joke above.
Err... rebuild your machine and install TrustNoExe, then block the SMS client from running along with your domain logon scripts, etc.
Really useful little utility, and a good way to stop users from running unauthorized crap on their machines. The ability to block logon scripts and SMS snooping is just a nice little bonus.
Just the other day I was trying to repair a PC where IE7 was having a variety of issues. I installed Firefox, explained the benefits, and then attempted to use Firefox to download IE7 since he needed it for some apps for work. However, the WGA was failing with all the same problems that IE7 was failing with. The irony (yes yes, not the right word) of it was I was actively trying to get IE from Firefox, and MS wouldn't let me do it without getting a validation code from all the WGA nonsense.
;-)
He was happy to hear about Firefox and plans on using that now instead, and after uninstalling IE7, found IE6 to be functional enough for those few times he needs it. So, while WGA is a pain in the ass, it helped convert one more person to Firefox. So I don't know how I feel about them removing it.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
Even though i am pro M$ (despite having a mac at home) i still find ie7 annoyingly glitchy and counterintuitive. You can't reorder feeds (and sometimes your favourites) in the side bar by drag'n'drop. Sometimes RSS entries need several clicks to launch the relevant article. And don't get me started on the whole menu/toolbar thing.
I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
Like many...I'm stuck using IE6 at work. Something must have changed overnight with Slashdot...maybe some weird new CSS?
Whatever it is...it is really messing up. It is hard to read any article....many comments don't appear to even have a reply button on them.
That..and I'm afraid it looks like /. has implemented a automatic PAGE REFRESH mode? I hope not..I like to keep a browser open on /. all day...but, if it starts auto-refreshing, that can look like too much surfing at work.
A the top of pages I see it autochecks an option to "Try new Slashdot discussion system". I try unchecking it each time to no-avail. I checked my preferences...and it is also set to NOT use the new system, but, it appears the new system is still being fed to me.
Please fix this...it was bad enough that the firehose page has recently been made unusable by IE6...now the normal pages are really screwing up.
I used FF, Safari, and the native KDE browsers at home...and they seem to work fine, but, I've got NO choice at work. Please make /. work like it did before. Simple HTML and CSS are just great....we don't need an ajax Slashdot..it is the content and the people that make the site.....not the fanciness of the site. Especially with all that added 'zing' messes up on a majorly used (unfortunately) browser.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
I worked for a social services company's IT department. They are a pro-MS shop also. They are only allowing users to run IE6 because the state apps required by employees rely on IE6. Will not work in IE7.
That's what happened to me -- I needed to upgrade to see a page, I went to IE's upgrade site, and it asked me for stuff I hadn't seen in at least a year. So, this post isn't being typed into an IE window.
Quotes from A Man for All Seasons
I have a friend called Lloyd who has an xp box bought pre wga times with the pc.
To my knowledge he apparently has got ABSOLUTELY no updates from Microsoft since wga was turned on by them as he does not has the wga things. So what does this have to do with ie ?
Does Lloyd care about wga no, has he noticed the lack of care from Microsoft who think that he is a pirate because he has not bothered to wga his xp box ? No.
So why should he bother about ie 7. For the record i dont do wga (or use windows) and i will not install it and the machine in question has a copy of firefox on it.
Hopefully somebody will hack his unpatched before wga box and then i can lead him a cd of linux (no im not recommending vista). The Moral (from slashdot perspective) i think is that if your treat your customers as thieves then why should he bother with ie7.
So, does this mean it can be installed on Windows 2000?
I use Win2K in a virtual machine, and have never had the need to upgrade to XP or Vista.
One of the few issues I have run into with staying on Win2K is the inability to run IE7. Not that I want to run it.. I am quite happy with Firefox. But, some projects I am working on have www components that I would like to verify with IE7. So, this would be nice to have.
More important than the power to choose is (sadly) the power to "not change". People won't change until forced to. See the Firefox case, why it's gaining ground? Microsoft almost forced people change from IE
"Power to Choose" less important than "Power To Not Change" (in general, for most peopleo)
The products not-Microsft must be much better to "force a change" and much more vendors must sell computers with a (very working and cheaper then a Windows option) Linux distro.
Your boss calls you an IT guy, but doesn't trust you with a computer? Does he also send you to customers? "Hey, I won't trust him with one of my PC's but you can hire this briliant IT guy for $500/h".
Microsoft offers an XP SP2 + IE7 Virtual PC image for testing. It has a date expiration, so you do need to download new ones every few months.
Google doesn't index user sigs, so stop trying to "Google Bomb" with them.
That WGA validation really hold me from trying IE7 on my pirated XP.
Anyway, I actually prefer Firefox and that's what I use all the time
I updated IE on my wifes computer (M$ xp), as she needs it for work, before the service pack that included ie7 in it was released, wga broke and no updates could be installed till I followed this voodoo ritual of purging I found on the Microsoft support site. This removed IE7 so I could install updates and the new service pack which included IE7. I'd call it bass ackwards but that would be an insult to all bass and bass fisherman out there.
Removing wga probably improves stability overall, I just tried checking the version of IE on this machine and it crashed IE!
Phil
Laugh, it's good for you!
We currently use IE 6.X because, after extensive testing, IE 7 breaks many of our legacy web based internal applications.
I don't use IE hardly at all. Only when the occasional website screws up in Opera and I for whatever crazy reason decide it's really worth whipping out IE. I know I don't have the latest version so I didn't even know it required WGA. How do they get away with that anyway? I thought part of the DoD's monopoly complaints had to do with how integrated the browser was with the OS. I suppose the WGA requirement only shrinks their install base for IE, but it also doesn't go a long way in separating IE from the OS. How can MS use WGA for anything other than core OS updates? Aren't they otherwise abusing their monopoly? Just seems strange that something like IE is supposed to be just another browser to compete against and yet it's also a tool for MS to police their Windows installations.
To be honest I got pissed off at some packages that wouldn't update (like gedit, epiphany, etc), also the wireless config changed again. I mean I like gentoo as a concept, but in practice they don't QA enough which drives me mad. It's nice that most problems can be solved via a browse of forums.gentoo.org, but frankly, I don't have time to maintain my laptop all the time.
:-)
Now my file server/workstation at home runs gentoo, but that's because I like the freshness of the tools around and it's worth solving emerge script problems
But in the case of the laptop, I "just wanted it to work."
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
MSI builds of Firefox: http://www.frontmotion.com/Firefox/fmfirefox.htm
They're configurable with Group Policy, or at least that's what the website says.
Of course, you'll need to get your SMS admin to agree to this.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If you want to run multiple versions of MIE for testing, read this: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE
I cuurently have MIE 5, 5.5, 6 and 7 running on the same XP box. And with a simple registry hack, they display the version number in the title bar and respond to the appropriate conditional comments for CSS stylesheets. I develop on Mac, and use the PC only for testing, but even I was able to get these installed.
...and then you could be fired for cause. Brilliant.
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
Buying volume license copies and then having to activate each copy, or run a key management server is a pain in the ass. My company still has not upgraded to Vista and does not plan to, unless the draconian activation policies are reversed.
We are, however, buying tons of Macs and only running windows where necessary. Web-based apps and terminal server are dramatically reducing the need for a windows desktop machine in the business world.
Microsoft has everything to lose and little to gain - making products harder to buy, deploy, and use is not a wise strategy.
-ted
Yes, and that's what I was attempting to run via Firefox. However it was failing with similar errors that IE7 was having. Since IE7 wasn't working, and I couldn't get WGA to validate through Firefox, I couldn't even download IE7 from MS to repair/test the IE installation. I finally did find a copy that Yahoo was hosting, but it was branded of course with their info. In the end we told MS to piss off and never reinstalled IE7.
I will shred my adversaries. Pull their eyes out just enough to turn them towards their mewing, mutilated faces. Illyria
1. It's the first OS we have had and we have since grown to be real power users; perhaps not to the levels of an 'uber-unix-sysadmin', but enough to feel like geeks.
2. It's the most widely used OS - in schools and in offices. And honestly, it's quite a hassle to make sure files (documents mostly) are interoperable; I'm sure openoffice does it pretty good, but making sure files are saved in a format thats readable in both systems takes extra effort.
3. There are lots of accessible people who are experienced/power users of windows. If an aunt needs help with her system she could call any of her children, nephew, or nieces to help her. If I have a question/problem with my kubuntu, I often need to literally scour the net and forums to find solutions.
4. Windows may not be the first thing that pops up in one's mind when talking about security but it can be easily fixed, or at least alleviated, by third-party apps (firefox, anti-virus, etc.) or if the need arises, format the drive and reinstall.
5. Applications and lots of it. I need a post-it type of app? I need an app that keeps my windows 'on-top'? I need an app that does x,y,z? I google it and download one.
6. Games.
7. Everything is available for free! Just go to your favorite torrent site, search for whatever you want, and get it. And if people stopped worshipping Redmond they'd actually realize that *they* have the power to choose, not the producers. Blame it on their monopoly and on our ignorance... but I believe that the market had chosen. Fear not though as people can still choose. Linux is starting to get noticed more and more and soon (hopefully) producers will no longer be able to ignore them. As long as anti-monopoly laws hold up against MS, I believe linux (Ubuntu, most likely) can challenge it.
They're configurable with Group Policy, or at least that's what the website says.
Of course, you'll need to get your SMS admin to agree to this. What is the point of not shipping Firefox packaged in MSI installer file? It is the native install method of Windows. Same goes for Apple OS X. They also refuse Installer.app method of installing and provide a non functional "Applications" link having drag drop file. What happens as result? OS X remote desktop having users/companies get hassle. In future, it will be a more hassle since Installer.app is evolving to become MSI like thing.
If they are boycotting (?) Windows, they should boycott alltogether. They are just harming their own programs popularity and enterprise acceptance via not using MSI or Installer.app. MSI also has some handy functions for users which may prevent certain "IE install" accidents (!!) too. E.g. one may auto-repair Firefox installation if some Microsoft tool "accidentally" deleted some parts in future.
If an OS has a native installer facility, it should be chosen. It is even funnier on OS X, I keep hearing some nightmare scenarios with Installer.app and yet Apple happily ships monster sized OS updates using that architecture.
Good thing my "windows" machines don't run windows. :-)
:) I'm so funny.
That's nothing, you gotta see my "Intel" machines that run AMD. Huhuhuhuh
As for the issue of IE7, to be honest I'd rather run IE4 than either IE6 or IE7. Loads a hell of a lot quicker, and the interface is a bit more sane.
Wow, mod him insightful, mod him right now, that's the most insightful thing I've ever read since the dry-your-poodle-in-the-microwave technique.
You better be careful though. If any web developer sees you spreading propaganda to make people switch back from IE7 to IE4, the consequences will be unimaginably cruel and quite likely lethal.
With apologies to Bill Engvall.
How hard is it to click the Bugzilla entry?
Ah, fair enough. I must have just caught them on good days then :)
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
You can edit documents, run spreadsheets (even multiply correctly!), design software/hardware, compose music, etc, just as easily in an OSS OS as Windows. And if people stopped worshipping Redmond they'd actually realize that *they* have the power to choose, not the producers.
It's not about "editing documents and spreadsheets," it's about "editing MS Office documents and spreadsheets" because Microsoft is a monopoly. Businesses aren't willing to screw around with OpenOffice if it means they might not be able to open files from clients. Microsoft wouldn't be able to charge $329 for an upgrade if they didn't have a lock on the market.
Why isn't photoshop ported to GNU/Linux? Because customers aren't demanding it enough.
No, because serious Photoshop users couldn't care less about running it on Linux. They need it to Just Work, not waste time tinkering with it.
Why is the parent post Flamebait? It's quite insightful and on the money.
No, because serious Photoshop users couldn't care less about running it on Linux. They need it to Just Work, not waste time tinkering with it.
... gotcha.
Right... because absolutely no time is spent getting Windows to work. That's why people are migrating BACK TO XP from Vista in sufficient numbers as to have MSFT extend the life of XP.
Right, Windows "Just Works"
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I support some users with brain-dead web apps like that as well, and other run-on-machine apps that use mshtml.dll. I have some others whose app first required .NET 1.1 & would crash if 2.0 or 3.0 was installed, then the new version requires 2.0 and crashes if 3.0 is installed, but at least the new version also works with IE7.
.NET runtime newer than what you wrote against is even *installed*? FTM, I thought that .NET 3.0 was just 2.0 repackaged and with a few extras bolted on, but still fully compatible with 2.0 apps.
How, in the name of all that's crufty and evil, do you code an app that breaks if a
Hail Eris, full of mischief...
E pluribus sanguinem
If MS allows downloading IE7 without WGA, meaning it allows piracy and cannot complain afterwards about people not buying it's OS.
Anyways, whenever I meet a Windows box, the only thing I use IE for is to download firefox.
Read and Comment at my BLOG
!!!
Right... because absolutely no time is spent getting Windows to work. That's why people are migrating BACK TO XP from Vista in sufficient numbers as to have MSFT extend the life of XP.
... gotcha.
Right, Windows "Just Works"
You have some serious issues. Most businesses don't upgrade to Vista for the same reason they don't switch to Linux.
In your mind it's The World versus Windows + Microsoft, and Vista is still Windows.
However in people who don't have time to waste on fighting windmills, it's Solutions that Work versus Solutions that don't Work
XP works just fine with Photoshop, so does OSX. Vista and Linux, don't.
To those people Vista and Linux is the same thing: poor solution to their demands. I know, I know... the blasphemy of putting them together. You'll need to live with it.
With IE being part of the operating system, and commercial software companies being required by law to provide free security updates, I imagine Microsoft was opening themselves up to all sorts of legal liability.
Before locking IE7 up with WGA, they could avoid fixing huge security holes in older versions of the browser, telling everyone to upgrade to the latest version, or shut-up and live with it. With WGA routinely denying legitimate users, and apparently no method provided for users to have problems with WGA resolved, this could really have forced Microsoft to continue relasing patches for IE6 for several more years.
Micrsoft seems to be intentionally trying to avoid such legal problems for the rest of their security updates, by allowing automatic updates to be downloaded, even if WGA checks fail and you aren't even allowed to use the windowsupdate website directly.
DRM... Does using it shift legal liability onto companies that were previously able to avoid indemnity, and were previously otherwise just raking-in free money with each copy sold?
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
I work at a MS shop that develops software. MSI installer is sufficiently buggy that we've largely bypassed it by having it unpack a single exe and zip file, then execute the exe.
Down with MSI!
lets add a few more possible reasons
* you do photo editing seriously and want to use the standard proffesional photo editing tool (yes it is availible for the mac but they have their own problems like having to pay well over £1000 for a machine capable of supporting a matching pair of monitors) on an OS it is supported on.
* you program PICs and want to use microchips debugging tools
* you have internal buisness applications that require windows and don't work properly under wine.
* you have to work with people who have standardised on applications that are not availible for linux (be it office, altium designer or whatever)
note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
I've maintained THAT was true for a LONG time now. Microsoft has always "turned a blind eye" to piracy, when they thought building market-share was more important than potentially loss of revenue to copyright infringement.
... call us back and buy a legal one later on, whenever you're ready".
I've worked for companies (and known others in I.T. who had a similar experience) where the Microsoft sales rep would come in, basically hand us an illegal copy of a piece of MS software, and suggest we "install it... use it for a while, and you know
My problem is the only reason why shitty tools and OSes exist is because we're training ourselves TO EXPECT failure.
It's ok if the program has bugs, isn't fully documented, etc, that's just the way software is.
WRONG.
Photoshop should work on any decently modern OS, especially something like a *NIX where X11 is the norm and ported everywhere. It doesn't however, because nobody demands it. And they don't demand it because customers accept that "this is the way things are." Like I said earlier, imagine if people delayed upgrades to CS because they wanted to use it on another OS. I'm sure Adobe would look into complying with the wishes of the customers. I'm not pissed off because software is written for XP, I'm pissed off because customers let suppliers tell them how to do business.
In other camps it's worse though. Most arguments in favour of Office is basically "because people use Office" well that's self-serving. And it's not at all true. Where I work we use OO.o and give customers PDFs. Seems to work just fine. Sure we have copies of Office around, but we're not forced to use it, and in fact pretty much all of the workstations are incapable of running it anyways.
People have to snap out of this bullshit apathy and actually demand reasonable standards, quality, and protection [from lockin]. I'd be cool with using XP, for instance, if it weren't so far on its own tangent. MSFT basically steals any good ideas from standards then perverts it enough so they are not 100% compatible. And they only do that so they can lock people in.
For me, I'm not anti-msft because I'm some fanboy anti-msft zealot. I'm anti-msft because I don't like being forced to use tools someone else picks for me, and more so, picks for me because they want to gouge me to line their pockets.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
I had IE7 blocked under the "don't show me this update again" which worked well until this change unblocked it. So now it appears again as an update, which I didn't want. This will catch people out.
In my trials on another machine I found IE7 to be the ugliest program I've ever seen. It's poorly designed. If it just looked as good as IE6 then more people would of tried it out.
My problem is the only reason why shitty tools and OSes exist is because we're training ourselves TO EXPECT failure.
What failure? Ever bothered to claim your statements specifically? I have no failures on XP, what on Earth are you talking about.
Tell me one single serious problem, I, Windows XP and Photoshop user, suffer from the fact I use Windows to run Photoshop.
Then tell me how Linux helps this problem. Keep in mind: I'm a Photoshop user, seeing the kernel code means jack to me. You better come up with something real. And the price of XP is not much higher than the price of any other commercial grade Linux distro with corporate support.
So, I'm waiting.
IE7 was added to the automatic update channel about a month after the installer became available. It started automatically, then required user intervention: it brought up a dialog box asking if you wanted to install IE7. If you said yes, it would run the WGA validation, then download the rest of the files and install.
They even released a tool you could run that would tell Automatic Updates to skip IE7, if you had an environment you wanted to keep on IE6 and not have to uncheck the item every time.
The most common case for WinXP users with auto-update turned on, leaving their computers running, would be to turn on the monitor sometime last November and see "Do you want to install IE7?" on the screen.
Talk to me in 2-3 years when XP is no longer supported, you need a new computer and only Vista or whatever comes with it.
At least if I put a solid linux Distro on my box, it'll still be around 5 years from now.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.
Possibly the part about, "If IE7 provides more security, then it should be available only for genuine editions. Why incentivise piracy?"
Consider that computer security flaws affect everyone, not just the vulnerable system. An owned box will pump out viruses or spam, clog traffic, can be used as a stepping-stone to launch attacks, etc. The suggestion that pirated systems shouldn't get security fixes has proved...controversial here in the past.
As I commented on http://blogs.zdnet.com/microsoft/?p=794
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Gates explained it in 1998
I voted for "To try to grow IE 7's marketshare by adding software pirates to the count"; to partially quote what Bill Gates said in 1998:
"we want them to steal ours. They'll get sort of addicted, and then we'll somehow figure out how to collect"
http://www.news.com/2100-1023-212942.html
The 'addiction' can only happen if IE7 gets a vast-majority market share like IE6 had.
Now look at http://members.shaw.ca/Limulus/files/w3sbw2-0706.png
The numbers from w3schools.com aren't necessarily indicative of the overall web, but I've found the trends they show are.
Compared to the IE5 -> IE6 transition which was rapid and fairly X shaped on the graph, the IE6 -> IE7 tansition has stalled, with IE7 having plateaued at a level *less* than IE6.
This is very bad for Microsoft, as it represents a prolonged vulnerable state. Since IE6 and 7 are different enough that they need to be treated separately by developers, the difference in market share between IE7 and Firefox is small enough that website developers must take the latter into account too and thus support it (even if you take the Net Applications numbers http://marketshare.hitslink.com/report.aspx?qprid=6 to be fully accurate, and I don't, you'll note that the ratio of FF:IE7:IE6 is about 2:5:6. If it was all IE6, that would be 2:11) And if Firefox is supported, there will be less sites that are IE-specific, meaning less 'addiction' to IE.
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That was a good one, real clever. How's that working out for you? Being clever?
Don't blame me ... I use Opera.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
1) I have seen as many issues with IE7 migrations as issues solved by migrations to IE7.
2) IE7, however, does correct a number of insane deviations from standards that IE6 and earlier made. One notable example is the fact that IE7 submits the button value attribute back to the server instead of the innerHTML (as IE6 and earlier do). Furthermore, before you pull MSDN documnetation to prove me wrong, I will note that MSDN was not updated for some of these changes.
So IE7 breaks backwards compatibility with IE6 in a few areas (and about time...) but Microsoft isn't documenting the browser properly and so I can imagine that web devs are confused.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I am TheRaven on Soylent News
Well I rebuilt a laptop with XP (SP3 Beta actually) and messed up some registry permissions, so IE7 would never install. Followed ALL the remedies to no avail (well, I prefer Firefox, but I do need IE7 too - and validation was never a problem here). So today I tried again with the identically-named download. It spent 5+ minutes thrashing on the hard drive (repairing things?), then went straight through sweetly. So a few extra issues have been fixed under the covers. Grudging credit where credit is (eventually) due.
At the end of the day, why would I switch to Linux? So I have the source? No thanks. For the free software? Windows has all the free software I need. For the interface? The Windows interface is way more polished. Because it's free? So was Windows. Came with my computer. I have legal copies of XP Pro, XP Home, Media Center and Vista, and I've never paid for any of them.
I think it's great that you guys love Linux, but I'm perfectly happy, thanks.
All right, I'll talk to you in 2-3 years.
Next time if you sense you need 2-3 years to come up with something sensible to support your rants, just keep quiet until the 2-3 years pass and only then post.
I use IE at most once a month, usually to fill out some form on some backwards government website or something similar, that for some stupid reason has to have IE. Other than that, I haven't bothered in years. However, FF is starting to turn into a bloated pig, and is now being targeted by attackers too, so who knows maybe I'll check out IE again one of these days.
2 words - Visual Studio
how about putting the GODDAMNED RELOAD BUTTON back where it's supposed to be?!?
assholes.
As for the issue of IE7, to be honest I'd rather run IE4 than either IE6 or IE7. Loads a hell of a lot quicker, and the interface is a bit more sane. Even without tabbed browsing it's still better than 7.
Are you sure you're not letting the fanboyism get the best of you? While IE6/7 aren't exactly impressive, they have fixed a lot of the most horrible rendering bugs which means any modern site will render like crap in IE4. The strict mode in IE6 was at the time, one of the best things to happen to web standards ever. Of course we're talking 2001 here and not much has happened since then...
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Microsoft allows you to upgrade and operate as normal fully well knowing you've stolen their software. Apple bricks your phone when you've paid $700 for it. Oh, well.
There is a good reason I uninstalled IE7: it just doesn't work very well. In attempting to make it follow standards more closely, not only did they dump some of the famous IE "quirks" that people accounted for when designing their websites, they did not replace that with adequate "standard" behavior. As a result, a lot of fancy page layouts simply do not display correctly: their engine does not display it according to the standard, nor according to the old "quirk" that people knew. Which is really bad news.
When I could not get some simple <div> and <table> layouts to be the right size or place in IE7, I just tossed it and went back to 6. And I am talking pretty basic HTML4.
I think Microsoft still needs to get it through their heads that in order for something to be an "improvement", it has to be an improvement from the user point of view, not just their own.
That's why people are migrating BACK TO XP from Vista in sufficient numbers as to have MSFT extend the life of XP.
And where did I say anything about Vista? (sound of crickets chirping around a straw man).
Photoshop should work on any decently modern OS, especially something like a *NIX where X11 is the norm and ported everywhere. It doesn't however, because nobody demands it. And they don't demand it because customers accept that "this is the way things are.
No, they don't demand it because time is money and they see no reason to waste a great deal of money screwing around with Linux.
Next time if you sense you need 2-3 years to come up with something sensible to support your rants, just keep quiet until the 2-3 years pass and only then post.
What he said.
IE7 is now flagged as a Critical update, whereas the "Update Rollup 2 for Windows XP Media Center Edition 2005" (KB900325) is an Optional update. And guess what? If you install IE7 first - for example, if it is done for you automatically courtesy of Automatic Updates - the KB900325 update fails to install!
Only the manual, go-to-the-website-and-patch WindowsUpdate/MicrosoftUpdate is blocked without WGA.
I've been writing/developing software for a long time now, never "needed" visual studio. You just work on the wrong software if you require VS.
Someday, I'll have a real sig.