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Microsoft to Force IE7 Update on February 12th

Z80xxc! writes "InfoWorld is reporting that on February 12th, Microsoft will roll out Internet Explorer 7 through Windows Server Update Services to all systems - regardless of whether or not the update had been requested previously. The piece also mentions ways to prevent the update from occurring, for sysadmins who do not want to use IE7 on their systems. Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to 'security concerns'."

480 comments

  1. Good in some ways... by dyefade · · Score: 4, Insightful

    At least now there is only IE7 to support - IE6 should quickly fall from use.

    1. Re:Good in some ways... by 6Yankee · · Score: 5, Funny

      Except I can guarantee that at least one of my clients will cling doggedly to IE6, just to piss me off...

    2. Re:Good in some ways... by honorable1nut · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Not in others.......... IE7 WILL NOT be going on any of my machines and if it does somehow get forced onto it, that's when I make the decision to go Linux full tilt. Have been dual booting for quite some time, and definitely feel comfortable enough to take that full time leap. Especially with the new Zenwalk 5.0 out, which I'm about to upgrade my third computer to, here in a minute. Other computers dual boot XP and Blag, which has an upgrade coming shortly also. Screw MS!!

    3. Re:Good in some ways... by KiloByte · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's not so good -- Win2k and 98 will still be affected. And they're quite widespread -- Win2k in bigger corporations, Win98 in smaller businesses. Private computers tend to use XP, mostly of questionable legality. And of those who run XP, a vast majority seems to have updates disabled.

      And even if everyone switched from IE6 to IE7 overnight, it's still a steaming pile of crap. Sure, it may be mere bullshit instead of military-grade toxic sludge, but either version makes me glad I don't have to do webmonkeying for a living.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    4. Re:Good in some ways... by QBasicer · · Score: 3, Funny

      The quicker Microsoft gets rid of non-standard software, the better the alternatives work. I know there's quite a bit of sites that don't work under firefox, but the user doesn't have a choice (like my parent's payroll site at the gov't). While IE7 is still a long ways away from ideal, we must say that it's better than IE6 (using the lesser of two evils theory), and I'm happy that they made this choice.

      The firefox penetration has increased to the point where people don't know what it is, but they've been told it's better, so they use it.

      --
      x86, oh yes, I'm pro.
    5. Re:Good in some ways... by tgd · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If you are so head-in-the-sand where Windows security is concerned, perhaps a switch to Linux makes more sense for you and everyone (customers, clients, etc) in your immediate corporate environment.

      I hope you don't have a similar attitude where Linux updates are concerned.

    6. Re:Good in some ways... by nevali · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Seriously, that's fine. You keep using IE 6 all you like. Just bear in mind that once your preferred broken browser is in the minority, us web developers will stop spending hours or days at a time going out of way to make our sites not look and work like complete and total ass in it.

      The standards were created so that we didn't have to do that for every site that gets built, and by and large they apply--except for IE 6 and IE 7 (IE 7's so much better than IE 6, though; it's a breeze in comparison).

      So yeah... you use IE 6. Then you'll discover how its rendering engine really copes with standards-compliant mark-up (hint: it's not pretty).

    7. Re:Good in some ways... by afidel · · Score: 5, Informative

      Probably because they are in the same boat we are, we implemented a large financial system last year and went to the newest available version and yet it still isn't certified with IE7, between that system and our document management system it will probably be years before we can run IE7. The financial system is going through its first year end right now so we are still tweaking and optimizing it, I can't imagine doing an upgrade just so we can support IE7!

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    8. Re:Good in some ways... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 5, Insightful

      That's why you don't implement for IE at all. You build for Firefox, Opera, Safari, or something else that supports standards, and then make little tweaks to fix IE displays. Doing anything else puts you in a world of hurt.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    9. Re:Good in some ways... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Well, anyone running Win2K in a corporate setting will have turned off Windows Update and done pushes via corporate owned SMS solutions or some other corporate mechanism.

      Anyone that runs XP with Update disabled I would hope would be running Firefox or Opera anyways. If you're smart enough to do one, surely you'd do the other too?

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    10. Re:Good in some ways... by KiloByte · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Er, what he said was "IE7 WILL NOT be going on any of my machines", not that he will use IE6. Updating MSIE replaces a bunch of system files as well, even though you don't use the sorry-excuse-for-a-browser at all. I have yet to see a case when version X+1 of a Microsoft product was less intrusive than version X, so that's not a totally unbased decision.

      And, if you need to check if a page works in IE6, you have it right there. I just checked the IE history on my XP box -- there was not a single entry outside the local servers.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    11. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Informative

      It seems you don't understand what your parent post is about. In software development Implementation is the phase where a system is being deployed, it is not a phase where you develop the system.

    12. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given the number of websites that are truely compliant I doubt this is as big of a deal as you make it out to be.

    13. Re:Good in some ways... by Anomolous+Cowturd · · Score: 1

      "Ah yes, that feature is working in most browsers but we're still working around yet another bug in IE. Should work on IE also within 24 hours but we suggest using firefox in the meantime".

      --
      Software patents delenda est.
    14. Re:Good in some ways... by NetDanzr · · Score: 1

      Same of your clients may have found that IE7 broke some of their other systems. For example, in the company I work for upgrading to IE7 has messed up MS Access connectivity to our database server. Granted, we could fix it, but at this point going back to IE6 is cheaper and requires much fewer man-hours.

    15. Re:Good in some ways... by nmg196 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      > IE7 WILL NOT be going on any of my machines

      Why on earth not? IE 7 is *SO MUCH* better than IE 6 it's ridiculous.

      IE 6 is so bad that I can't understand why anybody would NOT want to upgrade as soon as IE 7 came out.

      IE 6 is an seven year old web browser! It was released on August 27, 2001! a The web has moved on from then and so should you.

    16. Re:Good in some ways... by VGPowerlord · · Score: 3, Informative

      I believe he was pointing out the shortsightedness of the company that designed said system. I don't know about anyone else's site, but between Firefox 2 and IE7, that's just under half my site's visitors right there (49.48% for the month of January as of 6am this morning).

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    17. Re:Good in some ways... by CastrTroy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I'm not sure why anyone thinks it's a good idea to use IE as an application platform. Sure standard HTML forms with CSS are fine, but why would you rely on IE specific features? You know that in a few years when MS reworks IE that you are going to have to rework your application to work on it. Also, there's a lot of other issues like limiting your user base.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    18. Re:Good in some ways... by nevali · · Score: 1

      That's an entirely fair point: I'm pretty conditioned to "not installing IE 7" being equivalent to "I'm sticking with IE 6".

      Personally speaking, though, if I can't uninstall IE 6, I'd consider installing IE 7 to be the next best thing (there'll always be some weird piece of software [hello, Windows Update] that insists on using IE's components whether it's your default browser or not), but I get that other people don't necessarily evaluate it the same way.

    19. Re:Good in some ways... by plague3106 · · Score: 0

      No one has to do anything. If you don't want IE7, its easy enough not to get it. It won't be forced onto anyone's machine that doesn't want it.

    20. Re:Good in some ways... by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

      Just bear in mind that once your preferred broken browser is in the minority, us web developers will stop spending hours or days at a time going out of way


      By "preferred broken browser", you mean IE (as opposed to a specific version of IE)... right?
    21. Re:Good in some ways... by afidel · · Score: 1

      ActiveX, it's easy to addin third party tools that are difficult or impossible to do any other way.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    22. Re:Good in some ways... by nevali · · Score: 1

      Well, yes, but the amount of time required to tweak a reasonably complex standards-compliant site for IE 7 is (although non-zero), pretty minimal. The same can't be said for previous versions by any means.

    23. Re:Good in some ways... by Lifyre · · Score: 1

      First things first. I hate IE in all of its incarnations at this point. I use Firefox and Opera.

      That being said I am currently deployed doing IT support for the USMC, which is a sub-unit of the US Dept. of the Navy.

      There are very significant portions of the governments web presence that do not work with any browser except IE6 in any way, shape, or form. I do not know how far it extends beyond the Dept of the Navy but I know it is not limited to it.

      We cannot use IE7, FF, Opera, or any of the other browsers I have tried (this includes most of the major linux browsers) to access these sites.

      IE6 may fall from use at home but it's not going anywhere soon in military sector...

      -Lifyre

      --
      I'll meet you at the intersection of "Should be" and "Reality"
    24. Re:Good in some ways... by snilloc · · Score: 1

      IE7 breaks old versions of Quickbooks (2004Pro in my case) so I can't update unless I pay for a QB upgrade, which isn't going to happen any time soon. I use Firefox anyway for regular surfing.

    25. Re:Good in some ways... by Peet42 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      IE6 should quickly fall from use.


      Except for those people using (the still legitimately supported) Windows 2000 Professional who were deliberately prevented from upgrading as an "incentive" to convert to XP.
    26. Re:Good in some ways... by jrumney · · Score: 1

      Who made the purchasing decision? They should be sacked for purchasing a piece of software that relies on an already outdated OS component. If you were stuck with it from before, that's understandable, but you'd have had two years to pressure the supplier to update their software, and really should have been looking for alternatives by now.

    27. Re:Good in some ways... by CastrTroy · · Score: 1, Insightful

      How many people are going to start up their computer to find a completely new browser that they never asked for? If you know it's going to be installed, you can stop it. But I think there's a whole lot of people who will have no idea that it's going to be installed.

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    28. Re:Good in some ways... by Peet42 · · Score: 1

      Java. It's easy to write third-party tools that don't tie you into one manufacturer's browser.

    29. Re:Good in some ways... by afidel · · Score: 3, Interesting

      If your corporate IT department didn't know about IE7 they should be sacked. Hell if your bigger than about a hundred users and you have auto-authorize turned on in WSUS they should probably be sacked. I knew about the IE7 GPO setting back when IE7 went into public beta and put the block in place back then, so even if a user happens to have local admin (not many do here) they can't install the update.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    30. Re:Good in some ways... by diegocgteleline.es · · Score: 0, Troll

      IE7 is pretty much the same than IE6. It just adds a awful UI and tabs, the engine is pretty much the same crap. I've no reason to switch to IE7: Because IE is a critic piece of software in windows machines, installing IE 7 can be painful and error-prone.

      If I want a better browser, I use firefox. I'm not going to touch IE 6 - I'd be risking my machine for something that does NOT gives me any significant advantage. Besides, I love to make microsoft's life difficult.

    31. Re:Good in some ways... by ThePromenader · · Score: 1

      I think you can also read "I am NOT upgrading to IE 7" as "I have spent so many man-hours researching/implementing hacks into my site/intranet code so that it will work with buggy IE 6 that a) I am not sure that my old code will work with the new version and b) I am not willing to spend the effort to go through all my code to remove the aforementioned hacks - if I can still remember what those hacks were or where I can find them."

      --

      No, no sig. Really.

      ThePromenader
    32. Re:Good in some ways... by Pensacola+Tiger · · Score: 1

      Agreed, but most businesses don't develop their own software, they use a COTS package, and the COTS developers tend to use the fastest/easiest devlopment path. Guess what browser that approach uses?

    33. Re:Good in some ways... by mahlerfan999 · · Score: 1

      The standards were created so that we didn't have to do that for every site that gets built, and by and large they apply--except for IE 6 and IE 7 (IE 7's so much better than IE 6, though; it's a breeze in comparison). That's pretty funny way of putting it, you make it sound as if IE was just one of several popular browsers. Internet Explorer is by far the most popular browser out there, to the point where your vaunted standards don't have any meaning if IE doesn't bother with them. The fact that all web developers have to devote so much time to writing mangled code just to be IE compliant shows who is really in control here... and it's MS. Blame them, don't blame the IE 6 end user.
    34. Re:Good in some ways... by Peet42 · · Score: 3, Interesting

      The quicker Microsoft gets rid of non-standard software, the better the alternatives work.


      While this is true, it's also not relevant. Microsoft make a deliberate choice to look at a standard then figure out how much "wiggle room" they have to interpret it "creatively", producing something that is different from everyone else in the market yet arguably (with the correct dictionary) "compliant". Then they blow the marketing budget of a mid-size company on changing the public perception of their product from "different" to "better" so that they can lock users into it.
    35. Re:Good in some ways... by Phillup · · Score: 4, Funny

      If you are so head-in-the-sand where Windows security is concerned... Anyone truly worried about Windows' security would not be running Windows.
      --

      --Phillip

      Can you say BIRTH TAX
    36. Re:Good in some ways... by framauro13 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You build for Firefox, Opera, Safari, or something else that supports standards Last time I checked, none of these browsers are 100% compliant on most W3C standards. They all have their bugs, including IE7. IE7 is far more standards compliant than IE6, so I would think if you're truly worried about standards compliance in Internet Explorer, you'd welcome the upgrade.

      Firefox is the closest, but Opera and Safari are in no way better than IE when it comes to implementing standards.
      --
      In an effort to conform with internet communication standards, please note that the above comment is 100% biased opinion
    37. Re:Good in some ways... by peragrin · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Damn straight Active X is solely responsible for what percentage of viruses in the past 9 years since it's introduction? 50-60% more?

      Coding for Active X is stupid because it is a virus magent. poorly designed, lots of buffer overflows, etc, etc.

      design to standards and you will won't have nearly as many problems.

      --
      i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.
    38. Re:Good in some ways... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 4, Informative

      It's a difference in how they fail to support standards. While there are bugs in WebKit, Gecko and Opera, most of the time they don't support a particular feature of CSS they simply ignore it. IE, in contrast, often does completely the wrong thing. It's easy to design web sites for browsers that partially support the spec since HTML and CSS were both designed with graceful failure in mind. It's much harder to support a browser that implements the spec wrongly unless you do it at the expense of browsers that implement it correctly.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    39. Re:Good in some ways... by afidel · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Yeah, let's decide on our financial system based on which browsers it supports! NOT. There are a hell of a lot of decision points that go into making a purchase on that scale and I can guarantee you that things like the browsers supported are FAR down the list. IT exists to make the business more efficient, if you force a suboptimal tool on your users just because you have a browser fetish you aren't doing your job. If I had a need to support IE7 I could do so, I would just roll out a new batch of Citrix servers and publish an IE7 icon to the users, but as it stands today I support IE6 and it works fine for me and my user community. In two years when we reach the hardware refresh cycle on the financials servers we will probably look at installing patches to make the system code current and we will get IE7 support at that time. We'll be able to do it then because we will run parallel environments and allow the business to do extensive testing. There is no need to go through that large expense just to switch browsers with no corresponding business benefit.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    40. Re:Good in some ways... by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      You apparently don't work in the real world where your paychecks are determined by having your website viewable by the largest possible audience.

    41. Re:Good in some ways... by TheRaven64 · · Score: 2, Informative

      ActiveX allows you to access the win32 API. That means that it is effectively a simple way of turning your existing view objects into things you can embed on a web page. You can take an existing Win32 app, add some abstraction in at the controller layer and have a web-enabled app using ActiveX very easily. Of course, it's as secure on the client as running an arbitrary Win32 app, but this isn't really an issue for corporate intranets. If you're starting from scratch, you can write the whole thing on Java and then have the client and server on any platform, but if you have a load of legacy Win32 code then ActiveX was a very cheap way of moving it to the web.

      --
      I am TheRaven on Soylent News
    42. Re:Good in some ways... by nevali · · Score: 3, Interesting

      For a while that's pretty much been the case: browsers that render standards-compliant mark-up and CSS without a good deal of tweaking are in the majority. IE 6 sits somewhere between 30% and 40% of the visitor share for e-commerce sites in the UK (our target market), so it's been the case for some time that standards-compliant mark-up hits the majority. The problem is, of course, that 30-40% is a hell of a lot of people, and so the hassle of the IE 6-specific workarounds still has to be endured until it drops to the sort of percentages we see for earlier versions.

      Firefox, Opera, Safari, and the various other Gecko/KHTML/WebKit derivatives aren't on their own significant enough to warrant special treatment, but taken together (which makes sense, as they generally adhere to the same standards) they're a pretty persuasive argument for standards-compliant mark-up: especially when you take into account the fact that IE 7 isn't remotely as bad at dealing with it as IE 6 is.

    43. Re:Good in some ways... by afidel · · Score: 1

      I don't have a problem with ActiveX, of course I run a properly locked down environment =) No new controls can be installed without going through proper testing and signoff, it's not like I let the users just click and install. I know not every IT organization is so lucky, but after the disaster the previous staff left with frequent virus outbreaks and other general flakiness it wasn't hard to sell the business on a properly run environment.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    44. Re:Good in some ways... by jrumney · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Would you consider a COBOL application that only ran on IBM System/38 hardware for your financial system? This isn't about a browser fetish, its about selecting software that is already obsolete for a new deployment. And given the speed at which Microsoft drops support for old products, and the rate of vulnerabilities being discovered, chosing an obsolete Microsoft platform is very foolish indeed.

    45. Re:Good in some ways... by houghi · · Score: 1

      Seriously, that's fine. You keep using IE 6 all you like.

      Well, I do NOT like it. Unfortunatly teh comapny where I work has decided to go with another company that were able to write an intranet web apllication that only works in 6. It does not work in 7 and it does not work in Firefox.

      Then an other company only works with the latetst Firefox.

      Yes, I know they are idiots. I would love to ditch IE6 for Firefox alltogether, yet that is not an option for everybody.
      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    46. Re:Good in some ways... by hittman007 · · Score: 1

      Hmm, what you said is not necessarily the case. If you are running Windows XP I still come across problems that only happen when IE7 is installed. Uninstall IE7 and all of a sudden everything works. Put IE7 back and guess what, the problem comes back. Doing a full reset of IE7 doesn't even fix the issues.

      IE7 is a descent web browser but in some cases it simply causes more problems than its worth.

      Seriously though, if your still using any version of IE as your main web browser you need to do some research and find a different one. While IE's biggest competitor supposedly has more security holes its interesting to note how many fewer problems people have with it in general...

      --
      --- When you start with the conclusion that you want, then throw out any facts that don't agree, is it true?
    47. Re:Good in some ways... by Ephemeriis · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Also, there's a lot of other issues like limiting your user base.
      This has always frustrated me. A well-implemented web-based solution will run on literally anything. It doesn't matter if you've got Windows, Macintosh, Linux, BSD, or what. You just need a (mostly) standards-compliant browser. You'd think companies would love that.

      Instead, you've got all these web-based applications that only work on IE and then break when a new version comes out.
      --
      "Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
    48. Re:Good in some ways... by superbus1929 · · Score: 2, Funny

      It doesn't matter how shortsighted the company is; if they develop for a platform, and it's necessary software for a job, then the platform will stay in place. The company designing the software can be as shortsighted as they want because they have their clients by the shorthairs.

      --
      Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
    49. Re:Good in some ways... by Lumpy · · Score: 3, Interesting

      IE 6 is so bad that I can't understand why anybody would NOT want to upgrade as soon as IE 7 came out.

      Because most vertical web apps are so poorly written that they rely on the bugs and problems in IE6 to function. Almost every single app I had to manage at my last job was IE6 specific and written by a bunch of blathering idiots, I regularly went into the asp code to fix something they said cant be fixed.

      Most companies buy the low grade dog food webapp suites as they have no other choice and then they are stuck having to support it's quirks until that company actually hires competent programmers or someone else comes along and makes something different.

      --
      Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
    50. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You VILL shchange to IE7.

      You VILL haff NO say aboudt it!

      Undt you VILL LIKE IT!

      Even if it causes you problemss dot costs you money undt productifidty!

      Hesspecishially iff you haff systemss vich run on der Mac OS. Then you iss kaput even more!

      Heil Redmond!

    51. Re:Good in some ways... by Dan+Ost · · Score: 4, Insightful

      In software development Implementation is the phase where a system is being deployed, it is not a phase where you develop the system.

      That really depends on where your culture got its vernacular.

      In research and academia, you implement a design or algorithm by writing code. You then deploy your implementation when you install it for your users.

      In marketing and some production groups, "implement" is a synonym for "roll-out" or "deploy". Near as I can tell, they don't have a word that makes a distinction between designing software and actually coding it up. This causes no end of confusion in meetings between marketing groups and research groups.

      --

      *sigh* back to work...
    52. Re:Good in some ways... by evlmonkey · · Score: 1

      Seriously, that's fine. You keep using IE 6 all you like. Just bear in mind that once your preferred broken browser is in the minority , us web developers will stop spending hours or days at a time going out of way to make our sites not look and work like complete and total ass in it.

      ?php
      $txt = "Problem solved";
      $internet_browser = firefox.exe;
      ?
    53. Re:Good in some ways... by Antiocheian · · Score: 1

      There is also another reason; 99% of my browsing relies on Firefox, but for the rest 1% (some banking sites that require activeX) Firefox is not an option. And when Firefox is not an option, the site developer developer developer developer is an ass. And when the developer developer developer developer is an ass, he is not to be trusted in supporting the latest software (even in MS products) so I feel safer with IE6.

    54. Re:Good in some ways... by cp.tar · · Score: 1

      This has always frustrated me. A well-implemented web-based solution will run on literally anything. It doesn't matter if you've got Windows, Macintosh, Linux, BSD, or what. You just need a (mostly) standards-compliant browser. You'd think companies would love that.

      Instead, you've got all these web-based applications that only work on IE and then break when a new version comes out.

      That's because not every coder is a good one.

      If you have companies that employ programmers who are cheap — and you do, and if you have programmers who have only learned a few tricks — and you do, then you'll get applications relying on a handful of tricks MS advertised as so very convenient, which the PHBs bought and then ordered the programmers to use.

      And then it gets more cost-effective to upgrade the existing system then to re-write it from scratch...

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    55. Re:Good in some ways... by Nimey · · Score: 1

      I can't feel sorry for someone still running Windows 98. There haven't been any security updates for it in years, and a new computer capable of at least running XP is only a couple hundred dollars.

      Maybe if their line-of-business app is so poorly written that it won't run in XP even with compatibility mode...

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    56. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This is very good! This will allow for the interoperability that the corporations so dearly wish for - the ability to run the Microsoft Office, and the IE7, as well as the Vista on top of this growing but amorphous mass known as 'The Linux'.
      In a short time we will all soon see the benefits of these crosslicencing deals, and the softwares will expand out their user basesand be seen everywhere. Even the most die hard linux afficionado with matted hair and a red armband will salivate at the prospect of being able to run the IE7 on his precious linux.

    57. Re:Good in some ways... by slackmaster2000 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      The grandparent isn't talking about HTML/CSS concerns. That would be silly. I'm assuming that his document management system uses ActiveX controls or some Microsoft proprietary features to improve the interface. They could also be doing SSO to IIS which can be difficult with a non-MS browser.

      Yeah it's short sighted to rely on a browser that you can't install and uninstall like a regular application. But it's understandable that people will be upset that IE7 is being forced.

    58. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Sure standard HTML forms with CSS are fine, but why would you rely on IE specific features? You know that in a few years when MS reworks IE that you are going to have to rework your application to work on it.

      I agree with you but you did ask why....
      1)That is what the customer/management asked for
      2)job security
      3)don't plan on being around for the re-write.... so fuck'em
      4)don't know/understand programing & computing outside of a microsoft "universe"

      That about sums it up.
    59. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's faster and light weight.

    60. Re:Good in some ways... by Mad+Merlin · · Score: 4, Informative

      You build for Firefox, Opera, Safari, or something else that supports standards
      Last time I checked, none of these browsers are 100% compliant on most W3C standards.

      Yeah, and nobody's perfect, so we should all be killed. Kidding aside, standards support is not a binary property, and I shouldn't have to point out that there's a world of difference between something that's 95% correct and something that's 5% correct.

      IE7 is far more standards compliant than IE6, so I would think if you're truly worried about standards compliance in Internet Explorer, you'd welcome the upgrade.

      ...and 35% is a much greater percentage than 10%! IE7 is still much worse on standards than pretty much any other browser worth mentioning. The fact that IE7 still manages to be that much better than IE6 should simply give you an indication of how bad IE6 is (it's very very bad). So, while it would be nice if IE6 never existed and they skipped straight to IE7 in 2000 or so, that's not what happened, and now we're stuck with adding in a whole new host of workarounds for IE7, because it still doesn't render pages correctly a non-trivial amount of the time, provided that you want to support IE at all.

      On the opposite end of the scale, I can develop a page in Konqueror (which is very standards compliant), and then check it in Firefox and Opera, and not end up needing to make any changes, because everything works the same. Checking in IE will almost certainly result in IE producing something largely wrong, but at least IE6 is a relatively known commodity, with a well known set of workarounds. IE7 on the other hand is still largely undiscovered. Given Microsoft's past and the fact that they have no reason to produce a browser that doesn't suck, don't be surprised when people treat a new release of IE with scorn.

      Not supporting IE at all is, without a doubt, the easiest approach. Supporting IE6 but not IE7 is still easier than supporting both IE6 and IE7. Supporting IE7 but not IE6 probably won't be feasible for most people for several years yet.

      Firefox is the closest, but Opera and Safari are in no way better than IE when it comes to implementing standards.

      I don't really test in Opera, but limited experience shows that to compare it to IE is no less insulting than comparing Firefox to IE. Konqueror (and presumably Safari, given that it was forked from Konqueror (or rather, KHTML)) is generally better about standards than Firefox, and unquestionably better than IE. Firefox is compatible with more pages on the general Internet than Konqueror, because it tries to emulate a lot of IE quirkiness, but that doesn't push it any closer to following standards.

    61. Re:Good in some ways... by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 1

      There are a hell of a lot of decision points that go into making a purchase on that scale and I can guarantee you that things like the browsers supported are FAR down the list. IT exists to make the business more efficient, if you force a suboptimal tool on your users just because you have a browser fetish you aren't doing your job.

      You are exactly correct. Any IT department that forces IE6 on their users just because they have a browser fetish should be fired en masse immediately and replaced with a team that understands what "standards" means, and why standards are good for business.

      --
      Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    62. Re:Good in some ways... by ericferris · · Score: 1

      some banking sites that require activeX

      I changed banks recently, I made sure my new bank's web site does not require IE before signing up.

      A bank relying on MS for security might as well keep its money in an open suitcase on the sidewalk. On a windy day.

      --
      Fantasy: http://ferrisfantasy.blogspot.com/
    63. Re:Good in some ways... by popeye44 · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      I'll be the first to say I agree IE6 is old and outdated. But compared to Firefox IE7 is a fat brown stinky turd.

      Actions and uses I can do in firefox cannot be duplicated in IE7. It fails far more than it succeeds as a browser replacement for IE6. I use Firefox for most of my surfing and it's my default. I'm well aware it's not perfect but as for security and functionality it performs well.

      I have used IE7 at work but out of 24 IT people I am the only one with it and we cannot upgrade until a BUNCH of backend stuff is upgraded. It would probably not be so bad for most of our users as they have been using a non-tabbed browser but anyone who's used Firefox and are used to shortcuts being where they should be IE7 makes you shake your head at how much they got wrong.

      MS copies ,steals or buys never do they innovate and rarely do they copy well.

      --
      Inane Comments are Generously Disregarded
    64. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yet IE7 has the worst designed UI in the world. It was a good indication that Vista was going to flop after seeing how badly IE7 was designed. At least IE6 is fast & looks like a normal program.
      IE7 is so poor designed it's shocking.

    65. Re:Good in some ways... by ZWithaPGGB · · Score: 1

      One good reason is that IE7 breaks HP multifunction drivers. There's a workaround out now (there wasn't when IE7 first came out), but, how many people are going to wake up and find that their scanner/fax machine will no longer talk to their computer?

      I'm still really wondering what on earth a browser upgrade would need to do that would break your scanner, but then, ever since IE4, the browser has been your shell, hence all of our security issues.

    66. Re:Good in some ways... by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      That will happen to those that chose to automatically download and install updates. In other words, they get just what they want, ALL updates.

      If you don't know how to turn off the updates, you probably won't care much that IE 7 appears.

    67. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You know that in a few years when MS reworks IE that you are going to have to rework your application to work on it.


      Duh. You're a consultant, you're building a custom web app, and you want guaranteed repeat business. TIE IT TO IE. You're guaranteed to have a required complete rebuild of your tool a couple years down the line.
    68. Re:Good in some ways... by RobertLTux · · Score: 1

      and maybe the same person is running AutoPatcher so they don't run into the "MicroSoft is going to do this just because" problem

      I challenge the Gnus to make a *Nix version of the updater tool (and post same to the AP forum when done)

      --
      Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
    69. Re:Good in some ways... by jp10558 · · Score: 1

      http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support
      Generally shows that Opera is much closer to firefox that IE7 in terms of standards support. They haven't tested webkit yet, so I can't comment there.

      --
      Opera, Proxomitron-Grypen,GPG 0x0A1C6EE3
    70. Re:Good in some ways... by mymaxx · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Anyone truly worried about security would not be connected to a network.

      Fixed that for you. Can we please stop pretending that there is a major difference in security between Windows and anything else? Linux has its flaws and patches, so does every flavor of UNIX.

    71. Re:Good in some ways... by afidel · · Score: 1

      The IT team was just one voice in the selection process, and definitely NOT the loudest one. Basically management decided on the featureset they needed to run the business efficiently and the product selected met the largest number of those items. IT is an enabler here and if we need to support an older browser to meet the businesses needs then so be it. IT standards are only good for business if your business is IT or if you can get an identical produce at no additional cost which also supports standards, since you often can't then it's just another variable in a cost benefit spreadsheet (real or in the heads of the decision makers). You can attempt to educate the decision makers but ultimately it's our job to make it work no matter what so long as its humanly possibly and financially feasible to do so. Oh and it's not like I have some love for IE6, I run mozilla as my normal desktop browser and have since the early Milestone releases. I'm here to enable the business to use technology in the most productive way possible, if that mean implementing a server farm of Citrix servers to run an outdated browser then so be it. There's nothing keeping us from running another desktop platform if we choose, or even upgrading to IE7 on the desktop if we need to. If you think preaching about open standards is more important than enabling your customers to work more efficiently then I think it's not me that should be polishing my resume =)

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
    72. Re:Good in some ways... by Zaiff+Urgulbunger · · Score: 1

      But it's understandable that people will be upset that IE7 is being forced.

      It's been on the cards for quite some time though.... I mean, no one could've really thought that IE6 and ActiveX would be supported indefinitely.

    73. Re:Good in some ways... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 2, Informative

      You apparently don't work in the real world where your paychecks are determined by having your website viewable by the largest possible audience. You have no idea what you're talking about. I do work in the real world, and I explicitly developed websites for the largest possible audience: that includes IE, Netscape, Firefox, Opera, and Safari. (Why not Konquerer et al too? Because we developed with Firefox, and tweaked for IE, everything else was shown to largely work because we didn't employ lots of "neat" tricks. Hence a working website that supported browsers all the way back to Netscape 4.7x and IE 4.)

      So, you can continue to develop for your less than the largest possible audience. I'll take those extra percentage points and add them to the bottom line.
      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    74. Re:Good in some ways... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Agreed, but most businesses don't develop their own software, they use a COTS package, and the COTS developers tend to use the fastest/easiest devlopment path. Guess what browser that approach uses? The several I've seen or know of had a common path: the survivors wound up rewriting their entire site. The rest of them failed sooner or later.
      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    75. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Most of my larger clients do not support Firefox or even allow it to be installed. Some allow it to be installed but do not support it.

    76. Re:Good in some ways... by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Explain to me how this is Microsoft's fault and not HP's shitty software at fault.

      You're right that a browser upgrade should never disable a driver. But the real question is, what the hell kind of shitty-ass driver relies on a web browser to function?!

    77. Re:Good in some ways... by Twanfox · · Score: 1

      I also played with IE7 soon after it came out. Having had bluetooth enabled on my laptop, when I installed IE7, I started getting script errors whenever I tried to use the bluetooth network or access any Explorer page that dealt with those drivers. Needless to say, I rolled back to IE6 as function was better than form on system components.

      Besides, I can't stand the look of IE7. Was it truely necessary to butcher what had been, til now, the programming standard that the file menu bar goes at the top?

    78. Re:Good in some ways... by The+Nipponese · · Score: 1

      Beacuse, if you've ever spoken with any scum-bag contractor, IE6 is the fastest and easiest way for them to deploy and get paid.

    79. Re:Good in some ways... by slackmaster2000 · · Score: 2, Informative

      Not supporting IE6 is understandable. Pushing the update to the unaware is not cool IMO.

    80. Re:Good in some ways... by nottoogeeky · · Score: 1

      You have no clue what you're talking about. Opera and Safari are far more standards compliant than Firefox or IE7. Firefox is more compliant than ie7 (as most of the important stuff is there) and IE7 is slightly better than IE6.

      If people are building systems round ie6 and not standards, they get exactly what they've asked for.

    81. Re:Good in some ways... by Richthofen80 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      I'm not sure why anyone thinks it's a good idea to use IE as an application platform.

      Because if you're a salesman who wants to sell said application, its easier to pitch JUST the application. If you decide to standarize your app to a platform that only 20% of the browsing public is using, your sales team not only has to sell the merits of the application, but also they must sell the potential client on switching their IT infrastructure, in part. That is a hidden cost that companies often don't want to bear.

      --
      Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
    82. Re:Good in some ways... by RKThoadan · · Score: 1

      There is a plugin for firefox to switch the current page to IE rendering, and can be done a a per-tab basis. I'm pretty sure you can specify certain sites to always load in IE mode. It might do the trick for you, it usually did for me when I needed IE, but not always.

    83. Re:Good in some ways... by modmans2ndcoming · · Score: 1

      Having a proper box model would solve most developer's headaches.

    84. Re:Good in some ways... by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      I'd find a new bank if I were you. One that takes your money and security seriously.

    85. Re:Good in some ways... by PitaBred · · Score: 1

      That said, HP's drivers aren't a hell of a lot to behold most of the time, and you aren't missing much with them not working. 400MB+ "drivers" (AKA, bloated piece of crap monitoring and design suite that hoses your performance) for stuff you really only need 400KB of (i.e., just the damn driver).

    86. Re:Good in some ways... by AGMW · · Score: 1
      Hmm. I don't like IE7 and have stuck with IE6 on purpose. When they force me to upgrade it will be to Firefox!

      Oh well! I've heard good things about Firefox, but if anyone can point out a good reason to go elsewhere I might be persuaded to listen?

      --
      Eclectic beats from Leeds, UK
      handmadehands.co.uk
    87. Re:Good in some ways... by delinear · · Score: 1

      Except that many corporations are still using Win2k which will have no IE7, so unless you're willing to exclude those people, you'll have to go on supporting IE6 for a while yet. And then there are rumours of IE8 on the near horizon, which will no doubt follow the IE trend of fixing some issues from IE7 and meaning we're back to the situation of having different CSS for at least two, if not three, versions of one browser. I'm happy they're moving towards standards compliance, but I doubt very much that this will make the web developer's life any easier...

    88. Re:Good in some ways... by slackmaster2000 · · Score: 1

      I've been using Firefox for years now. It's simply a better browser, and there are some great plugins. You can install it right now without screwing up IE.

      Opera is also a nice browser. Some claim it's better.

    89. Re:Good in some ways... by VGPowerlord · · Score: 1

      They damn well better care. If this software is used somewhere on the Web as opposed to an intranet, their direct customers losing 50% of THEIR potential customers is a big deal.

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    90. Re:Good in some ways... by Runefox · · Score: 1

      Exactly! I'm glad at least someone works the same way I do with web development. It just makes sense to code to the standard, though it's really difficult to get IE7 to do what you want it to do, in the meantime. However, pretty much every website I've coded looks and acts identically in every browser I've tried (Konqueror, Safari, Opera, Firefox, IE6, IE7, Galeon...), even with a good deal of javascript and CSS to work with. It's in my mind unacceptable to have a broken website on any reasonably up-to-date browser, especially for the corporate world.

      More compatibility = more audience. It also means more work, however, but far less work than making something for, say, IE6 and THEN expanding it to other browsers. That would be a nightmare. Of course, many people still use Frontpage... Actually, a local computer shop used Frontpage for their layout, and while actually not bad in terms of visual design (save for the layout changing width on every page), they even use the Frontpage "dynamic" buttons, and there's a few lines out of place in Konqueror. In IE6, there's more top spacing for the buttons, which suggests it was made for IE6 specifically (or someone just used the Frontpage view and forgot about testing). Ugh. You should've seen the prototype.

      --
      Screw the rules, I have green hair!
    91. Re:Good in some ways... by nschubach · · Score: 1

      Need I mention the army of "developers" that find "a cool way to do ___" and cut/paste the code from some website only to find out that that way only works in IE. I'm sure (as I know someone that does this) there are many people that use MSDN almost exclusively for development questions and place 100% trust in that code blaming other browsers/operating systems for not supporting it.

      --
      Every time I start to have faith in humanity, I ruin it by driving to work between 7 and 8 am.
    92. Re:Good in some ways... by greviant · · Score: 1

      Though there are a lot fewer Linux virus running around unchecked, though even as a Linux user I must admit that is largely a product of small market share

    93. Re:Good in some ways... by Antiocheian · · Score: 1

      It's not just me. Some customers have bank accounts in banks supporting IE only and and it's easier for them to cash on the same bank.

    94. Re:Good in some ways... by GreatBunzinni · · Score: 1

      Firefox, Opera, Safari, and the various other Gecko/KHTML/WebKit derivatives aren't on their own significant enough to warrant special treatment

      Oddly enough, according to some sites Firefox is currently the dominant browser in the market. So I guess that it's time for some web developers to get off their asses and stop making excuses to continue producing broken sites and ignoring the standards.

      --
      Slashdot, fix your code or at least hire someone who is competent at it to do it for you.
    95. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hopefully this will help further to get the message across that having code transparency and browser standards is the way to go. It's absolutely ridiculous to see applications that still can only run on IE...especially applications that only can run on IE6. There is no excuse for that by any development firm.

    96. Re:Good in some ways... by Joe+Jay+Bee · · Score: 1

      To be fair, I feel it's very unlikely that anyone still using Windows 2000 over XP or Vista is using IE. Most of W2Ks remaining users are techies; they're probably on Opera or Firefox by now.

    97. Re:Good in some ways... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Well, I believe it was 1800flowers.com that used to use a frontpage driven website (it's been 2 years, I don't recall the specifics, but it was definitely while trying to order some flowers...) The interface was horrible. Web page session were a massive joke. It used direct from DB created dynamic pages for standard catalog content. Links would not work outside of the session, so no sending a link to a friend, spouse, whatever. The entire site is now a struts driven app. I couldn't imagine what the maintenance on that beast must have cost.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    98. Re:Good in some ways... by brouski · · Score: 1

      I know Intuit says that... I haven't seen any problems.

      --
      Proud member of the American Non Sequitur Society. We might not make much sense, but boy do we love pizza!
    99. Re:Good in some ways... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      We run a number of web apps for our users. Last I heard, IE 7 was not supported for those apps. I expect we will not be allowing IE7 to update out to our machines.

    100. Re:Good in some ways... by Chris+Mattern · · Score: 1

      n marketing and some production groups, "implement" is a synonym for "roll-out" or "deploy". Near as I can tell, they don't have a word that makes a distinction between designing software and actually coding it up.


      This would imply that they don't *see* a distinction between these two activities. This would explain an awful lot of (awful) software...
    101. Re:Good in some ways... by Peet42 · · Score: 1

      Or extreme non-techies who are unable to make legacy custom packages run under XP.

    102. Re:Good in some ways... by dpilot · · Score: 1

      I just finished bringing up a Win98SE install on a dual-boot machine this weekend. Used my trusty Win98SE Upgrade boxed set, my old WfWG 3.11 diskettes to provide the basis for the upgrade, the ASUS driver CD, updated drivers from the net, and the "Win98SE Service Pack Rollup" that seems widely available with good reviews. (and checksums)

      It's for games. I don't feel like funding Microsoft any further, just to play games. I know it's capped at DX9, but I'm not a hard-core gamer, it does what I want. (Basically Myst Uru at this point, though I understand WINE is getting close on that one.)

      I've uninstalled Outlook Express, and install Firefox/Thunderbird, because I don't want to reboot for any sort of net access. But it's also behind 2 firewalls, has few users, and is so ancient it's no longer a target.

      --
      The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
    103. Re:Good in some ways... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 1

      And back in the Real World things aren't so cut-n-dry...

      i.e.
      We use an older version of Alienbrain at work. It does NOT work with IE7. Upgrading Alienbrain is not cheap for a small dev studio.

      As they say, "If it ain't broke, why fix it."

    104. Re:Good in some ways... by MikeFM · · Score: 1

      IE7 still has major issues to deal with but it's a heck of a lot better than IE6. I'd love to see them wipe IE6 off every computer that hasn't specifically chosen to keep IE6 for some reason. (I keep it in a Win2000 virtual machine for testing IE6.) Death to IE6!

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
    105. Re:Good in some ways... by superbus1929 · · Score: 1

      What about lock-in? If someone starts using a type of software that was developed by whatever was the hot software back in the Mesozoic Era, they and their users eventually become locked in; management in that case oftentimes it's too expensive/too painful to users to upgrade; they stick with what works. I worked at a company used software that was so old and antiquated that we had major problems keeping it working, but we couldn't change anything because "the users might complain". It's a shitty position to be in and I'm glad I'm gone, but companies think like this.

      --
      Let's stop dilly-dallying and just change "-1: Overrated" to "-1: Disagree" or "-1: Doesn't Subscribe to Groupthink".
    106. Re:Good in some ways... by bunratty · · Score: 0, Troll

      Opera far more standards compliant than Firefox? i don't think so. According to Web Devout, Opera 9 and Firefox 2 have about equal support for HTML, CSS, JavaScript, and DOM standards. Let's just stop it with the Opera hype, already. It's too easy to see right through it.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    107. Re:Good in some ways... by bunratty · · Score: 1

      No, according to some sites, Firefox is the dominant browser for that site. You're pointing to W3School's server logs summary, which they admit are highly skewed toward alternative browsers compared to the overall market or most web sites.

      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    108. Re:Good in some ways... by jazir1979 · · Score: 1

      That's a very big IF you are using there, buddy, to skirt around the actual point.

      --
      What's your GCNSEQNO?
    109. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      > There is a plugin for firefox to switch the current page to IE rendering

      It is *not* "rendering like IE", but "using IE's rendering engine". So, this extension doesn't work in the scenario (mentioned above) where IE7 is installed, but the intranet web application works in IE6 only. Then, you need multiple IE installations (Multiple IE anybody?).

    110. Re:Good in some ways... by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      Except that pushing the update to WSUS (finally) has nothing to do with the general public at all - WSUS is the local Windows Update cache used by enterprises to save bandwidth costs and keep control over patch deployment. In which case who gives a damn about the unaware, it's their sysadmin's decision and they DO know about it.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    111. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yeah you know, I suppose the difference is what part of the standard each browser supports, because most web sites don't display exactly the same in every browser, be it opera or konqueror or firefox.
      For instance, slashdot.org looks like an ass now on firefox, you can't even see the hidden comments headline.. example:
      http://img218.imageshack.us/img218/5563/slashdotshowsbadinfirefaz9.png
      Way to go slashdot, the site shows perfect in IE.. good job supporting open source and alternative browsers (shows bad in opera too).
      Ass*****
      You're outta my bookmarks.

    112. Re:Good in some ways... by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      No, that will happen to those whose network administrator chose to download and install all updates from their corporate WSUS server. Nothing will happen to home users at all.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    113. Re:Good in some ways... by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      No, but we rely on a COBOL application running on HP/UX on $80,000 servers to run our medical records system... that count?

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    114. Re:Good in some ways... by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      I thought updates published on WU affected home users as well. Am I missing something?

    115. Re:Good in some ways... by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      It's also a product of less Linux users running as root. Apply the Windows user mentality to Linux, I bet it would be just as much of a disaster.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    116. Re:Good in some ways... by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      We've got NT4 machines for software that wont even work in 2000.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    117. Re:Good in some ways... by nick0909 · · Score: 1

      Is there a way to administratively patch/upgrade/manager/limit users on these browsers without having to configure every client? I need something that can take forced settings from Active Directory, and right now that is IE. I would rather use firefox, I use it myself, but I can't but my users out there and hope they click the upgrade button and hope they don't use other features we are not allowed to as a company due to HR's rules.

    118. Re:Good in some ways... by LinuxIsRetarded · · Score: 1

      It's also a product of less Linux users running as root. Apply the Windows user mentality to Linux, I bet it would be just as much of a disaster.
      Well stated. Conversely, running as a limited user account as a typical Linux user does works wonders with regards to Windows security. Any time a friend or family member approaches me to remove viruses or spyware from their Windows machine, I remove their account from BUILTIN\Administrators and add it to BUILTIN\Users, and they never experience malware problems again (and yes, I do follow up).
    119. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      To be fair, they *already* forced IE7 through security updates for the home users.

      Also, it's possible to both uninstall IE altogether, or just roll back to IE6.

      To roll back, go to add remove programs (in control panel), then select 'show updates'

      To remove IE altogether, uninstall IE7 first, then, in the add remove programs windows, select 'add/remove windows components'

      Instructions are specific to XP.

    120. Re:Good in some ways... by NaDrew · · Score: 1

      even if a user happens to have local admin (not many do here) they can't install the update. Come on, having physical control of the machine means they own it. Elevate to local-admin using one of a number of tricks, then read Mark Russinovich's TechNet column on defeating Group Policy settings.

      Whether doing so violates your IT policy and leads to disciplinary action is another matter altogether, of course.
      --
      Vista:XPSP2::ME:98SE
    121. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It happened because of lack of security. web development

    122. Re:Good in some ways... by Rogerborg · · Score: 1

      Interesting "figures" that you're not quoting there. Do you have anything to back them up with, or is it a heady mix of common sense and bullshit?

      --
      If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
    123. Re:Good in some ways... by JohnVanVliet · · Score: 1

      i did that when IE 7 first auto installed . The Uninstall dose NOT fully remove ie7. 7 broke h&r block Tax Cut , and visual studio .net and they were still broke after uninstalling 7 . I was forced to do a full reinstall of xp to fix it .

      --
      "I don't pitch OpenSUSE Linux to my friends, i let Microsoft do it for me
    124. Re:Good in some ways... by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      You are indeed. You are missing that Windows Server Update Services and Windows Update are completely unrelated, and Windows Server Update Services is what the article is talking about - and even (half) the bloody summary!

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    125. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Basically management decided on the featureset they needed to run the business efficiently and the product selected met the largest number of those items."

      I really bet it was not the case.

      My bet is that they bought some numbers of "PHB IT Magazine", then they made their mind out of the most pervasive advertisements and then started to call in providers. That with the brightest and big bold lettered brochure already won; then they made their featureset out of that product's "features" web page and molded everything else to support their "decision".

      "If you think preaching about open standards is more important than enabling your customers to work more efficiently then I think it's not me that should be polishing my resume"

      I don't think you need to polish your resume, but not because you are there "to enable your customers to work more efficiently" but because you seem to be the kind of "yessir" guy that so likes the PHBs out there and that happen to be after quite a lot IT fiascos. Yes, it was because some crazy PHB pushed for some cracy IT decision, but it was too because some IT guy said "yessir" instead of "I'm here to enable the company to work more efficiently so there's no way I'll back you on this crazy idea".

    126. Re:Good in some ways... by kiddygrinder · · Score: 0, Offtopic

      except for the 7% ish of internet users who are on an earlier version of windows than xp

      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    127. Re:Good in some ways... by kiddygrinder · · Score: 1, Flamebait

      Microsoft's past and the fact that they have no reason to produce a browser that doesn't suck, don't be surprised when people treat a new release of IE with scorn. Supposedly the ie8 team are actually working on standards compliance. i know, freaked me out too. All that's left now is to see how they are going to turn this around to a nasty kick in the balls to web devs.
      --
      This is a joke. I am joking. Joke joke joke.
    128. Re:Good in some ways... by KiloByte · · Score: 1

      Sure, here you go. Let's take a look at several customers we got:
      * car dealerships:
          * 5 XPs, 2 98s, 1 Debian server
          * 3 XPs, 2 98s, 1 Debian server
      * a construction materials production/wholesale (30ish employees)
          * (in the back) 3 XPs, 1 Debian server, (in the front) 5ish 98s
      * penal psychiatry hospital (hah), patient's deposits department
          * 10ish 98s, 3ish XPs, 1 Mandriva (or perhaps Red Hat, dunno) server
      * our own offices:
          * 5 XPs, 1 Vista, 1 98, 2 Debian servers (one with lots of VMs)
          * 2 XPs, 1 98, 1 Debian server, 1 Debian desktop
      * a bigger production company (296 employees)
          * 30ish 2Ks, 4 2003 servers, 1 Debian server, only one XP I know of

      I doubt you will see much difference elsewhere. Of course, a wealthy city will have a somewhat different XP:98 ratio than a backwoods town, but in most small businesses you'll see a smattering of XPs, 98s or, even worse, Vistas, and in bigger ones that will be a more homogenous deployment of 2000s or XPs.

      --
      The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
    129. Re:Good in some ways... by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Or they are bog standard corporate PCs, that don't have anything installed other than IE6, and the users can't change if they wanted to.

    130. Re:Good in some ways... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The "browser" also hosts other useful components like an XML parser. I am not sure if drivers would ever need parse an xml file, config or otherwise, but maybe they do. Just guessing ...

    131. Re:Good in some ways... by danbert8 · · Score: 1

      No, it is not possible to uninstall IE altogether. Windows may report that it is uninstalled, but it is never gone. Which is the basis for security issues.
       
      Windows would be much more secure if explorer.exe and iexplore.exe weren't the same application. Don't believe me? Open My Computer and type in a web address. Even if you "uninstalled" IE, explorer.exe will magically transform and become iexplore.exe and render a web page.
       
      On a side note, it's interesting to see that Microsoft screws themselves over with this too. In Vista, if your license expires and you can only open a web browser to activate Vista, well you can just type the file location of explorer.exe and voila, you can run any application again. Does anyone else see the absurdity of having a web browser and a file browser being one and the same?

      --
      Yes it's an anecdote! Were you expecting original research in a Slashdot comment?
    132. Re:Good in some ways... by dbIII · · Score: 1

      You have to apply it to the MS Windows design as well. All the good work with NT gots undone by ludicrous things that should only exist in science fiction like images being potential virus vectors. The MS platform is good enough to be used in a variety of situations but it is hardly a good example for anything let alone security. IE, Outlook and Active-X punched holes through a fairly marginal and highly confusing security model. While it is possible in NT and descendants to even lock the root (Administrator) user out of paticular files this is more often a time wasting annoyance and way to never have backups of important files than a useful feature. Personally I think that feature was missing the point and a sales tactic to sell things to managers that are scared of their IT staff.

    133. Re:Good in some ways... by TehZorroness · · Score: 1

      While that is one reason, I'd say that the most important reason is that almost any code you run comes from one trusted source. With GNU/Linux it's the distributor, with BSD it's ports. With windows, you are supposed to download untrusted programs from all over the net (lets say I need to burn a CD, play videos, games, ect, ect). The odds of getting a virus this way are much higher.

    134. Re:Good in some ways... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      Of course there is, for at least some of those, and perhaps all of them. Start by implementing a company proxy server and redirect all other outbound 80/443 to the server for auto-proxying. That will be a huge start. You can redirect anyone with the improper browser version to an update page. Yes, I've worked at such an Orwellian outfit. Do realize that anyone sufficiently knowledgeable will get around anything you set up, and, not only that, they might even get that little extra prod they need to go work for someone that appreciates them.

      But, for argument's sake: let's see - that handles patching, upgrading, management and limiting. All without having to deal with AD, IE, or MS.

      Perhaps you should poke your head outside mikeysoft's world sometime and see what else is out there. You might like it.

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    135. Re:Good in some ways... by ErroneousBee · · Score: 1

      I'm not convinced IE7 is better. I find IE7 crashes alot more than IE6, and things are pretty ugly, as well as slower.

      I suspect they just wedged more features into IE6 to get IE7, without addressing underlying architectural and memory management issues.

      --
      **TODO** Steal someone elses sig.
    136. Re:Good in some ways... by nick0909 · · Score: 1

      I have and do poke my head outside the MS world when I can, and I like it just fine. Hell, I even run MythTV as my TiVo. The problem is that is all at home, my current company is a financial institution that gets security audits that says we have to have a locked down network infrastructure, and currently that is performed with AD and some other Windows specific tools. This was in place before I arrived, and as much as they like me I doubt they are going to tear everything out and replace it on my say so while still continuing to run the business. Also, people aren't trying to get around our limits because they aren't that restrictive and more importantly they understand why we put them in place. We provide computers on a different network for people to use if they have "other needs" during their business day and the go largely unused. But thanks for assuming I only run Vista all day and my place is a horrible one to go to work for, that really helps the conversation.

    137. Re:Good in some ways... by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

      I mentioned Orwellian because 1) I worked at one, and 2) I have several friends who worked at financial institutions with similar setups. BTW, the proxy lock-down was in a windows centric environment.

      As for people getting around your limitations, note that you'll have little to no way of tracking that. Well, not entirely true, I suppose, as you could be sniffing for SSH or "SSL" traffic as well.

      You wouldn't happen to be working for BoA would you? Because I know 2 folks that used to work there, and chafed significantly at the restrictions. Their computers were off the network, and interestingly enough they never mentioned access to secondary PCs for internet activity. They both found work elsewhere within 12 months, despite the decent pay rate.

      Who knows, maybe you don't mind no internet access, but for programmers et al, it certainly makes life much easier to be able to research issues and keep up with new solutions, so much so that people will leave.

      lastly, "secondary" PCs for internet access = okay, who do we layoff this round?

      --
      The cesspool just got a check and balance.
    138. Re:Good in some ways... by ckaminski · · Score: 1

      It's called yum, and you can create your own repositories with little effort.

      This problem has been "conquered" on Linux platforms for at least seven years.

    139. Re:Good in some ways... by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      Hmm, ok. I thought the WSUS got its updates from WU. Thanks for clearing that up.

    140. Re:Good in some ways... by achaios · · Score: 1

      We are still running an Oracle 9 database, and using JDeveloper 9.3. When one of our programmers converted to IE7, he had to immediately revert to IE6, because when testing a JSP application locally, the session bean was reinstantiated/reinitialized on every page navigation, sort of like the scope was changed from session to page. I don't know if later JDeveloper versions have this problem, but I wouldn't be at all surprised. We had to give up on Oracle Portals a couple of years ago, because they wouldn't work reliably on anything but IE 5.5. IE6 (or at least, IE6 SP2), seemed to either open two channels, with the Oracle Portal server responding to the wrong one, or paint the page before the server had a chance to respond. I have no problem with forcing Bill Gates and Larry Ellison to share the blame, but right now, we *cannot* use IE7.

      --
      OTR rocks!
    141. Re:Good in some ways... by DanFluidMind · · Score: 1

      And that's not all. At an ad agency or graphic design studio, to say that something is "in production" means that the graphic artists are working on it, but it's not finished yet. So "production" to them is synonymous to "development" to a programmer.

      So if a programmer says in a meeting that his new application is "in production", he means that it is finished, has been deployed and is being used on a "production server" (or, in a "production environment"). But the ad agency folks think he means that it's in "development".

      That's why at the ad agency I work for, we've started using the word "live" to mean that an application is "in production".

      Confusing, 'eh?

    142. Re:Good in some ways... by xhrit · · Score: 1

      no. konqueror is all that, and a text editor, ftp client, terminal emulator, cd ripping application, and toaster, all in one. It has tabs, and pains, so you can have traditional ftp style interface with remote and local sites viewd at the same time; split into horizontal or vertical pains. or you can have the remote and local sites each in their own tabs. You can look at html/pdf/chm/man documentation in a third tab. And you can open code files from the remote server over ftp in yet another tab, and edit with syntax highlighting and everything. The difference between eclipse and konqueror : eclipse can't render web pages, and konq can't compile c++ programs.

    143. Re:Good in some ways... by pxlmusic · · Score: 1

      exactly. i do internet support, and most of the weird browser problems i encounter are present only in IE7.

      --
      "If for any reason you're not satisfied with our service, I hate you."
    144. Re:Good in some ways... by slackmaster2000 · · Score: 1

      I'm talking about WSUS specifically. Anyone who is auto approving is in for a surprise if they're not paying attention.

      Forcing an application upgrade as a security update is unacceptable. They've been using this tactic with IE7 for a long time. There are even tools designed to specifically block IE7 from being installed. That's just retarded.

    145. Re:Good in some ways... by ultranova · · Score: 1

      The grandparent isn't talking about HTML/CSS concerns. That would be silly. I'm assuming that his document management system uses ActiveX controls or some Microsoft proprietary features to improve the interface. They could also be doing SSO to IIS which can be difficult with a non-MS browser.

      This raises the question of why use a browser at all, instead of a custom frontend application.

      --

      Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.

    146. Re:Good in some ways... by sBox · · Score: 1

      We are in the same boat. When IE7 was announced our application provider said they would not support it. Ridiculous. If the provider had taken the time to make it conform to standards we would not have this problem. There is nothing we can do about it either--this application is used to manage critical services and cannot be replaced by us. The only option would be a complex and costly migration to another provider which would take a year to complete. Naturally this is not going to happen. All we can do is try to leverage our account size against the provider.

      I can understand why they wish to force IE7 on their OSes. IE7 is tied to Vista, the successor to XP. By forcing IE7 to all OSes, this pressures application providers to update their services. When the application services are updated, it will remove a hurdle for IT departments to upgrade their desktops.

      Vista is not desired in our shop, but by removing our requirement will move us closer to acceptance of the inevitable.

    147. Re:Good in some ways... by LinuxLuver · · Score: 1

      The issue here appears to be backward compatibility. If you write an in-house application that is important to you and only works with v6.102 of another piece of software......and then find that every other version of that piece of externally-sourced software breaks your in-house application.....you've got a problem and it could prove to be an expensive one. Better to avoid writing such "fussy" applications at all.....though having done it I agree that you need to keep it running until you've addressed the underlying stupidity that put you in this position in the first place.

      --
      Only boring people are ever bored.
    148. Re:Good in some ways... by sBox · · Score: 1

      That's thinking small. Larger corporations still have Win2K installed on clients. We do. It suits these users fine since they do not need any of XPs features. The only reason these users will be upgraded to XP or beyond is for security patches (compliance) or failed hardware.

    149. Re:Good in some ways... by sasdrtx · · Score: 1

      Except that the application in question (like the SAP shit that runs HR at my company) was designed specifically for IE6 (apparently). Read my lips: IT DOES NOT WORK with IE7 or any other browser. It's all very nice they want to be more compliant, but they induced a great deal of non-standards-compliant applications with their previous crappy browser versions.

      I don't think my fellow employees are going to be too happy when they can't see their pay-stubs or update their personal information at home anymore.

      WTF is MS thinking? They're going to get 1000 lawsuits, and are going to be right back in court on anti-trust again. And guess what, we don't need a democrat prez, we just need a democrat campaign. Bush & the Repubs will cave on this like a house of cards in a hurricane.

      btw, in case I've given you the wrong impression, I think this is great!

      --
      Most people don't even think inside the box.
    150. Re:Good in some ways... by gr8scot · · Score: 1

      Having a proper box model would solve most developer's headaches. Speaking for one developer, that would at least be a welcome improvement.
      --
      All 19 hijackers were known terrorists 09-10-2001. Lack of FBI intelligence does not justify warrantless wiretaps..
    151. Re:Good in some ways... by MikeFM · · Score: 1

      Well - I don't like IE as a browser and only use it when I have to but I can tell from tests that IE7 does render more standards compliant pages than IE6 does so it's some improvement. Sadly, to many developers still won't use any features that IE6 can't handle so users rarely notice that IE sucks even when they happen to use a better browser on occassion.

      --
      At what price learning? At what cost wisdom? The price is a man's peace of mind, and the cost is his life.
    152. Re:Good in some ways... by ZWithaPGGB · · Score: 1

      I wasn't making any value judgement. I was just pointing out that this was one effect that will happen when MS pushes out IE7 as an automatic "upgrade".

      However, since you opened the door: what kind of unsegmented, conflated, monolithic ass of an OS has a browser upgrade that kills a scanner driver?

  2. Take that Firefox! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    Now we'll see which browser has the greatest growth rate in January!

    1. Re:Take that Firefox! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um... February. The forced update is in February.

    2. Re:Take that Firefox! by somersault · · Score: 4, Funny

      Tumours can have high growth rates too, doesn't make them a good thing :p

      --
      which is totally what she said
    3. Re:Take that Firefox! by BetterThanCaesar · · Score: 1

      So open source is viral and closed source is cancerous? What happens if I just use my computer as a door stop? Will I catch Ebola?

      --
      "Stop failing the Turing test!" -- Dilbert
    4. Re:Take that Firefox! by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1
      Hehe. Well according to MS IE 8 is fully ACID2 compliant: http://channel9.msdn.com/Showpost.aspx?postid=367207

      Heres hoping they make it available on XP and don't require Geniune Advantage too. All this bitching about standards drives me nuts. The web is "only" ~15 years old as far as us civi guys as users(more like 12 in mainstream use). In the early days people were looking for ways to get things done, MS made extensions to HTML, Netscape had their own thing etc. What would you rather have MS come out with IE 6 say and kill every website that assumed you'd be viewing it using IE or have them remain compatible? Any standardization process is slow and painful, it just is. Heck processor architechure never standardized over big endian little endian, no one agrees on a lot of networking stuff (TCP timeouts for example), etc, etc. People coding for IE want IE to work the way they learnt how to use it.

      Standards will be good, but it will also break things that rely on IE (we have several web portals at my work that only work on IE6 or earlier). Upgrading would be painful and costly (the software interfaces to a PACS and various other multimillion dollar peices of medical software) not something you want to stop working when you need a doctor.

    5. Re:Take that Firefox! by somersault · · Score: 1

      No, you just have to make sure that you disinfect any open sores before you move into a production environment. With closed sores you can never be sure if the inside is infected and festering :s

      --
      which is totally what she said
    6. Re:Take that Firefox! by cp.tar · · Score: 1

      Hehe. Well according to MS IE 8 is fully ACID2 compliant:

      Well, a good thing that the general public has been able to test and verify that claim.

      I can't wait for the forced IE8 upgrade stories some... oh, five-six years from now?

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    7. Re:Take that Firefox! by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      My point is Microsoft has a version (admittedly internal dev currently) that does pass, Firefox says "it will for FF3". Being non-complaint doesn't mean anything if the two most used browsers (with ~ 97% of the market) aren't compliant. It is just a matter of which features in the standards to you thing are more important. Giving someone a newer version of your app which you think is better (and tab based browsing is a definite win IMHO) for free because of security problems in the earlier version, regardless of if their current version is pirated is hardly "evil". Will problems happen, yeah. Some vendors won't have bothered getting their apps working on IE7 (healthcare is huge for this because of all the FDA crap they have to go through each time they change anything).

    8. Re:Take that Firefox! by cp.tar · · Score: 1

      My point is Microsoft has a version (admittedly internal dev currently) that does pass, Firefox says "it will for FF3".

      Minefield does pass the Acid2. Unlike the claims from MS about their possible future browser, Minefield is out in the open, with many a user quite happy with it.

      Firefox 3 is compliant.

      Being non-complaint

      Oh, I think you'll find many complaints about IE. Especially here.

      Yeah, I know it was a typo, but I just couldn't resist.

      doesn't mean anything if the two most used browsers (with ~ 97% of the market) aren't compliant.

      Ah, but you see how much we have progressed. Just a year or two ago, being standards-compliant didn't mean much if the one browser holding more than 80% of the market wasn't.

      Besides, there is a difference between the modes of non-compliance: Firefox is way more standards-compliant than IE6 (well, duh), and when it fails, it fails gracefully. I'm sure you'll agree that while 90% compliance and 60% compliance both fall within non-compliance, it's just not the same.

      It is just a matter of which features in the standards to you thing are more important. Giving someone a newer version of your app which you think is better (and tab based browsing is a definite win IMHO) for free because of security problems in the earlier version, regardless of if their current version is pirated is hardly "evil".

      There is a difference between giving and forcing down one's throat.
      Should you ever try to feed a baby or give medicine to a cat, you'll learn the difference all right.

      Will problems happen, yeah. Some vendors won't have bothered getting their apps working on IE7 (healthcare is huge for this because of all the FDA crap they have to go through each time they change anything).

      So what have we learned today, kids? That's right, avoid non-standard solutions.

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    9. Re:Take that Firefox! by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      So what have we learned today, kids? That's right, avoid non-standard solutions. The problem is a lot of the stuff didn't exist as a standard when it was implemented into the browsers. If you wanted a nice way to do something (or even worse you wanted to be able to do something which no solution currently existed) you had to break compliance and add the feature.

      There is a difference between giving and forcing down one's throat. Nice. I agree, sort of. The problem only exists for users that have selected automatically approve rollups. Admittedly this is an upgrade, but there is enough vulnerablities in IE6 that it can also be considered a security roll up. How forgiving is Firefox if you have autoupdate enabled? As well I seem to recall auto update is enabled by default in FF where as in Windows you have to turn it on. I can't recall the number of times when launching FF I get told "do you want to install now or later?". Microsoft is in an unenviable position. Someone steals their product then blogs about how it is a vulnerable peice of crap on the internet. Those people I have no pity for, MS should be able to push/pull/jerk around those people as much as they want (you don't own the OS, and the OS wrote the files, so how about revoking the filesystem access ;)). It is the corporate users that are most likely to get screwed around unfortunately(they just inherently have more workstations, more likely to have them all set to autoupdate, more money for software etc. = more risk).
    10. Re:Take that Firefox! by cp.tar · · Score: 1

      The problem is a lot of the stuff didn't exist as a standard when it was implemented into the browsers. If you wanted a nice way to do something (or even worse you wanted to be able to do something which no solution currently existed) you had to break compliance and add the feature.

      And many standards did exist, MS was even in on the decision-making, then implemented the standards in a purposefully broken fashion. Netscape 3 or 4 days are ancient history.

      Nice. I agree, sort of. The problem only exists for users that have selected automatically approve rollups. Admittedly this is an upgrade, but there is enough vulnerablities in IE6 that it can also be considered a security roll up. How forgiving is Firefox if you have autoupdate enabled? As well I seem to recall auto update is enabled by default in FF where as in Windows you have to turn it on. I can't recall the number of times when launching FF I get told "do you want to install now or later?". Microsoft is in an unenviable position.

      They put themselves there. Nobody forced them to make a web browser an integral part of the UI. And not just the UI, the system itself.

      People who want Firefox to update automatically, have Firefox update itself automatically.
      People who want Windows to update automatically, but want their browser stay the same... well, they'd better choose a browser that can easily be asked to stay the same.

      Besides, I don't recall Firefox 1.5 users being forced to upgrade to 2.0. A jump from 1.5.2 to 1.5.3 isn't the same as the jump from 6.0 to 7.0. It7's the difference between security updates and a distro upgrade.

      Someone steals their product then blogs about how it is a vulnerable peice of crap on the internet. Those people I have no pity for, MS should be able to push/pull/jerk around those people as much as they want (you don't own the OS, and the OS wrote the files, so how about revoking the filesystem access ;)).

      Not even the people who do pay for it own the OS, so I don't care much for the rest of your point.

      And since the WGA got MS a whole bunch of false positives (I was thinking about false negatives, but since MS are already treating their customers like thieves, I said what the hell...), I don't think they'd thought it through very well.

      Then again, I was getting my hopes quite high up with the reduced functionality mode; it could have meant a significant move to other platforms, but it seems like MS recognize their dependency on piracy. Again, they get no sympathy from me.

      And yes: paying for Windows does not make it magically stable. Not paying for Windows makes WGA go away. Pirates get better service.

      It is the corporate users that are most likely to get screwed around unfortunately(they just inherently have more workstations, more likely to have them all set to autoupdate, more money for software etc. = more risk).

      There you go. So whom exactly does this benefit?

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    11. Re:Take that Firefox! by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      There you go. So whom exactly does this benefit? The people that don't get infected do to a IE6 vulnerablity that was fixed/will be fixed for IE7 only. MS for not having to put up with said people for complaining that they got infected even though they are using an 7 year old browser.

      Paying for the OS doesn't make it stable, but having a friend of a friend install "Windows" for you doesn't leave me too confident that that burned disk is "Windows" and not an infected ISO of a torrent site. There is something to be said for removing the software from the shrink wrap after you purchased it from a reputable source. WGA was both meant to sell more Windows copies, and to help the windows "ecosystem" stay clean of modified copies. You had a problem with your windows, one moment while I verify that you have a real copy of the software.

      As for including IE into the OS: how exactly did you download your first copy of Firefox? Microsoft realized (as have pretty much every disto of Linux, Mac, Solaris, etc etc) that people want a browser built in. If you don't have a browser you'll have a hard time patching up the system. Sure there are other methods like having a one function patch downloader(linux is great for that) but that wasn't the route that MS went(it is rare that people complain about getting extra features with their OS, but bare in mind you can choose not to install it if you do a custom install of windows). Sure FOSS people are generous and will give you a disk of the program to install etc, etc, but I suspect the vast majority of Firefox downloads etc, begin with someone firing up there Windows system and using IE to download it.

    12. Re:Take that Firefox! by cp.tar · · Score: 1

      There you go. So whom exactly does this benefit? The people that don't get infected do to a IE6 vulnerablity that was fixed/will be fixed for IE7 only.

      Well, if it will be fixed in IE7 only, hen it is not just an IE6 vulnerability, is it now?

      MS for not having to put up with said people for complaining that they got infected even though they are using an 7 year old browser.

      Well, what a shame MS didn't care much for improving their browser until Firefox gained some hold in the market. You know, the IE team was disbanded...

      Paying for the OS doesn't make it stable, but having a friend of a friend install "Windows" for you doesn't leave me too confident that that burned disk is "Windows" and not an infected ISO of a torrent site.

      You know, aside from some business users and the people who got them with their laptops, I know virtually no-one with a legit copy of Windows. Yet for years we've all used — and most keep using — illegitimate copies of Windows. Incidentally, I now actually have a legit copy (well, semi-legit at least), but do not use it.

      There is something to be said for removing the software from the shrink wrap after you purchased it from a reputable source.

      Yes, because we know software from a reputable source never ever comes with malware.

      WGA was both meant to sell more Windows copies, and to help the windows "ecosystem" stay clean of modified copies.

      They could have designed a proper security model, too. That would have kept the ecosystem much, much cleaner.

      Fun fact: there are no known Linux zombies in botnets.

      You had a problem with your windows, one moment while I verify that you have a real copy of the software.

      Oh, wait: didn't they use to verify you had a legit copy of Windows in order to install IE7?

      As for including IE into the OS: how exactly did you download your first copy of Firefox? Microsoft realized (as have pretty much every disto of Linux, Mac, Solaris, etc etc) that people want a browser built in. If you don't have a browser you'll have a hard time patching up the system. Sure there are other methods like having a one function patch downloader(linux is great for that) but that wasn't the route that MS went(it is rare that people complain about getting extra features with their OS, but bare in mind you can choose not to install it if you do a custom install of windows).

      Ooops.

      IE isn't merely included with the system. It is integrated and cannot be uninstalled.

      And the one time I installed Windows and used IE to get Firefox, it took me some 10 minutes. During which time my system got infected and had to be reinstalled.

      Sure FOSS people are generous and will give you a disk of the program to install etc, etc, but I suspect the vast majority of Firefox downloads etc, begin with someone firing up there Windows system and using IE to download it.

      Great. So we've finally found the one thing IE is good for.

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    13. Re:Take that Firefox! by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      You mean we'll see which browser has the greatest growth rate in businesses in February.

      WSUS is the corporate deployment server. It's not Windows Update.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    14. Re:Take that Firefox! by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      Well, if it will be fixed in IE7 only, hen it is not just an IE6 vulnerability, is it now? In that case your talking about past tense notice "fixed/will be fixed", as in fixed with IE7 so we aren't going to bother finding the code in the 7 year old browser so we can make a second patch for the old system, and as in "we don't want two code bases to maintain".

      They could have designed a proper security model, too. That would have kept the ecosystem much, much cleaner. I'll give you that.

      Fun fact: there are no known Linux zombies in botnets. No, and Linux never has buffer overflow exploits. The pain is in the C/C++ runtime and is a fundamental flaw in the language design, but mah it exists in Linux too. How about the fun situations where you end up with a file that is owned by "nobody" in *NIX and even su can't chown it? How about X (yes that peice of crap, 1970's research project that nobody in the *NIX community seems to be willing to let die)?

      And the one time I installed Windows and used IE to get Firefox, it took me some 10 minutes. As opposed to the 10 minutes it takes to open Firefox?

      Great. So we've finally found the one thing IE is good for. That I would agree with :)

      Yes, because we know software from a reputable source never ever comes with malware. Rarely comes with malware and if it does you know who to sue. Who do you go after if you stole the software in the first place? As an aside it never ceases to amaze me the number of developers that come on /. and bash proprietary software yet make a living making it. Wow that is amazing your work on the proprietary software is worth a paycheck and not so evil that you feel compelled to quit, but all corporate software is "bad" when you post online. Amazing.

      P.S. I use Firefox as my browser at home it works well (other than being slow to load and the rare page that insists on only working with windows). I use IE7 at work because of compatiblity issues with some of our software. I find IE7 almost as good as Firefox. My intent isn't to bash FF or Linux, just to point out if you are using closed source software then obey the EULA, just like you should when using FOSS.

      P.P.S. No need to preach to the converted. I'm a IT manager by way of UNIX/Linux admin and like both *NIX and Win (yes it is possible). Given a choice I'd run the servers on *NIX and the GUI/end users on Win. People already know how to use Windows and I wouldn't ask my corp to retrain everyone. Heck we have some software that requires UNIX on the desktop and the users that have used it for 5 years still don't know how to copy files (they have buttons for it in the app, they click button X and the file goes "somewhere" very helpful to troubleshoot :)). Most /. can use *NIX I think but that by far isn't the normal user. For whatever reason end users are willing to push and poke a windows system and figure out how it works, but throw an X system at them (our case Solaris CDE) and they call IT whenever anything needs to get done. That demonstrates "free" knowledge (ie. crap the employee learnt on their own time playing with PC's elsewhere) and usablity (at least for common simple tasks, and that is all I'll trust an end user with :)).

    15. Re:Take that Firefox! by cp.tar · · Score: 1

      In that case your talking about past tense notice "fixed/will be fixed", as in fixed with IE7 so we aren't going to bother finding the code in the 7 year old browser so we can make a second patch for the old system, and as in "we don't want two code bases to maintain".

      Even so, the bug is in both codebases.

      Fun fact: there are no known Linux zombies in botnets. No, and Linux never has buffer overflow exploits. The pain is in the C/C++ runtime and is a fundamental flaw in the language design, but mah it exists in Linux too. How about the fun situations where you end up with a file that is owned by "nobody" in *NIX and even su can't chown it? How about X (yes that peice of crap, 1970's research project that nobody in the *NIX community seems to be willing to let die)?

      You're needlessly changing the issue. Unices have their faults, but mass zombification by malware which gets you the moment you get online (or any other means, FWIF) doesn't appear to be one of them.

      And the one time I installed Windows and used IE to get Firefox, it took me some 10 minutes. As opposed to the 10 minutes it takes to open Firefox?

      Misquoted, then answered in a senseless manner. Unless something ate half my post while I was posting it.

      Yes, because we know software from a reputable source never ever comes with malware. Rarely comes with malware and if it does you know who to sue.

      Oh, that helps a lot.

      Who do you go after if you stole the software in the first place?

      I disagree on the "stealing" bit, for one.

      Besides, even if you paid for the OS, the EULA clearly says you assume full responsibility for its usage and MS isn't liable for any damage. Yadda yadda.

      As an aside it never ceases to amaze me the number of developers that come on /. and bash proprietary software yet make a living making it. Wow that is amazing your work on the proprietary software is worth a paycheck and not so evil that you feel compelled to quit, but all corporate software is "bad" when you post online. Amazing.

      I wouldn't know, really.

      P.S. I use Firefox as my browser at home it works well (other than being slow to load and the rare page that insists on only working with windows). I use IE7 at work because of compatiblity issues with some of our software. I find IE7 almost as good as Firefox. My intent isn't to bash FF or Linux, just to point out if you are using closed source software then obey the EULA, just like you should when using FOSS.

      EULA with FOSS? Where?

      P.P.S. No need to preach to the converted. I'm a IT manager by way of UNIX/Linux admin and like both *NIX and Win (yes it is possible). Given a choice I'd run the servers on *NIX and the GUI/end users on Win. People already know how to use Windows and I wouldn't ask my corp to retrain everyone. Heck we have some software that requires UNIX on the desktop and the users that have used it for 5 years still don't know how to copy files (they have buttons for it in the app, they click button X and the file goes "somewhere" very helpful to troubleshoot :)). Most /. can use *NIX I think but that by far isn't the normal user. For whatever reason end users are willing to push and poke a windows system and figure out how it works, but throw an X system at them (our case Solaris CDE) and they call IT whenever anything needs to get done. That demonstrates "free" knowledge (ie. crap the employee learnt on their own time playing with PC's elsewhere) and usablity (at least for common simple tasks, and that is all I'll trust an end user with :)).

      Morons can't be helped.

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
    16. Re:Take that Firefox! by ILongForDarkness · · Score: 1

      P.S. I use Firefox as my browser at home it works well (other than being slow to load and the rare page that insists on only working with windows). I use IE7 at work because of compatiblity issues with some of our software. I find IE7 almost as good as Firefox. My intent isn't to bash FF or Linux, just to point out if you are using closed source software then obey the EULA, just like you should when using FOSS. EULA with FOSS? Where? That little thing like BSD/GPL that gets smacked/refered to on the top of all source and header files. A license is a license even if it grants you most rights without cost. GPL doesn't by the way because it forces you to keep the software free, so you don't have all rights. Sure with GPL you can modify the code, but you can't sell the modified version without giving the customers your codebase.
    17. Re:Take that Firefox! by cp.tar · · Score: 1

      If you modify the code and redistribute the product, you are not an end user.
      Which is what the EU part of EULA stands for.

      So let me ask again: what EULA?

      --
      Ignore this signature. By order.
  3. translation by v1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to 'security concerns'."

    So this means they're feeing insecure about their market share?

    Go firefox!

    --
    I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
    1. Re:translation by plague3106 · · Score: 1

      If you're not using IE, how would you notice it was updated?

    2. Re:translation by Peet42 · · Score: 1

      Well, my guess would be that the update will "accidentally" override your browser preferences.

  4. What!?! by xander_zone_xxx · · Score: 0

    N o o o o o o o!

  5. Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by FooBarWidget · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IE6 is a huge pile of ******. These days, whenever I write a website, the procedure is always like this:
    1. Test website in Firefox initially.
    2. Verify that it works in Opera.
    3. Verify that it works in Konqueror.
    4. Verify that it works in Safari.
    5. See it totally break down in IE6.

    IE6 has too many rendering bugs. It's the sole cause of hours and hours of lost productivity. It's about time that it dies. IE7, although not as standards compliant as... uhm... pretty much every other browser on earth, is orders of magnitude better than IE6. People should be forced to use IE7 (or Firefox, or Opera, or whatever; just not IE6).

    1. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by nevali · · Score: 1

      As a web developer, I've been watching IE 6's share of the browser market decline steadily. I can only agree with the above comment--the sooner it dies a death, the better.

      Unfortunately, we still have clients who insist on using Windows 2000 (which can't run IE 7). Thankfully, they don't stick to IE 5.5 and complain that the sites "don't look right" in it--they at least update as far as they can.

      I've lost track of the number of occasions that I've held back on replacing all of the IE6-specific styling and scripting with a bit of client-side browser sniffing that simply displays a "Upgrade your browser, dumbass, it's 6 years old--that's like, 49 dog-years. Preferably upgrade it to Firefox." message. Each site build makes it increasingly more tempting.

    2. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by Corporate+Troll · · Score: 1

      IE7, although not as standards compliant as... uhm... pretty much every other browser on earth, is orders of magnitude better than IE6.

      That is most probably true, but I've been using Firefox for ages. I don't need nor want IE7. It will waste my bandwidth and it will waste my disk space. IE7 is not welcome on my system, because I chose to use better alternatives.

    3. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by Carrot007 · · Score: 3, Funny

      > Unfortunately, we still have clients who insist on using Windows 2000 (which can't run IE 7). Thankfully, they don't stick to IE 5.5 and complain that the sites "don't look right"

      Ok, I'm not at work today but let's just pretend like I am...

      1. Fires up IE

      2. These sites just don't look right in this ;-)

      3. Things are updated as far as they can be.

      4. Oh yeah that's right NT 4.0.

      Damn you microsoft.

      --
      +----------------- | What is the question!
    4. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by nevali · · Score: 1

      Looking at the stats for the sites we run, the proportion of NT 4.0 users who don't install an alternative browser is so small that the time would be better spent just disabling CSS and JavaScript for older versions of IE.

      If you've been running IE on NT 4.0 all this time and haven't noticed sites are broken, you either don't view many sites, or have a really warped view of the web :)

    5. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by StonedRat · · Score: 1

      I've had one client complain last year that the site didn't work in their browser, which turned out to be Netscape 4.7. I foolishly used the tag which is not supported by Netscape 4.7.

      There will always be one weirdo still using antique software.

      --
      "Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
    6. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by jbrady · · Score: 1

      Thank you, I nearly spit coffee on my laptop. LOL

    7. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by Swizec · · Score: 0

      Actually you should first test in Opera because it has better standards support than FF and is better at guessing what you wanted even when you screw up. Furthermore it doesn't support stupidity like moz-round-borders (or something along those lines), which I'm sure is as sane as IE's custom CSS ideas and implementations.

    8. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by bunratty · · Score: 1

      It's about time that it dies. IE7, although not as standards compliant as... uhm... pretty much every other browser on earth, is orders of magnitude better than IE6.
      When I look at Web Devout's Browser Support Summary, it looks like IE 7 is barely any better than IE 6 except at basic selectors. I know they fixed some high-visibility bugs such as lack of alpha transparency in PNGs and some CSS bugs that had well-known workarounds. It looks like Microsoft has been very successful at getting users to have very low expectations, then they are easily able to exceed them. ;-)
      --
      What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
    9. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by ccharles · · Score: 1

      > just not IE6

      Obviously you've never tried IE4 for the Mac :-).

    10. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by CastrTroy · · Score: 1

      Wow, I'm a web developer, and I wasn't even aware there was a button element. Looks kind of useful, any information on which browsers support it?

      --

      Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
    11. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by bloodstains · · Score: 1

      I have no problems with the IE7 rendering engine. It's everything else about it that pisses me off.

    12. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by StonedRat · · Score: 1

      All of them (apart from NS4), including IE4 I think. In IE they default to being a submit button, all other browsers default them to being a generic button, so make sure you set the "type" attribute. They're good if you want to add nice icons to form buttons.

      --
      "Religion is the most malevolent of all mind viruses." - Arthur C. Clarke.
    13. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by Firehed · · Score: 1

      I see you've excluded the former step 6 - performing random, pointless hacks in order to get it working reasonably well in IE6.

      --
      How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
    14. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by rssrss · · Score: 1

      "Unfortunately, we still have clients who insist on using Windows 2000 (which can't run IE 7)."

      Bug or feature?

      Win 2K Office 97. Still WFM.

      --
      In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.
    15. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by Nimey · · Score: 1

      I would ordinarily agree completely, but some of my users are required to use 3rd-party websites (which we have no control over) that require bug-for-bug compatibility with IE6. Until the lazy bastards responsible for those sites fix them, those users are stuck.

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    16. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      Yeah but this time, the push comes from Microsoft. Those third party websites will *have* to fix them, or lose all their customers.

    17. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by mpcooke3 · · Score: 1

      Without wanting to sound sarcastic you might want to test it in IE 6 straight after Firefox. Otherwise, after it breaks and you find a workaround you will need to re-test it on all the other browsers anyway.

    18. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by kellyb9 · · Score: 1

      It seems pretty obvious, but there isn't a whole lot of money in standard compliant browsers for a market king like Microsoft. And why would there be? Microsoft is maintaining its market share by putting work on the backs of web developers to keep things working, and as much as you hate this strategy, it has a point. Because the minute MS is totally compatibile, these other browsers with better features are going to look a lot more appealing to end users.

    19. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      Careful though - in IE it submits the innerHTML of the element as the value, the HTML spec (and every other browser) submits the value attribute as the button's value.

      And some mobile browsers don't like it either - I know OpenWave doesn't.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    20. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by Dekortage · · Score: 1

      For what it's worth... by starting off web design projects with Yahoo's reset.css and fonts.css (customized if necessary), by relying on cross-browser JavaScript frameworks like jQuery for any JS that modifies the DOM, and by being really careful about creating clean code that's easy to debug, I've reduced my IE5/6/7-specific coding headaches down to maybe 20-25 lines of IE-specific CSS.

      I don't do that for every site, but this process makes cross-browser differences only mildly irritating, rather than showstopping.

      --
      $nice = $webHosting + $domainNames + $sslCerts
    21. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

      Well yes, IE7 still is dreaful, but the worst bugs have been fixed, which are those developers run into every day. PNG, some basic css positioning. Add to that that it simply is way faster up to firefoxs speed. It still is dreaful to support it, but it is way easier than having to drag IE6 along!

    22. Re:Yes, finally! Get rid of IE6 by FooBarWidget · · Score: 1

      I know that, and I already do that. But that's not my point.

  6. Re:Firefox! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    Not always an option. Intranet apps are often browser particular. And with crazy things like Active X controls. Reprogramming them will cost too much.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  7. Re:Firefox! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You must be new here.

  8. Web developers by wzzzzrd · · Score: 3, Insightful

    What's with web developers that have to test html code on IE6? It's really a shame for MS that you can't have IE6 and IE7 installed side by side (I know it IS somehow possible, but that's way too complicated and not the point here). To bad that you always need a second (virtual) machine, just to test html code. And now they are forcing the upgrade...Stupid.

    --
    On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
    1. Re:Web developers by happytechie · · Score: 1

      Lot's of large organizations are still mandating IE6 ONLY on the internal PCs. We are not scheduled to be rolling out IE7 untill 3rd qtr this year. The intranet sites that have alot of functionality and do not work in IE7 are the biggest cause for concern. Just because you'd rather use does not mean that you either can or are authorised to do so.

      --
      --
    2. Re:Web developers by cdrudge · · Score: 3, Informative

      We have to test with IE6 as our clients demand it. Of the couple of sites that I've done since starting here, all of the corporate big wigs that sign the payment checks use IE6. So what is pretty simple to do with IE7 or any other browser we have to spend 3x the time checking things out with IE6. Then go back to more modern browsers and make sure none of the hacks we put in affected those browsers.

      And it's actually very easy to install multiple versions of IE. See here. It's a nice, tidy installer.

    3. Re:Web developers by nevali · · Score: 1

      You can do it with MultipleIEs, an unofficial hack to install multiple versions of IE on a machine.

      It works pretty well nowadays--it was a bit shaky when it was first released, though.

      We use it for testing internally, though I do have VMs lying around for "just to be sure" testing.

    4. Re:Web developers by cbart387 · · Score: 1

      (I know it IS somehow possible, but that's way too complicated and not the point here). It's actually quite easy.
      • Go here.
      • Choose the browser you want and download.
      • Unzip and click executable
      I know that wasn't your point but it is very possible ... just not through Microsoft (which is where the real shame is).
      --
      Lack of planning on your part does not constitute an emergency on mine.
    5. Re:Web developers by aussie_a · · Score: 1

      Have you made clear the monetary incentive to move to a better browser? After all, you do charge them more because you spend more man-hours complying with their ridiculous requests, right?

    6. Re:Web developers by duggi · · Score: 1

      The point is that most organizations don't care, they just want IE6. I am a java developer, but due to company constraints, I have to design my jsp's too. As if struts2.0 is not a bitch enough, I have to develop it for IE6. Work-arounds for IE6 are much more time consuming, but try to argue with someone who doesn't know the difference between database and bad-data. Most companies just want their work done, with the least bit of extra hassle, and it is almost always the developers who have to face suicide or testing it on IE.(My manager is pretty happy about this though, says we can ask for more time to deliver.)

      --
      http://monkeynesianeconomics.blogspot.com/
    7. Re:Web developers by Domstersch · · Score: 1
      1. Install your favourite flavour of GNU/Linux
      2. Install wine, cabextract
      3. Do: wget http://www.tatanka.com.br/ies4linux/downloads/ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
        tar zxvf ies4linux-latest.tar.gz
        cd ies4linux-*
        ./ies4linux
      4. Proceed to test your site in IE6, IE5.5 and/or IE5
      5. ...
      6. Profit!

      Voila. Side-by-side installation of multiple Internet Explorer versions, for free.

      --
      =w=
    8. Re:Web developers by Peet42 · · Score: 1

      Of the couple of sites that I've done since starting here, all of the corporate big wigs that sign the payment checks use IE6


      That reminds me of when I worked doing graphics for the local cable TV company. The "corporate big wig" that signed my paycheque wouldn't lower herself to coming through to the graphics suite to look at anything on a monitor - if she wanted a graphic she would only sign off on it after seeing it on the hideously maladjusted (colour at maximum, brightness too low, picture about 5% overscanned and shifted off to one side) office TV set, and would always send properly centred, proper brightness graphics back to be "fixed"...

      I think it's something to do with them being promoted beyond their own level of competence.
    9. Re:Web developers by cdrudge · · Score: 1

      No, not directly. But it wouldn't matter anyways. The amount of extra time that it takes me is relatively a drop in the bucket compared to the entire cost of the site.

      Even if cost was a factor, take a look at the browser statistics for December. IE6 has 33% market share vs 21% for IE7. Market share is always going to vary based on the type of site but regardless IE6 still has a sizable market share. The sites I do are primarily marketing sites for the general public, so just saying "It's cheaper if we design the site and test it only with 'modern' browsers" isn't possible. If I was developing a site as an internal application or geared for a specific audience that could be more easily controlled, then things would be different.

    10. Re:Web developers by Walter+Carver · · Score: 1

      Not at all complicated.

      - First you install IE7.
      Until recently you had to go through some sort of verification to download IE7 but now it's open for everyone. Nevertheless, you can get IE7 customized from Google: http://www.google.com/toolbar/ie7/

      - Second you install Multiple IEs: http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE ...which gives you an installable .exe package with IE 5.0, IE 5.5, IE 6.0 (and some older versions 4.0 and 3.0 if I remember correctly). It even makes the registry configurations so that you can use Conditional Comments (google that for more, it's a life-savior).

      After you have finished, you can even have mutliple version of IE open at the same time. I do this all the time.

      All well and nice :)

  9. IE7 is better? by phorm · · Score: 1

    The funny thing is that I've had quite a number of pages that worked fine in IE6, worked fine in firefox (and others), but totally bombed in IE7. In addition, there are a number of companies which in-house sites which are *not* IE7 compatible (yes, sometimes due to less than spectacular coding that IE6 compensated for... but it's still not a good idea for an upgrade to *break* compatibility across the board).

    I wonder if it would be possible for MS to allow use of both legacy IE6 and IE7 somehow. At least if they're going to force an "upgrade" they can leave a fallback path for affected users.

    1. Re:IE7 is better? by God'sDuck · · Score: 1

      I've had quite a number of pages that worked fine in IE6, worked fine in firefox (and others), but totally bombed in IE7.

      In my experience, most on-screen IE7 oddities come from it doing strange things when calculating the width and height of elements; it doesn't seem to inherit in the same way other browsers do. Nine times out of ten when IE7 is being weird, I can fix it by setting the height/width of the parent element to the same as the child element. Annoying, but at least the final code remains standards-compliant and hack free (and if all sizes are in ems, it even still scales cleanly).

      Don't get me started on IE7 printing though...autoscaling is a cute idea for sites without CSS, but a nightmare if you actually have print styles.

    2. Re:IE7 is better? by jrumney · · Score: 4, Informative

      The funny thing is that I've had quite a number of pages that worked fine in IE6, worked fine in firefox (and others), but totally bombed in IE7.

      These pages are probably detecting that you are using IE, and enabling ugly IE6 hacks (or more likely the sites are "designed for IE6", and only enable the standards compliance hacks when they detect Mozilla/Firefox and perhaps Safari and Opera. Nothing is perfect, but IE7 is miles better than IE6 when it comes to standards compliance and rendering CSS properly.

    3. Re:IE7 is better? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The funny thing is that I've had quite a number of pages that worked fine in IE6, worked fine in firefox (and others), but totally bombed in IE7.

      That's probably because they were coded for IE6's ... quirks and won;t work in anything except IE6. That's not funny, it's sad.

      but it's still not a good idea for an upgrade to *break* compatibility across the board

      It wasn't good for IE6 to break standards. I could make a sentence including the words "coming" "chickens" "roost" and "home" about it.

    4. Re:IE7 is better? by nmg196 · · Score: 1

      > there are a number of companies which in-house sites which are *not* IE7 compatible

      That's usually a problem with the site - not the browser.

      > but it's still not a good idea for an upgrade to *break* compatibility

      Yes it is. Why try and maintain compatibility with a BROKEN and BUGGY browser? Fix the browser, then let the web developers fix their sites.

    5. Re:IE7 is better? by remmelt · · Score: 1

      Interesting how their own Embrace & Extend (& Extinguish) comes back and bites them in the ass.

      Even more interesting is that they're still not giving up and going fully compatible... Sad.

    6. Re:IE7 is better? by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · · Score: 1

      Nothing is perfect, but IE7 is miles better than IE6 when it comes to standards compliance and rendering CSS properly.

      That may be true, but if you have a site that renders fine in highly W3C-compliant browsers and degrades gracefully in IE6 because of some extra work you did, then you're not going to consider IE7 an improvement if it circumvents your degrading code but still doesn't make it to standards compliant and render the page properly. More to the point, neither is anyone visiting your site.

      This is the case for a number of hobby sites I support. I made the effort to get them working OK in IE6, because my logs tell me that the majority of my visitors use that browser. I'm not going to make the effort to make them work perfectly in IE7, because they work well enough to be useful and not enough of my visitors use IE7 to justify spending my time making the sites pretty in that browser as well. And besides, who knows how long IE7 will have its current quirks anyway? A special case might be justified for a platform used by 90% of visitors for several years, but writing a new special case every time for MS's benefit is silly unless they're all going to last that long and carry that kind of market share.

      I very much doubt I will be alone in this view. I guess come 12 February, we'll find out. :-)

      --
      If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
    7. Re:IE7 is better? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The funny thing is that I've had quite a number of pages that worked fine in IE6, worked fine in firefox (and others), but totally bombed in IE7. These pages are probably detecting that you are using IE, and enabling ugly IE6 hacks (or more likely the sites are "designed for IE6", and only enable the standards compliance hacks when they detect Mozilla/Firefox and perhaps Safari and Opera. Nothing is perfect, but IE7 is miles better than IE6 when it comes to standards compliance and rendering CSS properly. In addition, if you have the DOCTYPE tag, IE7 will not use "quirks mode" and behave even less like IE6.
    8. Re:IE7 is better? by Blakey+Rat · · Score: 1

      Don't get me started on IE7 printing though...autoscaling is a cute idea for sites without CSS, but a nightmare if you actually have print styles.

      At least IE7 can actually print.

      I can't tell you the number of times I've tried to print a page in Firefox, only to have the last few words of every single line of text cut-off by Firefox's shitty printing code. My guess is that it's completely ignoring the printer margins, and the printer cuts off the text when it hits the normal margin point, but I can't say for sure. Either way, I have to open the page in IE7 to print and IE7 always prints-- well it might not be pretty, but I can read the damned thing.

    9. Re:IE7 is better? by kc2keo · · Score: 1

      These pages are probably detecting that you are using IE, and enabling ugly IE6 hacks (or more likely the sites are "designed for IE6", and only enable the standards compliance hacks when they detect Mozilla/Firefox and perhaps Safari and Opera. Nothing is perfect, but IE7 is miles better than IE6 when it comes to standards compliance and rendering CSS properly.

      Agreed. IE7 is miles better at rendering CSS properly. I'm curious about how good the new FF and IE8 will be. The bottom line for me is IE7 is much better than IE6. When I designed my personal web site I came across whether I should add support for IE6 or not. I chose not to add any IE hacks to the site which resulted in render issues in IE6. IE7 to my surprise renders most of my site quite well except for some things. My main browser, FF renders everything correctly along with Konqueror, Opera, Safari, and lynx (haha). The site is fully standards compliant.

    10. Re:IE7 is better? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      there are a number of companies which in-house sites which are *not* IE7 compatible


      And apparently a public site here or there:

      http://www.pacsci.org/u23d/

      "You may experience difficulties purchasing tickets online if you are using a Mac Operating System, or if you are running the following Web browsers: Firefox, Opera, Safari, or IE7. We apologize for this inconvenience and would like you to know that we are in the process of upgrading this system."

    11. Re:IE7 is better? by MemoryDragon · · Score: 1

      This clearly indicates that you are not a web developer. I have yet to meet a web developer who still loves to support IE6, usually you get the designs and are forced to support impossible designes in IE6. The route goes usually like that.
      Code the page in Firefox as compliant as possible, you have the best tools there and a very good engine.
      Verify the page in Opera and Safari, usually 1-2 fixes for those which dont break the standards.
      Go down to IE7 and add another small number of fixes, some of them might break standards but it still is decent.
      Now you have to go down to IE6 and add hacks left and right, once you are done go up again and verify...
      Now if time is important which always is you often have to skip some testing if you dont have a separate QA, which means that in your case you probably ran into many pages which simply had lots of hacks for IE6 but were developed on fox and QA was skipped on IE7.

      Anyway, IE6 should die sooner than later, everyone would be grateful and development times could be slashed about 30% in my experience!

    12. Re:IE7 is better? by phorm · · Score: 1

      Actually, while my job currently involves a certain amount of web development, it's not so involved as previous.

      My concern is not so much for developing future applications, as the sheer amount of legacy code that works on IE6 but *not* on IE7, and sometimes not quite as expected on Firefox, either. I'm not a fan of IE6 by any means, but neither am I a fan of forced-upgrades in this sense.

      Should IE7 be pushed out to machines and set as default over IE6... sure, why not. Should it erradicate the IE6 install in the process... well unfortunately there doesn't seem to be much of an choice/alternative. While it wouldn't speed the demise of IE6 quite as fast, it would at least allow people to continue using their old webapps. Most of the cases I've run into code that was IE6-centric it was programmed by a third party, so it's not like these places can fix it in-house (or even find the original developer to fix it quickly out-of-house).

  10. Good Thing... by Max+Romantschuk · · Score: 1

    ...For web standards at least.

    Quite frankly only those who have built IE-only sites for IE6 should really suffer. I think it's all worth it if we can finally have a critical mass of users supporting standards even a little better. As a former web developer I'm biased though. :)

    --
    .: Max Romantschuk :: http://max.romantschuk.fi/
  11. Re:Tsk Tsk by iBod · · Score: 1

    >>My company has a few dozen internal applications which fail when using them on IE7.

    They must be pretty damn bad applications in the first place if moving from IE6 to IE7 'breaks' them!

    How does IE7 break them?

  12. iptables by Nako · · Score: 5, Funny

    iptables -A INPUT -s update.microsoft.com -j DROP
    at least for a month

    1. Re:iptables by mariuszbi · · Score: 1

      Iptables for Windows !? Really? I think we folks on Linux are pretty safe against a M$ forced update. Even on a Linux router, AFAIK, the rule should not target the INPUT chain, but the PREROUTING one.

    2. Re:iptables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      yeah, you really don't want MS updates on your linux system!

      *roll eyes*

    3. Re:iptables by VGPowerlord · · Score: 1

      I disagree. It should be on the OUTPUT chain, and have the source changed to the destination. ;)

      --
      GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
    4. Re:iptables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      If we're nitpicking then:

      a) I'm pretty sure there is more than one update server, and I doubt they all RDNS to update.microsoft.com
      b) Should probably use -d either in OUTPUT or PREROUTING (or even FORWARD for transparent bridge firewalls) to stop the packets ever going to MS in the first place.

      b) is my take on the fact that otherwise, any rules for --state RELATED,ESTABLISHED (Fedora/CentOS/RHEL include these at the top of the RH-INPUT-1 table, I think) might get matched before your "drop anything from update.microsoft.com" rule and therefore allow the traffic as normal.

      Posted anon due to the fact this is blatant "bored-at-work" trolling....

    5. Re:iptables by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Unless you managed to get your linux box to load windows updates, you may be better off using the forward chain.

    6. Re:iptables by sgt+scrub · · Score: 1

      alert tcp $EXTERNAL_NET any -> $HOME_NET $HTTP_PORTS (msg:"BLEEDING-EDGE POLICY Microsoft BITS User Agent"; flow:established,to_server; content:"Microsoft BITS/"; content:"Host\:"; within: 20; pcre:"/\/User-Agent\:[^\n]+Microsoft BITS\//i"; threshold: type limit, track by_src, count 1, seconds 300; reference:url,au.download.windowsupdate.com; classtype:user-log-only; rev:4;)

      --
      Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
    7. Re:iptables by IdeaMan · · Score: 1

      What does the rule look like to filter out all web requests from IE?

      --
      They ARE out to get you simply because They are in it for themselves and they don't care about you.
  13. Re:Tsk Tsk by El+Yanqui · · Score: 2, Funny

    I can't wait until Ron Paul gets elected, personally. At least then we won't have to deal with M$ and the government breathing down our necks.

    You seem to have a pretty realistic view. Microsoft will release a standards compliant browser around the time that Ron Paul is actually elected president. You just forgot the cold fusion powered flying cars.

    --
    Well, thanks to the Internet, I'm now bored with sex.
  14. Re:Firefox! by jacksonj04 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Ah, except that in its current incarnation Firefox is a bit sucky too. It's better than IE on many levels, especially security, but it's no longer the snappy and lightweight browser it once was. Memory usage is terrible, I find the UI sluggish, render times are far from ideal and the whole thing just feels... not what it was.

    Hopefully 3.0 will fix that, but for the meantime I'll stick with Safari.

    --
    How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
  15. Silverlight by sjaguar · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Will this upgrade also include a (forced) installation of Silverlight?

    --
    If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0.
    1. Re:Silverlight by jacksonj04 · · Score: 4, Informative

      Doubtful, Silverlight is already a recommended updated so I doubt they'd bundle it. It's got some nice tricks up its sleeve, especially compared to Flash when it comes to tying in with AJAX.

      --
      How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
    2. Re:Silverlight by CarpetShark · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Will this upgrade also include a (forced) installation of Silverlight?


      I'm betting that's the real reason for this update. After all, they can hardly migrate microsoft.com to silverlight if no one can use the site.
    3. Re:Silverlight by sabernet · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Except that there's a known issue with nvidia boards for the last half year that MS has yet to fix, causing all Silverlight audio to clip like crazy and be at 200% volume with no control.

      http://silverlight.net/forums/p/3668/10602.aspx

      Still haven't fixed it. Though at least now it seems their devs have acknowledged its existence.

    4. Re:Silverlight by Lennie · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, but this whole tying in just gives me the willies.

      We've seen to much shit hit the fan. Why would I want to use silverlight anyway ?

      --
      New things are always on the horizon
  16. Re:Tsk Tsk by strtok_r · · Score: 1, Informative

    They were coded to comply with IE6's rendering model, which isn't standards-compliant. There are many, many in-house applications like these, since developers only have to test for the browser version mandated by IT.

  17. Re:Tsk Tsk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You forgot to add 'driven by genetically engineered anthrpomorphic dolphins' after 'flying cars'. Paul is as likely to get elected as my plumber.

  18. Re:Tsk Tsk by JustOK · · Score: 1

    I think its more like IE7 can expose where the app was already broken.

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  19. Good for them by nekokoneko · · Score: 3, Informative

    I think this is great news. Quote: (...) and it has posted guidelines on how to ward off the automatic update if admins want to keep the older IE6 browser on their companies' machines. So you can keep IE6 if you want to, but all the non-tech savvy users get a safer, more standards compliant browser.

    1. Re:Good for them by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      No, it's so your sysadmin can decide to keep IE6 on your machine if they want to, and incompetent sysadmins or those who see no need to stay with IE6 can let it automatically trickle through their WSUS server to the clients if they feel like it. No user choice involved, since WSUS is for corporate environments anyway.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  20. Re:Tsk Tsk by Kjella · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They must be pretty damn bad applications in the first place if moving from IE6 to IE7 'breaks' them!

    1. Get spec: Must work on IE6
    2. Design methodology: Hack it around until it looks right
    3. Test methodology: Click around in IE6

    If you have paid no heed to standards or alternative browsers, it's trivially simple to make a site that breaks on IE7.

    --
    Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
  21. Re:Tsk Tsk by jacksonj04 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft isn't giving people enough time to catch up with the latest version. IE7 was released 18th October 2006. RC1 was 24th August, and the first pre-build was January 31st. You've had almost two years to catch up with the latest version, it's not like they've suddenly sprung the changes!

    --
    How many people can read hex if only you and dead people can read hex?
  22. IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by jkrise · · Score: 0, Troll

    Where I work, the ASP.Net apps work only with IE6 with ActiveX enabled. Trying to use the apps with IE7 is a huge mess and causes support requests.

    Also, there is a college in our campus where about 900 students use Moodle very regularly on XP. Moodle has been working fine on IE6 and lately Firefox; but for some reason the IE6 experience seems to be the best. Now if there is an auto-update to IE7, all hell will break loose.

    If IE6 is a security hazard; and MS is not keen to resolve them; why not open the source; so interested customers can do so themselves?

    --
    If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    1. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by nmg196 · · Score: 4, Informative

      > ASP.Net apps work only with IE6 with ActiveX enabled.

      Sorry but this is rubbish. ASP.NET is a *server-side* engine. It's rubbish to say that ASP.NET sites only work with IE6.
      And ASP.NET does NOT require any ActiveX support in the browser. Properly written ASP.NET sites work properly in ALL browsers - even ones which don't have javascript support.

      I think your website is broken for other reasons - not because of ASP.NET or it's supposed incompatibly with IE7.

    2. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by jkrise · · Score: 1

      Properly written ASP.NET sites work properly in ALL browsers - even ones which don't have javascript support.

      I don't know much about the apps... they were written more than 5 years back; and no one in sysadmin seems to have the time or inclination to care.

      --
      If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....
    3. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by iBod · · Score: 1

      Pardon me, but... Bullshit!

      ASP.Net is a way of implementing rich web apps WITHOUT having ActiveX enabled. That is one of the major plus points!

      Sounds like 'where you work' doesn't have a clue, or has developed/bought apps that need ActiveX components to work at all. It has nothing to do with .NET.

      In what way does IE7 break moodle - my wife is using Moodle all day long, using IE7 ???

    4. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We are using an old version of Moodle... for about 4 years now. I think it could be a version problem.

    5. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by Aladrin · · Score: 1

      "Properly written ASP.NET sites work properly in ALL browsers"

      I think you had it right there. Their app -isn't- properly written. It's too late now, though... They can't magically make it right over night.

      Of course, my first thought when I saw the post was "Well, guess you'll get around to fixing it now, huh?"

      --
      "If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
    6. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by Jesus_666 · · Score: 1

      If IE6 is a security hazard; and MS is not keen to resolve them; why not open the source; so interested customers can do so themselves?
      Open the source on Trident? Do you really think anyone would ever take them serious again?
      --
      USE HOT GRITS WITH STATUE OF NATALIE PORTMAN (NAKED AND PETRIFIED)
    7. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by mkuczara · · Score: 1

      Could you stop talking about things you dont have idea about?

    8. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by aitan · · Score: 1

      >If IE6 is a security hazard; and MS is not keen to resolve them; why not open the source; so interested customers can do so themselves? They have been fixing bugs, the name of the version is IE7, you can choose to use the unpatched code or the new one.

    9. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by revlayle · · Score: 1

      more than 5 years ago?? Using ASP.NET 1.0 or ASP.NET 1.0 Beta?????

    10. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by weicco · · Score: 1

      Yep. I've seen job descriptions where they seek people with 5+ years experience on ASP.NET 2.0. I think they have invented time machine :)

      --
      You don't know what you don't know.
    11. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      it is perhaps more correct to say that the dev tools for ASP.NET (at least in vs.net/vs2003/vs2005) made it easy to create sites using vbscript, ie6-specific markup, etc..

    12. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by Matt+Perry · · Score: 1

      > ASP.Net apps work only with IE6 with ActiveX enabled.

      Sorry but this is rubbish.
      You're selectively misquoting and deserve to be modded down for it. Let's look at his original text:

      "Where I work, the ASP.Net apps work only with IE6 with ActiveX enabled."

      Ahh, so he wasn't saying that ASP.NET only works with IE6. He was saying that the applications written in ASP.NET at the location where he works only work properly in IE6. That's something entirely different from what you're complaining about.
      --
      Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
    13. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      Oh no they don't!

      The dev tools for ASP.NET (VS2005+) generate extremely good standards compliant markup, and bitch horribly if you use IE or Firefox specific markup or CSS. So much so, that they often generate code that looks better in Firefox than IE. This is because the Dev Tools team are pretty fired up on making decent tools rather than horrific IE-specific ones.

      Oh, and they steer you so hard away from VBScript you can't remember which way you're facing.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    14. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It may come as a surprise, but ASP.NET is actually 6 years old, so more than 5 years is entirely possible.
      (besides which, you'd have to be pretty dense to not realise that "more than 5 years" ago is not a precise measurement of time, but a guess at the approximate age)

    15. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by revlayle · · Score: 1

      Just looked it up, you are right... I keep thinking the first version of everything .NET was VS 2003, but that was 1.1, not 1.0

    16. Re:IE7 breaks corporate intranet apps and Moodle by nmg196 · · Score: 1

      Um. NO!

      You've clearly NEVER used ASP.NET or you'd realise that everything you've said is pretty much the exact opposite of what is true. It doesn't even *SUPPORT* VBScript let alone push you towards it! The code it produces is clean HTML/CSS and doesn't use any IE6 specific markup at all. Name me ONE case where it does this?

  23. Re:Tsk Tsk by strtok_r · · Score: 0

    Well, the apps worked as needed up to this point. The requirements documents for each list IE6 as the target browser. Now that IE7 is the standard, they all have to be updated.

  24. Re:Tsk Tsk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    IE7 in quirks mode mostly replicates the IE6 way of rendering. I think that you're trying to blame IE for your bad software. There are many, many Microsoft ASP and ASP.NET developers who are just total dumb-asses and couldn't write a clean line of HTML if their life depended on it. I don't mind, it makes me look good and it also means I can earn tons of money making things work :)

  25. IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Qrlx · · Score: 4, Funny

    This is somewhat off topic, but whatever.

    Has anyone else noticed how terrible tabbed browsing is in IE7?

    Let's just say, hypothetically, I'm at my favorite porn site, looking at thumbnails. The plan is to ctrl-click the thumbnails and open them in tabs.

    Once you get enough tabs open, there comes a point where IE7 bogs down tremendously when asked to dispaly jpgs, each in her own tab. Symptoms include clicks on the first tab are no longer acknowledged, and tremendous slowness moving between tabs.

    After that, there comes a point where your ctrl-click won't even spawn a new tab.

    Tabbed browsing is a great "innovation" in the IE product line, but in terms of performance and not being a resource hog, IE7 is easily outpaced by Mozilla and many others.

    1. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by ThirdPrize · · Score: 1

      What is this "porn" of which you speak?

      --
      I have excellent Karma and I am not afraid to Troll it.
    2. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    3. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by houghi · · Score: 1

      The plan is to ctrl-click the thumbnails and open them in tabs.

      In Firefox I use the middle-click as my other hand is, uh, otherwise occupied.

      I would love to have the tabs starting at the right side, because now when closing the last few, you need to follow the tabs, whereas otherwise the red X will be in the same place all the time
      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    4. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Hatta · · Score: 1

      And while we're on the subject, has anyone else noticed how terrible tabbed browsing is in Firefox? You can't even detach the tabs.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    5. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Zebedeu · · Score: 2, Funny

      A better question would be "where".
      I would like to uhh, confirm this bug.

    6. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Nimey · · Score: 1

      Interesting UI concept. Which browser does tab-detaching?

      --
      Hail Eris, full of mischief...

      E pluribus sanguinem
    7. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by chameleon3 · · Score: 1

      I would love to have the tabs starting at the right side, because now when closing the last few, you need to follow the tabs, whereas otherwise the red X will be in the same place all the time

      just put one red x at the right (1.5 behavior)

      1. Type about:config in the address bar

      2. Change browser.tabs.closeButtons to 3
    8. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      MDI sucks. Firefox's tab implementation is not an MDI interface.

      You want to detach a tab: open another window (CTRL-N) and drag your tab to it.

    9. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Safari. In 3.X you can (left) click a tab and drag it off the tab bar, it will morph into a thumbnail of the page it contains. When you let go it turns into a full window. You can even drag tabs from one Browser window to another.

    10. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Hatta · · Score: 1

      Krusader has had it forever. And it's not so much interesting as it is mind-numbingly obvious.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    11. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Galeon had this feature for ages, you can also move them to another window.
      It's a pity that galeon is no longer developped.

    12. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      betcha every ie7 tab is a completely separate instance of the ie browser object.

    13. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Use the Linky add-on for Firefox... it features such pr0n friendly context items as "Open all images links in separate tab." Which will put all the linked to pictures on one tab. Awesome!

    14. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by fbartho · · Score: 1

      what chameleon3 said, or ctr+w (a one handed key combo)

      --
      Gravity Sucks
    15. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by houghi · · Score: 1

      Great. Thanks. Better then the CTRL-W which I was already using, but sometimes a person just wants to use the mouse and nothing else but the mouse.

      --
      Don't fight for your country, if your country does not fight for you.
    16. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by GWBasic · · Score: 1

      Once you get enough tabs open, there comes a point where IE7 bogs down tremendously when asked to dispaly jpgs, each in her own tab. Symptoms include clicks on the first tab are no longer acknowledged, and tremendous slowness moving between tabs.

      In my experience, that's almost always caused by McAffee or any other crapware running on the system.

    17. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by toddestan · · Score: 1

      Opera's 'tabs' have always worked this way. (actually, Opera uses a MDI interface, where each page is it's own seperate window in the main program window).

    18. Re:IE7 tabbed browsing sucks by iminplaya · · Score: 1

      ...ctrl-click...

      ?? What, are you still using a one button mouse? That would occupy both hands. How do you... uh... oh nevermind. I suppose where there's a will, there's a way.

      --
      What?
  26. How long will it take ... by Skapare · · Score: 1

    ... on dialup access?

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    1. Re:How long will it take ... by appleloaf · · Score: 1

      Not as long as the initial Windows updates if you've just gotten a new system. So, less than several days.

  27. Force-feeding by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  28. While I coud use the money... by capnkr · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...I wish there was another way of making it.

    OK, note to self: week of Feb 12, expect many calls from windows-using clients...

    --
    "...there are some things that can beat smartness and foresight. Awkwardness and stupidity can." ~ Mark Twain
  29. Re:Tsk Tsk by jrumney · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Microsoft isn't giving people enough time to catch up with the latest version.

    How long do you need? IE7 was released in August 2005 so Web developers could start testing and fixing their apps well ahead of the October 2006 release.

  30. Suggestion for Microsoft by elronxenu · · Score: 2, Funny
    Ah, well if it's a security thing, then Microsoft should add this to the critical update list:

    Wubi, which "is an unofficial Ubuntu installer for Windows users that will bring you into the Linux world with a single click."

    1. Re:Suggestion for Microsoft by shiftless · · Score: 1

      If anyone ever manages to hack into the Windows Update servers, I hope they do this. That would be priceless!

  31. Default Browser by blavallee · · Score: 1, Funny

    Microsoft just wants to remind everyone who uses FireFox that IE is not their default browser.

  32. This is about browser market share by gabrieltss · · Score: 1

    IE6 has fallen behind Firefox in browser share and IE7 is behind as well - at least by W3 stats.

    IF M$ forces everyone to IE7 it will combine the two IE stats and make it the #1 browser by share again. But if you look at the trend Firefox is growing at a steady pace every year. By doing the force upgrade more IE users may say "enough" and take another look at downloading and installing Firefox. The way to tell that would be if the IE share drops drastically and the Firefox share jumps drastically. I'm kind of hoping this happens. If might mean a huge defiance against M$'s monopolistiic ways.

    --
    The Truth is a Virus!!!
    1. Re:This is about browser market share by nevali · · Score: 1

      Uh, the w3schools stats are only for visitors to w3schools.com, which given their high ranking in SERPs for HTML element and attribute names, CSS properties and JavaScript objects, are primarily web developers quickly looking something up via Google instead of reaching for a nearby book.

      I'd be concerned if w3schools' stats showed Firefox at the same kind of penetration level it is on consumer sites.

    2. Re:This is about browser market share by darthflo · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Oookay, kiddo. Now let's start the thinking, shall we?

      1. The stats you quote are taken from w3schools.com
      2. w3schools.com is a website containing some tutorials for web-related languages and technologies.
      3. People interested in the topics covered by w3schools are a small subset of all web surfers.
      4. People reading or using w3schools are another subset of this subset of surfers; according to their stats mostly Firefox users

      Conclusion: Looking at those stats as an indicator of browser usage on the www and in various intranets is about as smart as using stats gathered on /. as representative indicators of linux' market penetration or calculating apple's market share from a survey in some Mac Owners Lounge.

    3. Re:This is about browser market share by dyefade · · Score: 1

      It even says as much on the linked page:

      W3Schools is a website for people with an interest for web technologies. These people are more interested in using alternative browsers than the average user. The average user tends to use Internet Explorer, since it comes preinstalled with Windows. Most do not seek out other browsers.

      These facts indicate that the browser figures above are not 100% realistic. Other web sites have statistics showing that Internet Explorer is used by at least 80% of the users.

  33. Yes, Firefox 3 does fix memory use by tepples · · Score: 1

    Ah, except that in its current incarnation Firefox is a bit sucky too. [...] Memory usage is terrible [...] Hopefully 3.0 will fix that Mozilla Firefox 3 Beta 2 is much less of a RAM hog than Mozilla Firefox 2.0.0.x. Despite the "beta" name, I'd recommend that home users try it out.
  34. Re:Firefox! by zappepcs · · Score: 2, Funny

    I am not a web browser tester but... lately Firefox seems to be performing much better than it used to. It's still using a bit of memory, but I'm not getting any crashes, or aberrant behaviors. The worst I've noticed in months is Foxmarks sucking the life out of my cpu when synchronizing, but that can be monitored/avoided.

    Literally the only time I've been annoyed with FF in a year is having to load IE6/7 to open a website that refused to recognize FF using IETab. And in that case, it's not FF that annoys me. I'd put the coder of that site on the DHS watchlist if I could!@@#$%@$#%

  35. Re:Firefox! by thanatos_x · · Score: 1

    My understanding is that firefox is generally considered to be a poor browser on a mac. I use it whenever I'm on a mac just so that I can use *some* of the keyboard shortcuts I'm used to, but I believe Safari is better in many regards.

    As for 3.0, I'm using the beta and I'd have to say that render times do seem to be improved. Memory usage doesn't seem to be much better than previous versions; After leaving it running for about 14 hours (mostly overnight) I'm at 200 mb memory usage with two tabs open, one being this page. I know 2.x would get up to about 370 mb, however this would be after several days with 10+ tabs, and 200 mb seems about right for where it would be now. I don't care too much since my machine can handle that, but it matters to most people on slashdot.

    --
    I am not an expert. If I am misled in something, please correct me.
  36. Talk about innacurate by MSFanBoi2 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    IT still needs to approve the update via WSUS for IE 7 to get deployed. If its not an approved update you don't get it.

    Of course this is Slashdot, you are allowed to spout all the innacurate crap you want, as long as its crap slung at Microsoft.

    If people had bothered to read they would have noticed this in the "warning" from Microsoft: you have configured WSUS to "auto-approve" Update Rollup packages (this is not the default configuration), Windows Internet Explorer 7 will be automatically approved for installation after February 12, 2008 and consequently, you may want to take the actions below to manage how and when this update is installed

    Thanks again Slashdot for proving the Linux camp really are full of a bunch of anti-Microsoft loonies who read only what they want to read.

    1. Re:Talk about innacurate by Shados · · Score: 1

      The amusing thing is that then they will accuse MS of spreading fud when saying things half as innacurate as this :) And I mean, MS does spread lots of fud...but Slashdot has em beat any day of the week, easy =P

    2. Re:Talk about innacurate by babbling · · Score: 1

      The summary maybe, but from what I can see, most comments are actually pro-IE7 because it means that IE6 can be dropped soon.

    3. Re:Talk about innacurate by Soko · · Score: 1

      Thanks again Slashdot for proving the Linux camp really are full of a bunch of anti-Microsoft loonies who read only what they want to read.

      It's a /. headline - of course it's alarmist and sensationalist. Anyone with any sense of reality takes such things with a large grain of NaCl.

      We all aren't loonies - I'm in a Microsoft shop and tend to have a balanced view (I hope). What this story does is let me know that I need to ensure our WSUS server isn't set to auto-approve rollups (IOW, ensure the guy admining that bit of software hasn't gone bat-shit insane), and that my family and friends have IE7 Block installed (watch out for the Silverlight popup!) - that way my support headaches won't increase.

      Soko

      --
      "Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
    4. Re:Talk about innacurate by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Insightful

      IT still needs to approve the update via WSUS for IE 7 to get deployed. If its not an approved update you don't get it.

      ...because everyone knows that every house and SOHO computer install has WSUS and an IT department, right?

      (you know, those places where the bulk of MSFT's cutomer base can be found?)

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    5. Re:Talk about innacurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
      Summary seems accurate to me, at least in its current form. I don't know if it was changed since you posted your comment

      From summary:

      ... regardless of whether or not the update had been requested previously. That just says requested, it doesn't mention being approved or not.

      The piece also mentions ways to prevent the update from occurring, ... It specifically says it's not forced and you can get around it.
    6. Re:Talk about innacurate by jimicus · · Score: 1

      (you know, those places where the bulk of MSFT's cutomer base can be found?)

      I really have my doubts on that.

      Consider how many people have a computer on their desk.

      Consider how many of those computers are running Windows.

      Consider how many of those people don't have a computer at home.

    7. Re:Talk about innacurate by Penguinisto · · Score: 1

      Consider how many people have a computer on their desk.

      Consider how many people have a computer (or two, or maybe three...) at home. It isn't hard at all to imagine a typical family with a desktop or laptop computer, and maybe a second one for the kid(s)... but they only have the one at work.

      Consider how many of those computers are running Windows.

      and...? Market share is likely to be even across the board: Macs eating almost 10% at home, and Linux/Mac eating almost 10% at work (or so).

      Consider how many of those people don't have a computer at home.

      Dunno about that... there are probably just as many jobs (if not more if you count manufacturing) that don't require an individually assigned desktop/laptop computer, but the average worker in that position has one (or more) at home. This would be especially true at the lower-skilled levels of labor.

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    8. Re:Talk about innacurate by AdamThor · · Score: 1

      Has anyone else noticed that since moving to WSUS 3 updates tend to sneak out without authorization?

      I've had updates not ok'd for install get out, and I've had updates spread beyond the test list that they are approved for. Limited approvals are sent out to a limited computer list, and then random users all over the place start calling in about slowdowns b/c they are downloading a big, non-approved update (.net 3, some others). Maybe I'm just lame and I'm doing it wrong. Anyone else?

      --
      -- "Oh. This guy again."
    9. Re:Talk about innacurate by MSFanBoi2 · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Did you even bother to read the OP? What part of, and I quote The IE7 upgrade scheduled to roll out via WSUS (Windows Server Update Services) on Feb. 12 was announced last October didn't you understand. I don't know very many home users with a WSUS box up and running.


      The whole ARTICLE IS ABOUT WSUS, not home users, WSUS.

      Thanks for proving my point about Linux fanboi's seeing only what they want to see.

    10. Re:Talk about innacurate by Penguinisto · · Score: 0, Flamebait
      That article is about WSUS.

      ...now what about this one? And this one?

      You see, some of us look beyond one article. Some of use can see larger trends by doing so. And in this particular case, some of us are fully aware that telecommuters factor into the equation.

      It's kinda cool how this "thinking" stuff works... you should try it sometime. ;)

      It's not the "what I want to see" that I deal in, it's the "what I'll very likely end up seeing" that needs paying attention to.

      (we now return you to your regularly scheduled attempts at "fanboi" bashing)

      /P

      --
      Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
    11. Re:Talk about innacurate by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Um, you do realize that the links you provided are both discussing the same thing (one is an MSDN blog posting, and the other is a reference to that same blog posting), and that both are from 2006 (the blog posting is dated July 26th, 2006), and that both indicate that the user will be presented with a screen asking them if they want to install the update or not (ie. they will not be forced). So, the OP's point remains.

    12. Re:Talk about innacurate by yodaj007 · · Score: 1

      Stop confusing the issue with your "facts".

      --
      These aren't the sigs you're looking for.
    13. Re:Talk about innacurate by MSFanBoi2 · · Score: 1

      You do understand that IE 7 was pushed via Windows Update at the END OF OCTOBER 2006 right? Moving your goal posts around just makes you keep looking like the anti-Microsoft frothing fool.

      You see some of us are in touch with the real world and know that IE 7 was pushed out more than a year ago via Windows Update to Joe Consumer. Also most of us are very well aware that WSUS is intelligent and understand when you are connected as a telecommuter.

      Its kinda cool how thinking PROPERLY works and doing more than two or three attempts at googling an answer.

      We now return you to your regularly scheduled poor attempts at FUD and anti-Microsoft propaganda based in nothing but.

    14. Re:Talk about innacurate by jimicus · · Score: 1

      The home user buys a PC which has an OEM version of Windows on. They either warez Office or they get a student copy. Seldom do they buy the full price copy.

      The business user buys a PC which has an OEM version of Windows on. But the business user wants to guarantee that they can use the same version of Windows on all their PCs regardless of what they shipped with and use some sort of imaging, so they have to go out and buy the business Windows upgrade license - the terms of which say "You must buy one license for every Windows PC you have, regardless of whether or not it came with an OEM license for the version of Windows this covers".

      The business user also buys licenses for Office, Exchange, possibly Sharepoint, SQL server. They also buy Client Access Licenses.

      I still maintain that the business user is Microsoft's core market.

    15. Re:Talk about innacurate by piojo · · Score: 1

      Thanks again Slashdot for proving the Linux camp really are full of a bunch of anti-Microsoft loonies who read only what they want to read. Your allegation does not follow.
      --
      A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
    16. Re:Talk about innacurate by Kalriath · · Score: 1

      Actually that's MS downloads. Watch out for the Silverlight popup, followed by the "want to try the beta downloads centre?" popup, followed by the big, hulking, "you need Silverlight to use the beta downloads centre" popup.

      --
      For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
    17. Re:Talk about innacurate by MSFanBoi2 · · Score: 1

      Watch as the Linux fanboi's slowly reduce the OP down further and further. Seems to me the truth hurts too much for them.

  37. it breaks my system and makes WTS crawl!! by QX-Mat · · Score: 1

    Argh,

    On my home PC IE7, not only makes it crawl (even if it is a 2Gb dual core machine), but also breaks the Creative device explorer. Not to mention the that the poorly crafted render and input loop minces a WTS server with only a few simultaneous IE users - last month we reverted back to IE6 and saw a 100% performance increase!!

    Matt

    1. Re:it breaks my system and makes WTS crawl!! by Wolvie+MkM · · Score: 1

      Exact same issue on the girlfriends notebook. IE7 is a dirty pig, didn't need to be open to slow the system down. I reverted her back to IE6 and got her on Firefox which has restored most of her sanity.

      --
      I Like Pie...
  38. Re:Firefox! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Active X should be banned across the board in any company that even remotely considers security an issue. Intranet apps of the type you talk about need to be reprogrammed, because they probably won't be maintainable even in the short term.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  39. Re:Firefox! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 2, Informative

    FF 2.x is worse than the other iterations. You can turn off spell check, that helps some. There's some tuning parameters you can set to release memory/pages in cache and limit it to those in the browser currently. Other than that, the core problem with all browsers is that the JS engine in them sucks rocks, and the single threaded nature of that beast is what kills performance when you have lots of plugins or heavy JS pages.

    FF 3.0 reportedly is much lighter in memory and faster in performance, but I've not tried it yet. I downloaded it this weekend, and will try to find some time to install it shortly.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  40. Security of what by QuietLagoon · · Score: 1
    Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to 'security concerns'."

    Yeah, the security of IE6's place as the monopoly browser is in jeopardy, so Microsoft has to force its customers to install a Microsoft browser that has a chance of competiing with FireFox.

    1. Re:Security of what by Carlinya · · Score: 1

      What chance?

      --
      1 + 1 = 3?
  41. IE7 ? by Spc01 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I don't like what they have done with IE7.. especially removed support for Active Desktop that was very good and being a standard for 12 years..

    1. Re:IE7 ? by Hatta · · Score: 1

      What exactly was active desktop good for? Wasting resources and getting in the way?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:IE7 ? by Spc01 · · Score: 1

      Well i have a active desktop icon on my weather station page so a user can add my weather station to his/hers desktop and view live data that refreshes every 5 minutes..

  42. The only thing I'm holding out for by Domstersch · · Score: 1

    Screw HTML and CSS standards compliance; the only thing I'm holding out for is sweet, sweet 24-bit PNG support. No more stupid matte colours, and no spending ages getting fiddly non-square image shapes to layer onto complex backgrounds nicely. Plus: 'glass' background effects. Hoo-fucking-rah.

    The sooner Microsoft push this update on everyone, the better. After all, it's not like I use IE - why should I care whether people want the update or not?

    --
    =w=
    1. Re:The only thing I'm holding out for by iBod · · Score: 1

      >>Screw HTML and CSS standards compliance; the only thing I'm holding out for is sweet, sweet 24-bit PNG support.

      I think we can safely say that you're in the minority buddy.

  43. Accurate Statistics? by dbc001 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Does anyone have accurate statistics on IE version usage right now? Unfortunately my own stats really only break down between browser vendors and it's difficult to get per-version stats...

    It's probably wise to start planning to stop supporting IE6 when it's usage drops below a certain percentage - the sooner we get rid of IE6 the better. Of course, a lot of users are stuck with it - but when things start breaking, they'll get the hint to either upgrade (if that's even possible) or just switch to a better browser.

    Some stats here and a little blurb here

    1. Re:Accurate Statistics? by Arimus · · Score: 1

      Just looked at my own site's stats:

      Firefox - 11%
      IE7 - 38%
      IE6 - 36%

      --
      --- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.
    2. Re:Accurate Statistics? by babbling · · Score: 1

      My highest traffic website gets about 2,000 IE-using visitors a month.

      The breakdown of IE users for the past month is:
      7.0: 54%
      6.0: 46%

    3. Re:Accurate Statistics? by Spc01 · · Score: 1

      Well on my weather station page i've got visitors all over the world and about 100 views per day and here are the results of 45040 views: Firefox 45.26 % Explorer 6.x 38.42 % Explorer 7.x 10.13 % Explorer 5.x 4.37 % Safari 1.27 % Opera 9.x 0.33 % Mozilla 0.22 %

    4. Re:Accurate Statistics? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    5. Re:Accurate Statistics? by Uzuri · · Score: 1

      I'm an edu and I've got 6 & 7 about evenly split for hits coming from outside the college. All IE versions together are at about 40%.

      --
      I'm a she-slashdotter... but I make up for it by living with my folks.
  44. Re:Firefox! by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

    I'm running Minefield (Firefox 3 nightlies) on my work Windows laptop. It's very much a nightly test build - some days' builds crash like bastards - but in general it's smaller, faster and better than Firefox 2, not to mention having various little things that make it slicker and nicer to use. More of my favoured extensions are OK with it too. Firefox 3 is going to be a real winner.

    (And at Wikimedia we're very much looking forward to the VIDEO element supplying Ogg Theora support right there in the browser. Then we can drag Nokia and Apple kicking and screaming to the party.)

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  45. Security Update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Perhaps if they were so concerned about security, their next update would be to roll out a mandatory Linux core to upgrade their NT core, due to security concerns.

    1. Re:Security Update by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when users found that GIMP and OpenOffice doesn't hang with their Windows counterparts who would do the rollback?

      Computing is about a hell of a lot more than an OS.

  46. So what? by LingNoi · · Score: 1

    Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to 'security concerns'.
    Are you seriously making a case for keeping that POS? I mean really, who cares if they did it for some other reason as long as they're wiping IE6 of the planet I am happy.
    1. Re:So what? by Vexorian · · Score: 1

      Heck, at least now I am free to use semi transparent PNGs , although I will be happier once they wipe any IE in general of the planet.

      --

      Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
  47. Welcome to the MS tax by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    You've been served.

    I'm aware of several organizations that foolishly listened to MS on how coding to their browser using their tools would save them money. Apparently not. The initial roll-out of a POC was seemingly fast, but then came real requirements, and the cost of dev quickly came on par to writing the app to standards in the first place. Then came the quirks, and the company, now x$'s into the program, mandated a homogeneous browser installation on all equipment so the broken app could work. Now MS comes along and forces you to update and you'll have to rewrite those apps yet again.

    Will they learn? Sadly, probably not.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  48. Our intranet site uses IE6 activeX... by MMC+Monster · · Score: 3, Interesting

    The place I work uses activeX components to log into the citrix-based intranet client. They have big signs for the last couple years stating that they will not support Firefox. Over the last year they also had to add a sign that they will not cover IE7. Should be interesting to see what they do now. Maybe I'll drop them an email and ask. :-)

    --
    Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    1. Re:Our intranet site uses IE6 activeX... by east+coast · · Score: 1

      Include in your e-mail that as long as their WSUS isn't set to auto-accept that this does not apply to them. Also include in the e-mail that if their WSUS is set to auto-accept than why are you paying admins the big bucks?

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
    2. Re:Our intranet site uses IE6 activeX... by MMC+Monster · · Score: 1

      The problem is that the remote access to the network is from individuals home and office PCs (This is a hospital I'm talking about) run by individual (non-tech-savy) physicians, many of which don't even have IT guys. The remote access is necessary since the physicians need to be able to access the network from their home computers.

      --
      Help! I'm a slashdot refugee.
    3. Re:Our intranet site uses IE6 activeX... by east+coast · · Score: 1

      What does any of that have to do with a setting in WSUS?

      If you're using WSUS the rules still apply and the individuals would have no say-so anyway. If you're not using WSUS the story doesn't apply. In other words, this is not a Windows Update release in the typical home user sense. This is a WSUS update and non-WSUS users will not be effected by it.

      --
      Dedicated Cthulhu Cultist since 4523 BC.
  49. Nothing to see here by foxalopex · · Score: 1

    According to the article, it says as long as you don't turn on automatic updates, it won't update to IE7. Personally I use SeaMonkey myself. No where near as lightweight as Firefox probably but it works extremely well.

    1. Re:Nothing to see here by chmod+a+x+mojo · · Score: 1

      Depends on what you mean by lightweight and what you actually use. Realistically seamonkey suite actually uses LESS space than having 1. a separate email client 2. a separate IRC client 3. a separate HTML editor and 4. a separate browser installed.

      --
      To err is human; effective mayhem requires the root password!
  50. Noy happy ! by jeanph01 · · Score: 0

    I'm not at all happy about this. I use Firefox and it fit my needs. I don't need the IE7 at all on my system. I think I will just disable the security updates.

  51. I can feel it by flyingfsck · · Score: 1

    I can feel a new wave of Firefox users coming!

    --
    Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
    1. Re:I can feel it by iBod · · Score: 1

      OMG!

      "a wave of FireFox user coming!"

      Ugh! Pass the Kleenex.

  52. Re:Tsk Tsk by iBod · · Score: 1

    >>If you have paid no heed to standards or alternative browsers, it's trivially simple to make a site that breaks on IE7.

    Yes, that's exactly what I meant: a pretty damn bad application.

  53. One word: Proxy. by Penguinisto · · Score: 1
    The GP was funny, but if you use a proxy at work, odds are pretty good that it's squid on a Linux host.

    (...and if you're using WU at work? Then either you've got a tiny company, or your CIO needs to be fired).

    /P

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  54. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    Memory usage is terrible, I find the UI sluggish, render times are far from ideal and the whole thing just feels... not what it was.

    I keep seeing people make statements like this, but when I ask for steps to reproduce any problem, no one can seem to come up with any. Can you show me how I could see memory usage significantly worse than other browsers, user interface responsiveness significantly worse than other browsers, render times significantly worse than other browsers, or any other problem in Firefox?

    If you're having problems with Firefox, you may want to try creating a new profile or other suggestions from the MozillaZine Knowledge Base. I see the suggestions help users all the time in the MozillaZine forums.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  55. Re:Tsk Tsk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's really the ultimate irony of this whole situation. People aren't switching to IE7 because lots of corporate apps were suckered into MS' non-standards lock-in of IE6, which they implemented to prevent people from using other browsers.

    Cut to several years later and they find that they have an "other browser" and no one will switch to it.

  56. Not the best idea by 56ksucks · · Score: 1

    I can't tell you how many service calls I've done where I hear that something has stopped working after IE7 was installed. It's mostly BECAUSE of the added security that perfectly legitimate web based office applications fail. I've had 1 call where an active X based IP camera would fail to install the application because all the active X junk was turned off by default, even if you tell it it's ok. The same thing happened at a dermatology clinic where they also used a web based application with Active X. It might be better at this and that with stolen tabs from firefox but there is still to much that doesn't work with it. At least not without changing settings. Large corporations shouldn't be forced to send their desktop support out to change security settings on 50 PC's because now all of a sudden they have IE7 that they didn't want or need. I agree. Make apps work in firefox.

    --

    ---- "Excuse me. Where's the children's gun section?"

    1. Re:Not the best idea by mixmatch · · Score: 1

      I noticed you said 'stolen tabs from firefox'. I use firefox as well, but you should be aware that opera had tabbed browsing long before firefox came into existence.

  57. Re:Tsk Tsk by iBod · · Score: 1

    Well there's your problem - or at least a good part of it.

    You should code your applications to work with a compliant rendering model first of all. They you use CSS workarounds to cater for IE6's (or whoever's) broken rendering model. It's actually much easier and saves loads of grief in the long run.

    Coding for IE6 and having your app break in a compliant browser (IE7 is 'almost' compliant) is just unforgivable.

    IE6's rendering is borked for sure, but it's not so bad that you need to write app code specifically for it. Simple design, clean markup and a few conditional CSS hacks can make an app work with just about any browser.

  58. Not an option? by August+Lilleaas · · Score: 1

    Just curious - does this mean that you have to upgrade to IE7? I'd prefer to keep my IE6 as of now, for testing etc. Yes, I could do all sorts of hacks to have them co-existing, or install it on my Linux box, but I'd still prefer to have IE6 on my good ol' XP machine.

  59. ACL's by Trevin · · Score: 1

    I already have one up above that:

    access-list 112 deny ip any 207.46.0.0 0.0.255.255 log
    access-list 112 deny ip any 65.52.0.0 0.3.255.255 log
    access-list 112 deny ip any 213.199.128.0 0.0.15.255 log
    access-list 112 deny ip any 213.199.144.0 0.0.7.255 log
    access-list 112 deny ip any 207.68.128.0 0.0.63.255 log
    access-list 112 deny ip any 207.68.192.0 0.0.15.255 log
    access-list 112 permit ip any any

    (for the truly paranoid)

  60. 6 or 7 p0wned by Firefox by starglider29a · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I have a Canadian Dollar here that says that this "update" is to shift the stats. As of right now, Firefox is p0wning IE6 OR IE7, but not IE6 AND IE7.

    1. Re:6 or 7 p0wned by Firefox by brainnolo · · Score: 1

      Stats of my website say that Safari is "p0wned" any other browser in existance. Yes, is target at mac users. w3school does not look like targeted at the average consumer

  61. That would be me by Mycroft_514 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    FedEx has declared IE 7 off limits until further notice, so there is one place it won't get implemented. And all employees that want to access the LAN infrastructure are further forbidden to go to IE 7. Makes my decision easy on what to do about this, as I need my machines to be able to access that net.

    1. Re:That would be me by jesser · · Score: 1

      Are you talking about sites that FedEx customers use or just sites that FedEx employees use?

      --
      The shareholder is always right.
  62. Re:Firefox! by ibbie · · Score: 1

    Hopefully 3.0 will fix that, but for the meantime I'll stick with Safari.
    I'm using Firefox 3.0 Beta 2 right now, and thus far, it's way, way snappier than 2.0.x. Perhaps a better example of the improved performance and memory handling: this particular process has been up for 11 days, and is still quite responsive. :D
    --
    The wise follow a damned path, for to know is to be forsaken.
  63. Microsoft by KiwiCanuck · · Score: 1

    forced me to switch to firefox a "long" time ago. This news is just a reminded of why I use as little MS products as possible.

  64. IE7 sucks just as much as IE6 by acoustix · · Score: 2, Informative
    My company can't switch to IE7 yet because of web applications from 3rd party providers that don't work with IE7. Thanks again to Microsoft for totally fucking up the web.


    Nick

    --
    "A plan fiendishly clever in its intricacies"- Homer Simpson
    1. Re:IE7 sucks just as much as IE6 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Your suppliers can't keep up with a browser upgrade that was announced years in advance and it's Micro$oft's fault?

      I'd tell you to switch to Linux, but you're obviously too stupid to use that either.

    2. Re:IE7 sucks just as much as IE6 by theurge14 · · Score: 1

      It's your own company to blame for coding IE specific apps in the first place.

  65. Re:Firefox! by Atlantis-Rising · · Score: 1

    I keep seeing people make statements like this, but when I ask for steps to reproduce any problem, no one can seem to come up with any.


    1. Use the browser daily
    2. See terrible memory usage in your favorite memory-usage utility (Taskmanager, whatever).

    Currently, firefox is using 20% on average of the primary core of my Core Duo T2400, and approximately 600 MB of RAM. I have 25 tabs open: mostly messageboards, Slashdot, news sites, google, etc.

    This instance of Firefox has been open for about three days.

    Whether or not it's any worse than any other browser... so what? It's still annoying. Being the best of a bad lot isn't much of a commendation.

    --
    "It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
  66. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    When I say "steps to reproduce" I mean a specific, detailed set of steps to reliably reproduce the problem. Read How to Report Bugs Effectively and Please file good memory leak bugs for more information.

    If it's not worse than any other browser, why complain specifically about Firefox? Why not just say all browsers suck, without specifically mentioning Firefox?

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  67. Yet another bad play by MS. by webmaster404 · · Score: 1

    Yet another horrible decision by MS. One that will make us more open to attacks in the future. How? because when people get "updates" that radically change the software product they usually don't like them, therefore they will turn updates off as to not get another "IE7" making them more easy to attack. Next, by pushing this out, people will automatically think that any change to their browser is done by an update, already people think that 10 spyware items crowding up IE is perfectly normal and when you change them to a different browser they complain because they liked the weather feature of *insert adware/spyware here* and even after you tell them to use Firefox they end up still using IE and you have to do the exact same thing over again. Whenever people start to think that their computer should change software on them, we have a problem. Even though this will make web developers lives easier in the short term, look to much more spyware/adware/botnets in the future.

    --
    There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
  68. Includes "Windows Genuine Advantage validation"?! by mrand · · Score: 4, Interesting

    So the handy dandy window listing the 100's of updates you are missing to keep your WinXP machine up-to-date just popped up over the weekend. No clue why. After seeing this slashdot story, I scrolled down and saw "Windows Internet Exploer 7.0 for Windows XP". I read the details and the last line says:

    "This update includes Windows Genuine Advantage Validation."

    I guess so few people are "choosing" to install their spyware that they now they are bundling it with other stuff? This is AFTER Microsloth said they weren't going to do such a thing:

    http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/10/04/internet-explorer-7-update.aspx

          Marc

    --
    -- PGP keyID: 0x4C95994D
  69. Meh. Already irrelevant for me. by jonadab · · Score: 1

    I quit supporting IE6 once IE7 had been on Windows Updates (for XP) for a couple of weeks. That was, what, nearly a year ago now? Windows 98 users can download Firefox or Opera, or they can upgrade to an OS that the vendor still supports.

    People who specifically want to reminisce about the nineties can keep IE6, IE5, or NCSA Mosaic for all I care, that's their business. But if you want to browse the web, which changes over time, and see it the way it's intended to be, you kind of have to accept the occasional update.

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  70. Try Opera by oncehour · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Not only are most of Firefox's "unique" features copied from Opera, but Opera is also a remarkably fast and lightweight browser with most stuff built right in. It also happens to work in most variations of Linux including Sugar and it's used on the Nintendo Wii. Not to sound like a fanboy, but it's a far superior browser to anything else I've found. Other than the source, I'm not sure I see the big deal with Firefox. It's bloated and feature light to start with and as you add on more plugins the bloat just gets bigger. Is seeing the source really worth using an inferior product?

    1. Re:Try Opera by Nebu · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not only are most of Firefox's "unique" features copied from Opera, but Opera is also a remarkably fast and lightweight browser with most stuff built right in. It also happens to work in most variations of Linux including Sugar and it's used on the Nintendo Wii. Not to sound like a fanboy, but it's a far superior browser to anything else I've found. Other than the source, I'm not sure I see the big deal with Firefox.

      The reason I use Firefox instead of Opera is the same reason I use Windows instead of Linux: The former supports the plugins/applications that I want to run, while the latter doesn't. Specifically, the plugins I use in Firefox are:

      • AdBlock
      • BugMeNot
      • DownloadHelper
      • FireBug
      • FireFTP
      • FlashBlock
      • Forecastfox
      • Foxytunes
      • IeTab
      • NukeAnythingEnhanced
      • PDF Download
      • RetailMeNot
      • SnapLinks
      • SplitBrowser
      • TamperData
      • UserAgentSwitcher
      • VideoDownloader
      • WebDeveloper

      Now before you pick a random plugin, e.g. "DownloadHelper", and make a guess as to what it does based on its name, and then claim "You can download files in Opera too, and you don't even need a plugin to do it!", you really should find out what the plugin actually does.

      I'm happy with Firefox, and I don't have any incentive to switch to Opera. I'm open to switching, but I need a reason, as switching takes energy and effort. If you want me to switch, then you need to provide me with an incentive. So not only would Opera need to duplicate all of the functionality I have with my existing plugins, but it would need to offer something additional to make the switch worthwhile.

    2. Re:Try Opera by HeroreV · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Is seeing the source really worth using an inferior product? No. But others being able to see it, modify it, and keep it updated and working indefinitely, certainly is. That's why I use Gimp instead of Photoshop. (Although I don't think Firefox is an inferior product.)

      Opera could at any point suddenly decide it will not support Linux anymore, or it could start including advertisements again, or start charging money. It could be bought out by a larger company (e.g. Microsoft) and put to an end, never to see another update.

      Firefox does not have to worry about that. Even if Mozilla completely ruined Firefox, and even if Mozilla was completely destroyed, the code base could be forked and continued. The Opera code is under the absolute control of a single company. The Firefox code is controlled by nobody.
    3. Re:Try Opera by danpsmith · · Score: 1

      The reason I use Firefox instead of Opera is the same reason I use Windows instead of Linux: The former supports the plugins/applications that I want to run, while the latter doesn't. Specifically, the plugins I use in Firefox are:

      Everyone always makes excuses for using Windows. The only thing Linux doesn't have that Windows does is support for most games out of the box. Linux gaming leaves a lot to be desired. But for application support, most OSS software is heads above the other stuff even on Windows. I found myself switching to a bunch of OSS applications that were designed for Linux when running Windows, then I figured what the hell's the difference? Might as well just run Linux.

      Honestly, any application that runs on Windows but doesn't have an equivalent on Linux because it's a legacy, closed source, or commercial application is kind of the way of the past anyway. But I understand that people still need to run these things. But what I don't understand is why if you actually want to run Linux you don't use the following options:

      • Wine - Which supports a lot of Windows legacy applications
      • The OSS alternative - Which sometimes ends up being the same or better compared to the application you were using. There are notable examples otherwise.
      • Virtualization - In case everyone didn't know it, unless you need gaming/advanced 3d applications, you can simply run Windows in a virtualized Linux environment. (If you want to be legal, I believe there's a charge for this license, but I digress). Aside from the possible purchase of a Windows license, a virtualized Windows environment fills any gaps in application support, because you ARE running Windows, in Linux. I hated GIMP, so I installed Photoshop on my VM, did my business, brought it back into Linux, moved on with my life. There's even VirtualBox, which is close to as good as VMWare Workstation/Player in a lot of cases. I use it personally and I've had very few problems, and I work with VMs mainly for a living.

      I'm just so sick of hearing people give me this argument, when it's just not the case anymore. It's understandable if you want to game with your computer, or if all you do is 3d apps (which you'd probably be using a Mac anyway, because it seems like most of the art crowd goes that route), but if you are running Legacy apps and other business/regular applications, you can easily move to Linux today.

      People might say "if you are running Windows in a VM, why don't you just run Windows?" And my answer would be, because I don't typically find myself running Windows applications overall. Right now I have a Dell Linux machine and a machine with both Linux and Windows on dual boot for gaming. Most often I find myself never booting into Windows and never running anything in the VM. But it's nice to have the ability if something doesn't work any other way. Not only that, if the VM has a problem you can make snapshots, your Windows VM will be surrounded by Linux so it'll be in a sort of sandbox, and you can (if you get the right version of VirtualBox) attach USB devices directly to the VM so you can even have legacy support for hardware that doesn't support Windows (although I'd just recommend finding better hardware vendors). Then when you are done the little crap you have to do in Windows, you close the Window and you're back home again.

      --
      Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
    4. Re:Try Opera by Nebu · · Score: 1

      The reason I use Firefox instead of Opera is the same reason I use Windows instead of Linux: The former supports the plugins/applications that I want to run, while the latter doesn't.

      Everyone always makes excuses for using Windows. The only thing Linux doesn't have that Windows does is support for most games out of the box. Linux gaming leaves a lot to be desired. But for application support, most OSS software is heads above the other stuff even on Windows.

      When you phrase it as "makes excuses", you make it sound like people objectively should be using Linux, but they're weaseling out of this moral duty by coming up with reasons which deep down inside, they know is false. That's simply not the case, and if you're intent is to advocate Linux usage (and I'm not saying that IS your intent, I'm just giving advice conditional on this being your intent), then you'll never be convincing as long as that is your mindset.

      As for OSS software, they may be "better" when disregarding the effects of vendor lock-in and the network effect, but these two situations are precisely why many Windows users tend to stick with Windows. To elaborate a bit, note that vendor lock-in does not merely refer to undocumented file formats, but even the exact workflow and user interface that a given application presents to its users. Whether you like it or not, some people are "experts" at, specifically, Microsoft Office, and not office suite softwares in general.

      Honestly, any application that runs on Windows but doesn't have an equivalent on Linux because it's a legacy, closed source, or commercial application is kind of the way of the past anyway. But I understand that people still need to run these things. But what I don't understand is why if you actually want to run Linux you don't use the following options:

      But that's just it: I don't really want to run Linux anyway. I mean, I'm open to the idea. If Linux were exactly like Windows, except it were freely downloadable, I'd probably switch to Linux. That means if Linux exhibited the same security flaws and bugs as Windows, was closed source, and was programmed by a supposedly "evil" corporation, I'd still switch to it, because switching would be completely painless (due to the similarity to the two OSes), and I'd gain the benefit of not needing to pay for the OS anymore.

      For every change that exists between Linux and Windows, that's slightly one more headache me, as a switcher, would have to worry about, and that Linux would need to compensate for via being better in some way or another. Of course, some of these changes are more costly than others. Not using NTFS? Not that big a deal, as my partitioning tools seem to support EXT3 and other Linux-ish file systems as well. Not using the Windows style directory structure of "C:\Program Files" and a "My Documents" folder? Well, that's a bit more annoying, because it means I have to learn what the customs and standards are for a new OS, which differs from the customs and standards of the OS I'm used to. A bunch of text config files, instead of a single registry? That's about the same level of annoyance as the change in directory structure, so again Linux had better be offering at least some minor gains in exchange for this learning curve. Doesn't natively run any of vast library of my Windows program? That's a huge annoyance, and practically a deal breaker for me.

      • Wine - Which supports a lot of Windows legacy applications

      I'm going to preface my response to this with this notice. Recall that while I'm open to the idea of switching to Linux, I don't particularly want to do it. Using Linux is not in itself an end or a goal for me. If it'll make my life easier, great, I'll switch. But otherwise, I'm going to use whatever tools make my life easier, and if that means using Windows, so be it. A lot of OSS and Linu

  71. Or you could just turn it off by markdowling · · Score: 1

    Nobody is forcing you to use WSUS and WU/MU. We use something else, a product which doesn't automatically assign patches without asking.

  72. Wrong pretext by WaroDaBeast · · Score: 1

    Security concerns? At least M$ could have come up with a better pretext, say transparency support for png's.

    --
    "The body may heal, but the mind is not always so resilient." -- Deus Ex: Human Revolution
  73. Re:Meh. Already irrelevant for me. by jonadab · · Score: 1

    Oh, yeah, and speaking as a web developer, the IE8 update can't come too soon. The minute that's available on Windows Update for XP, my days of supporting IE7 will be numbered. IE6? That's already a memory, as far as I'm concerned. If you want to keep it on your corporate intranet for the support of some line-of-business application, that's fine, as long as your users either A) don't also need to browse the web or B) also have access to a modern browser.

    --
    Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
  74. Re:Firefox! by TheRaven64 · · Score: 1
    For comparison with the grandparent, I have Safari open at the moment. I have 33 tabs, including some containing multi-megabyte PDFs and some with AJAX magic. It is using 450MB of RAM, is responsive and is sitting at between 1-6% CPU on my 2.16GHz Core 2 Duo (peaking as I type, because it's spell-checking in the background). This particular instance of Safari has been running for three days. 600MB and 20% of CPU on a similar machine with fewer tabs open is just silly. (Just in case you were wondering, Safari has not been paged out due to memory pressure. I am currently using 17.58MB of swap in total and have 370.2MB of RAM free).

    I just launched FireFox on the same machine. It has one tab open showing a blank page. This takes 47MB of RAM (not too excessive) and 3% of my CPU. Apparently it takes FireFox as much CPU to be inactive showing a blank page as it takes Safari to show 33 tabs and have me typing in one of them. Oh, and I have no plugins loaded in either browser.

    --
    I am TheRaven on Soylent News
  75. MOD parent UP! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Here we go AGAIN!

  76. Just so everyone knows by bogie · · Score: 2, Informative

    WSUS or Windows Server Update Systems is an addon for Microsoft Windows networks. It allows you to control which updates clients get and instead of every client going to MS's servers, clients go to the WSUS server which can save a crapload of bandwidth. Regular home users are not affected.

    --
    If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
  77. Agreed by kellyb9 · · Score: 1

    Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to 'security concerns'." I find it tough not to agree with Microsoft on this one. IE6 is a huge security concern. (Please note the large amount of sarcasm I'm using before you reply.)
  78. Just in time by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And it does! microsoft couldnt have timed this worse.
    The browser they stood a chance against was FF2 (IMO it was a fairly sucky FF) not nearly as clear cut FF1.5 v IE6.
    They push this out feb
    Then FF3 (which is already better than FF2) will be realesed in Q2 and (unless some idiot bloats it up at the final beta) be magnificently better
    Then by Q3 all the extensions are up and working 100% (most are 90% atm) and its back to the FF1.5 vs IE6 difference.

    ATM i only use IE at uni for short browsing sessions (like quick checking timetables), IE7 wont even have the fast bootup time. Hopefully uni arnt going to run an unsuported browser so well probably get opera or someother light browser, any suggestions for a windows fast to load browser?

  79. Re:Tsk Tsk by nefus · · Score: 1

    Apparently a long time. I have several medical clients who cannot upgrade to IE7 because their multitude of web applications with different hospitals and remote offices simply have not been able to upgrade as of yet. Some of these web application shops have a small number of programmers and cannot keep up with demand.

  80. Re:Includes "Windows Genuine Advantage validation" by Peet42 · · Score: 1

    By that they mean that you have to pass the validation test in order to install it.

  81. So tempting by HangingChad · · Score: 1

    Put an ad link on the page with Upgrade IE with the MS logo...and have it point to Firefox.

    I've got money that says more than half the sheeple out there would think it was the new version of IE.

    --
    That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
  82. Oh god no.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Thanks MS for a !(lovely birthday present)

  83. Developers still use IE6 by MobyDisk · · Score: 4, Funny

    I work on an AJAX application, and Microsoft Visual Studio's debugger doesn't work with IE7. Most of our dev team still uses IE6 for this reason.

  84. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    I just launched FireFox on the same machine. It has one tab open showing a blank page. This takes 47MB of RAM (not too excessive) and 3% of my CPU. Apparently it takes FireFox as much CPU to be inactive showing a blank page as it takes Safari to show 33 tabs and have me typing in one of them. Oh, and I have no plugins loaded in either browser.
    If that problem is reproducible by others, then congratulations, you have discovered a bug in Firefox. Please discuss the problem in the Firefox Bugs forum and file a bug report if others agree that Firefox uses any more than 0% CPU displaying just a blank page. Some details you left out are which operating system you are using, and what version of Firefox you are testing. Remember to be as specific and detailed as you can when trying to report a bug. I cannot reproduce the problem, as I see 0% CPU usage even though I have this page open with the Flash ad running at the top of the page, and I have had Firefox open since yesterday. I'm using Firefox 3 beta 2 on Windows XP. (Actually, after previewing I get a different Flash ad that uses up to 8% CPU at certain points in the animation, but I don't see how that could be considered a problem with Firefox.)
    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  85. your company should have been smarter... by freaker_TuC · · Score: 1

    By programming more to the web standards, so their application would work in IE6, IE7, Firefox, Opera or any good client available. Web enhancements should not be the major navigation for a website; they should be enhancements.

    I am already telling years to some to keep a design basic and enhance it with css, java etc for the powerusers; but don't enhance it to an OS or specific browser. I guess now they'll understand why.

    Tiny differences in a webapplication cannot be a problem,
    but if they are going to program only towards one platform they get burned later (now)...

    --
    --- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
  86. Why not indeed! by Rabid+Cougar · · Score: 1

    I have verified that on every computer on our network that had IE7 installed, it doubled application load times. Browsing network shares took longer as well. When you have departments working 50-60 hour weeks, this kind of performance hit is totally unacceptable. I don't know if Microsoft has fixed this yet or not, but unless and until they do, we can't afford to have our productivity killed like that.

    How's that for a reason not to upgrade?

    P.S.--I completely understand that IE7 is more secure. If MS could fix the performance problem, I'd roll it out in a heartbeat.

    --
    This isn't the sig you're looking for...
  87. Can IE 7 be skinned to look like IE 6? by ciggieposeur · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Seriously, the interface is the main reason I can't stand IE 7 (well, that and my copy of Win2k running in Parallels). If I could have the IE 7 rendering with the IE 6 "look and feel" then I would update it.

    (Of course, I generally use Seamonkey on Linux and Firefox on Mac, so this is just for the times I find myself stuck on a Windows machine.)

  88. It's a Poke in the Eye to Oracle OAS. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    IE7 breaks Oracle Application Server 10iR1 and 10iR2 apps. We run a huge enterprise application called Sungard Banner (a college & university management system, kinda like SAP, PeopleSoft and Siebel is for big corps, Banner is the same but for large universities). Banner is written to use Oracle Application Server 10g as the middleware web host, using JINITIATOR inside the browser as the actual java client runtime engine, and while it appears to launch and run mostly OK with IE7, it is not officially supported and there are lots of applets that crash the browser (it just goes poof and vanishes off the screen with no error messages or event log entries) and leave stranded Oracle sessions and partial transactions waiting to be either committed or rolled back until the database engine declares the transactions dead after a timeout and then rolls them back automatically. It's a big hassle to the users. Therefore, IE7 is not considered a supported browser and there are no plans to make it supported, IE6 is officially supported, and works just fine. Netscape Navigator is also an officially supported browser, but nobody wants to go there... Netscape is considered dead-end browser. Firefox 2.x will work great, but is not officially supported, and requires manually copying a DLL file and making a registry entry to make it work, which is a great hassle to deploy on thousands of desktop PCs whereas the IE6 and Netscape browsers automatically install and configure the JINITIATOR client piece the very first time the users visits the intranet server, without any intervention.

  89. That says all about republicans I need to know by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Bury you head in the sand for years, then when the fan has been buried in shit, whine you need more time.

    This are internally developed apps, so why on earth did you develop all these years for the pile of shit that is IE when free and better browsers were availabe. Browsers that cost nothing to update and that follow standards so that you can switch between them at your choice, perhaps even use an NON-windows OS entirely.

    No, you enslaved yourselve to MS by your own free will or incomepetence and are now crying because MS finally has decided that they can't delay any longer because IE6 is hurting their business and forces people like you to upgrade.

    NONE of this wouldhave happened if you had a brain and just switched your company to a better browser years ago. Call it leadership, call it having a clue, you apparently have neither and now expect us to care.

    This is EXACTLY what people have been warning about all this time, use MS software and you are at their mercy.

    You made your bed, can you guess the next bit?

    This is exactly with the whole ODF/OOXML is about as well, can I take a wild guess as to the deployment of non-ms controlled standards in documents in your company?

    Oh and if someone else in IT forced you to do this, simply lay the bill for this adjustment to the enforced IE7 migration on their desk, that is standard office culture. Someone forces crap on you, you make the costs coming out of their budget.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  90. MS coders have it made, no longer update old prod by Locutus · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Microsoft is finally pulling the 'security' card to force users to new versions of their products. It must be nice to be a MSFT programmer when you don't have to work on one rev old products no matter how large the install base.

    Seriously, it blew me away in the mid 90s when the press+dog just let Microsoft refuse to provide USB support for the previous OS product and claimed that if you want USB support, you must purchase a new computer or fumble through an upgrade. IIRC, Windows 98 and NT v4 were such products though NT v4 was a larger update since they both moved the graphics subsystem into the kernel and added the win95 shell/desktop along with adding USB support.

    I would love to be a fly on the wall for all those meetings they have on how to get customers to upgrade. There's got to be some very funny and some very scary recommendations being thrown around those meetings. It's got to be tough for Microsoft, wanting customers to be lame enough to not look outside of Microsoft for software solutions yet at the same time, be willing to keep upgrading Microsoft products every couple of months and like it.

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  91. Re:Firefox! by Atlantis-Rising · · Score: 1

    Because I'm using firefox.

    Really, I don't think it's a 'bug' so much as it is shoddy coding and bloat in general. They've seen no desire or need to fix that to this point, so I don't see why filing endless bug reports telling them to clean up and slim down will help.

    --
    "It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
  92. IE7 for Win2k? by whoever57 · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Microsoft claims that the decision was made due to 'security concerns'."
    So does this meant that IE7 will be available on Win2k? Win2K is still in "extended support" mode until 2010. Extended support means that MS fixes security problems.
    --
    The real "Libtards" are the Libertarians!
  93. Linux? Cheaper said than done by tepples · · Score: 1

    1. Install your favourite flavour of GNU/Linux
    Cheaper said than done. Plenty of hardware in and connected to my current PC isn't certified on any distribution of GNU/Linux or *BSD; in fact, some components (such as a Microtek ScanMaker 4850 USB flatbed scanner) are known to be unsupported. For people who use a web site to sell something, this may be viable, but until web development becomes my profession, I cannot afford to rip out half of my PC and purchase new hardware just to test web sites in IE 6. Instead, I would need to use another method recommended by cbart387.

    Voila. Side-by-side installation of multiple Internet Explorer versions, for free. So do you have leads on some (small f) free hardware that I could use with a (big F) Free operating system?
    1. Re:Linux? Cheaper said than done by Domstersch · · Score: 1

      Cheaper said than done. Plenty of hardware in and connected to my current PC isn't certified on any distribution of GNU/Linux or *BSD; in fact, some components (such as a Microtek ScanMaker 4850 USB flatbed scanner) are known to be unsupported.

      Yes, because you clearly need a flatbed scanner to test website rendering. And because, obviously, hardware must be "certified" for it to work. Without certification, my hard drive refuses to spin; it has a grossly inflated sense of itself.

      For people who use a web site to sell something, this may be viable, but until web development becomes my profession, I cannot afford to rip out half of my PC and purchase new hardware just to test web sites in IE 6.

      Yes, because it's not like you can have more than one operating system installed at once. Of course you can't. And if you want to use Linux you actually have to physically rip parts out of your PC - because if Linux detects even one unsupported piece of hardware, it has a fit and decides to just give up on the whole thing. Uhuh. That makes a lot of sense.

      Instead, I would need to use another method recommended by cbart387.

      Which requires an operating system that you have to purchase for a non-trivial amount. Truly, cheaper said than done.

      Look, if you want to criticise this method for being too much of a hassle for anyone not running Linux already, fine. (Although it's still likely to be easier than using virtualization as suggested by the OP.) If you want to criticise it for (legally, but not actually) needing a valid Microsoft product key, albeit one for something (very, very cheap) like NT4 or W95, fine. But, instead, you chose to wrongly criticise one of the only advantages it has; it's nominally free, right down to the OS.

      --
      =w=
    2. Re:Linux? Cheaper said than done by tepples · · Score: 1

      Yes, because you clearly need a flatbed scanner to test website rendering. Well, I could reboot to Windows to scan each picture that will be used in the web site.

      And because, obviously, hardware must be "certified" for it to work. Well, I could buy a distribution's DVD at $5 each plus shipping, but I'll still have to replace hardware that the system fails to detect.

      Yes, because it's not like you can have more than one operating system installed at once. True, I could shorten my Windows partition by a few GB to install Ubuntu. But would Windows see shortening the partition containing %windir% as a trigger for reactivation?

      And if you want to use Linux you actually have to physically rip parts out of your PC - because if Linux detects even one unsupported piece of hardware, it has a fit Last time I tried to install Linux (some version of Mandriva?), X wouldn't run my Radeon card in anything but VESA mode, which I have found to run too slow for testing web sites that use non-trivial styling. True, it's likely but not guaranteed that video card compatibility has improved in X.

      Which requires an operating system that you have to purchase for a non-trivial amount. I purchased a copy of my PC's current operating system (Windows XP Professional) years ago. It costs me $0 now. And a lot of people never upgrade from the trialware-subsidized Windows OS that came preinstalled on their store-bought PC. Besides, even from the perspective of a GNU shop, does IE 7 run in WINE?

      Look, if you want to criticise this method for being too much of a hassle for anyone not running Linux already, fine. That's what I was trying to say. The first step of your method sort of implied that the whole procedure was intended for users of Windows or Macintel, not current users of GNU.
    3. Re:Linux? Cheaper said than done by Domstersch · · Score: 1

      But would Windows see shortening the partition containing %windir% as a trigger for reactivation?

      No, it wouldn't. WPA cares about the actual disk hardware and the volume serial number, neither of which should be affected by a partition resize.

      Besides, even from the perspective of a GNU shop, does IE 7 run in WINE?

      Yes, it does.

      --
      =w=
  94. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As I've said before, the problem is that we can never seem to recreate the problems users complain about. When we ask for a detailed set of steps to reproduce the problem, we almost always either get none or we cannot reproduce the problem. You can't fault developers for not fixing problems, when hardly anyone can seem to point out any. You need to report the bugs first, and then the developers will fix them.

    I do not seem to experience these problems you refer to. Others I talk to in the MozillaZine forums do not, either. When people come into the forums complaining about problems, we point them to the Knowledge Base, and when they follow the instructions there, they seem to quickly fix their problems.

    If you are unwilling or unable to report or fix problems in Firefox, you should probably switch to another browser. There's no sense putting up with problems, as there are many good browsers out there. And it's even more pointless to keep complaining about vague problems such as "shoddy coding and bloat in general" when you cannot point out even one specific problem, no matter how trivial.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  95. Re:Too Easy. How to tell M$ has updated you. by plague3106 · · Score: 1

    Ahh, the old troll is back.

    That's why sysadmins at big companies waste all sorts of time testing out these updates before rolling them out.

    I'd fire any sysadmin that blindly rolls out updates to Linux / Unix machines. Free software is not immune to such problems. I know, because I did run Linux. Updates broke other applications. Opps.

    Bit rot is inevitable and sooner or later their computers don't work at all.

    Bit rot is a myth. Of course I expect you to use myths to try and use as arguing points.

    Things are much better in the free software world, where things are tested and can easily be fixed before being pushed onto the public. Things are broken from time to time but those are exceptions that prove the rule.

    Its been a very, very long time since updates have broken a large number of users programs. Sorry, MS has improved, whether you like it or not. Updates breaking systems are also exceptions today, not the rule.

    Reasonable standards and excellent package management take the dread out of updates and software experimentation.

    Wow. Only a troll will tell you with a straight face that package managment on Lix is "excellent." I guess that's why there's no more RPM hell right?

    Knowing you can install and rip software out, even kernels, without much harm is one of the great advantages of free software.

    I'm not sure you've ever really used a Linux system, as this just isn't true. It also doesn't help those you claim to be considered about; IT departments (who aren't coders) and home users (certainly not coders). Oh well.

  96. Re:Firefox! by mdd4696 · · Score: 1

    Memory usage is terrible, I find the UI sluggish, render times are far from ideal and the whole thing just feels... not what it was. Is this the new audiophile meme? Have you done side-by-side comparisons to make sure that you're not just looking back with rose-tinted glasses?
  97. Re:MS coders have it made, no longer update old pr by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

    ...Internet Explorer 6 launched in 2001. It's around seven years old at this point.

    Seven years.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  98. Really Bad Idea.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I think if Microsoft actually does this, they will piss off even more people.. An example would be my dad, who has to use a program called MOP to remotely connect to work, and it only works if IE6 is installed. This is s program that is used by Shell Canada (I guess Shell Group now) and would require a lot of work to make it work with IE7. This is just a small example of an instance where I see Microsoft creating extra work for people. First with hardware compatibility and now with software? Even so, anyone computer savvy doesn't use IE7 except to do Windows Update, at least IMO (or use Windows at all, unless they have too).

  99. Software Patent by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

    And while we're on the subject, has anyone else noticed how terrible tabbed browsing is in Firefox? You can't even detach the tabs.

    Adobe holds a patent on the idea. They even used to brag about it.

    It would be great if you could get Adobe to give the Mozilla Foundation a license.

    --
    My God, it's Full of Source!
    OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
    1. Re:Software Patent by Hatta · · Score: 1

      An obvious patent is an invalid patent.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    2. Re:Software Patent by bill_mcgonigle · · Score: 1

      An obvious patent is an invalid patent.

      Not until you spend $2M to prosecute the case.

      --
      My God, it's Full of Source!
      OUTSIDE_IP=$(dig +short my.ip @outsideip.net)
  100. Re:Firefox! by STrinity · · Score: 1

    I keep seeing people make statements like this, but when I ask for steps to reproduce any problem, no one can seem to come up with any. Can you show me how I could see memory usage significantly worse than other browsers,
    Open Firefox in the morning. Don't close it all day. Browse entirely in tabs. Open Task Manager. Look at how much memory Firefox is using. Simple.
    --
    Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
  101. Re:Tsk Tsk by JustOK · · Score: 1

    And you can do brain surgery while standing in a helicopter during a hurricane, that doesn't mean that's how you should do the job. I've done several intranet sites where I was very happy to have IE as the required browser for all users. I don't think I would have been as successful if I had to worry about cross-browser compatibility at just about every turn, yet I was never completely comfortable doing it that way. The solutions were always vulnerable to the cancer of browser and system upgrades and changes. They had a limited life expectancy and were inherently unstable because of the changing nature of how the browsers adhere to the standards. As long as I or my teams had some sort of administration control of at least the server, and hopefully, any planned changes in company policy concerning the computers the workers used, it was still a manageable solution. As a stand-alone/leave-alone solution, meh, I just hoped the checks cleared before the company broke something.

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  102. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    When I do that, Firefox uses about 100 MB of memory, about the same as any other browser. Besides, you give nearly exactly David Baron's example of a useless bug report. In order for problems to be fixed, we must come up with specific problems, along with a detailed set of instructions for how others can reproduce them. Then we can file a bug report on each specific issue. Can you point out any specific problems in Firefox?

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  103. Re:Firefox! by jellomizer · · Score: 1

    Yea, I can see this now...
    Employee: We need to reprogram our intranet. It will cost about $150,000 to get it done.
    Boss: What is the business need for this.
    Employee: Active X should be banned across the board and considers security an issue and won't be maintainable even in the short term.
    Boss: How are they not maintainable? A request I had for a fix last week was just finished and it works like a charm. Only Employees have access to our intranet our Internet Explorer settings are different for Intranet vs Internet, and our firewall is well maintained and secured... So why do we need to pay $150,000 to upgrade...
    Employee: Well there is an issue of future development getting rid of Active X.
    Boss: Well at that time we should be ready for a New system anyways then we can think about it then.
    Employee: But I want to use firefox and not use IE out of the fact I don't want to say I use Microsoft products.
    Boss: That sounds like a personal problem not a business problem. We are not going to pay the wages of 2-3 Full time IT Employees to remake what already works and works well. Just because of some silly political view about software. We use what works. The point of software is to save the company money and get the job done, and insure policies are followed. Not to push some ideology. Unless you can prove this to me I will need to deny your request.

    --
    If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
  104. Re:MS coders have it made, no longer update old pr by Locutus · · Score: 1

    Wow, that is ancient for sure. So why are people not wanting to update the browser? Heck, Firefox has been around with better features for far longer than MS IE 7. Maybe, by forcing the browser into the OS to fool an anti-trust judge also removed the browser from the mindset of needing updating like regular applications?

    LoB

    --
    "Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
  105. HP Printers!!! by Ender77 · · Score: 2, Informative

    Prepare for HUGE problems with some older HP printers. When I updated to IE7, my HP software (HP director) for my all-in-one 1350 HP printer stopped working, it is a known issue with IE7 that HP has known about but has refused to release a real fix(updated installer). As long as you do not uninstall the software you can find fixes online, but if you uninstall it (like I did), you are screwed unless you do a rollback before IE7.

  106. Re:Firefox! by Atlantis-Rising · · Score: 1

    I have indeed pointed out a specific problem. The browser leaks memory like a sieve, and uses enormous quantities of processing power when doing apparently nothing. Not only is this a specific problem, it's very significant.

    I cannot give you any specific set of steps to reproduce this problem, because there are none. Any use of the browser will inevitably result in the problem arising; the only difference is how much time it takes for the problem to arise. It can take minutes, or hours, or days until the browser becomes unusable due to bloat.

    Tell me, how do I 'report' such an issue? How do I give you a specific set of steps, when no set of steps is necessary?

    With regard to other browsers, they're all bad. As I said, Firefox is the best of a bad lot, but that says nothing good about firefox, just that Opera and IE7 are even more crappy.

    --
    "It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
  107. Yes, it is for security reasons .. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    .. the security of Microsoft's revenue stream.

  108. Re:MS coders have it made, no longer update old pr by SuiteSisterMary · · Score: 1

    No, I'd say it's just plain lazyness.

    --
    Vintage computer games and RPG books available. Email me if you're interested.
  109. Re:Firefox! by STrinity · · Score: 1

    When I do that, Firefox uses about 100 MB of memory, about the same as any other browser.
    180-240 MB on my four year old Dell, which is significantly more than if I try it with Opera or Safari, and enough that my machine slows to a crawl. If I want to use iTunes and browse the web at the same time on that computer, I have to restart Firefox every hour or so.

    This isn't as much of a problem on my six month old laptop, but a web browser is not something that should require a state-of-the-art system to run.

    Besides, you give nearly exactly David Baron's example of a useless bug report. In order for problems to be fixed, we must come up with specific problems, along with a detailed set of instructions for how others can reproduce them. Then we can file a bug report on each specific issue. Can you point out any specific problems in Firefox?
    Yes, it uses too much memory when left running with multiple tabs opened. Numerous people have complained about this, and they get dismissed for not providing detailed technical information on the problem. This is not acceptable with a program that's above version 2.0.
    --
    Les Miserables Volume 1 now up with my reading of
  110. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    I have indeed pointed out a specific problem. The browser leaks memory like a sieve, and uses enormous quantities of processing power when doing apparently nothing. Not only is this a specific problem, it's very significant.

    No, that is not one specific problem. That is two entire classes of bugs, memory leaks and CPU performance problems. If you are having problems like those, they are indeed significant. On the other hand, if you cannot give any set of steps to reproduce any problem, I cannot file a bug report and the problem cannot be fixed.

    As I've said, I do not experience any "bloat" problem, and most others on the MozillaZine forums do not, either. Those that do have those problems report that following the suggestions in the Knowledge Base clears their problems up. Have you even tried the one suggestion of creating a new profile? If you continue to have problems, discuss them in the MozillaZine forums. There's no point in making vague complaints here, as they do not get us one step closer to making Firefox better or fixing a problem on your computer.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  111. Current IE Users by CompMD · · Score: 1

    On my site for January:

    Browser\Hits\Total traffic percentage

    MSIE 75533 63.2 %
    Msie 7.0 35980 30.1 %
    Msie 6.0 39247 32.8 %
    Msie 5.5 91 0 %
    Msie 5.17 14 0 %
    Msie 5.01 67 0 %
    Msie 5.00 32 0 %
    Msie 5.0 48 0 %
    Msie 4.01 4 0 %
    Msie 4.00 12 0 %

    IE6 is still winning.

  112. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    Well, I am not dismissing you. I am asking for more detailed information so that I can file a bug report so the problem can be fixed. Until you provide that information, I simply cannot do so. I'm not denying any problem or dismissing you in any way. I'm asking you politely for what the problem is. Could you tell me please? Specifically, I need a detailed set of instructions for how to reproduce the problem.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  113. Microsoft is still around? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Microsoft is still in business? I thought they went out of business a while ago - their market share has been dwindling, their products are buggy and insecure, they keep violating anti-trust laws, etc.

    I guess there is a group of diehard fanatics who keep using their stuff, keeping them alive.

  114. I don't trust this. by shoolz · · Score: 1

    I never trust a company with an animated favicon.ico

  115. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    Is this the new audiophile meme? Have you done side-by-side comparisons to make sure that you're not just looking back with rose-tinted glasses?
    From all the completely vague comments above, it looks so. If anyone was able to demonstrate a new version of Firefox using more resources or having worse performance than a previous version (or any new problem that did not exist in an earlier version), that would be a termed a "regression." If anyone can demonstrate a regression in Firefox, they should give the specific set of steps to reproduce the problem, and we can file a bug report on the issue.
    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  116. 11 years by dustmite · · Score: 1

    There's definitely some truth to that. Consider this: Later this year, Internet Explorer (alone, never mind Windows) will have basically been continuously exploitable for 11 years running ... now if most organisations still insist on sticking to it, I can only conclude that they're just not all that worried about the security risks --- maybe the problems and risks just don't bother people as much as they should. I think it's also reasonable to conclude that if Microsoft hasn't managed to make IE even reasonably secure (I know there's no such as 100% secure, but there are plenty of shades of grey) after 11 years, they are never going to, and even if they are, they certainly must have lost the benefit of the doubt by now.

  117. Re:Firefox! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    .... some time later...

    CEO: So we're down. What's the problem?
    Boss: This new cross-site scripting worm exploit infected our entire system and all of our servers, and possibly some of our customers.
    CEO: So, how'd this infect our system so quickly?
    Boss: Our intranet apps use Active X, and it exploited a security hole.
    CEO: So MS is at fault? Have you contacted them about a fix?
    Boss: umm, well, they don't have a fix....
    CEO: What? Well tell them to find one!
    Boss: ... <squirms> well, umm, their fix is to disable Active X....
    CEO: Really?!? And how long has that been known?
    Boss: About 5 years.....
    CEO: And why haven't we fixed this?
    Boss: <seriously sweating and squirming now>well, it would have cost $150K to upgrade the system...
    CEO: what? Only $150K!?!?!?! We're losing millions an hour right now!!!! How long till you have it fixed?
    Boss: well, it'll be about 3 days before the external systems are all back up and we'll lose about 4 days of historical data....

    <Just picture the CEO's face at about this point....>

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  118. Another reason I switched to Mac by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I am not trying to troll or anything. Seriously though, I am so feking happy I switched to a Mac 2 years ago. I was offered a job recently that would require me to switch back to Windows. Even though its more money, I am going to turn it down. I love the fact that when I get to work, I deal with work issues ... rather then fixing or maintaining my own machine. Mac has spoiled me, I can't use another Windows machine again. Hell, I can't use another Linux desktop again. (Keep in mind, I still sware by using Linux as a server)

    1. Re:Another reason I switched to Mac by neminem · · Score: 1

      Granted, I've only been in the workforce for a couple days, but I'm at a very Windows-centric place, and I certainly haven't been dealing with maintaining my machine instead of working... of course, I *have* learned all about how MMC isn't very fun to code in, but that's a different story.

      On the other hand, I once got paid for a full 3 weeks one summer during college just trying to get openLDAP to compile and run properly on a school Red Hat server. That was no fun. I'm not going to deny, linux is often much better than Windows for server-related activities, but it's also often a bitch and a half to configure, compared to Windows-equivalents (when they exist, of course, which is by no means a certainty).

  119. Re:Tsk Tsk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    IE7 was released 18th October 2006. RC1 was 24th August, and the first pre-build was January 31st. You've had almost two years to catch up with the latest version, it's not like they've suddenly sprung the changes!

    Tell that to my CEO/CIO when they like to go 3-5 years between upgrades. And you have to wait a year for your ERP to use it. It is impossible to change this fast.

    Got money, no problem.

    Otherwise, go FF and Linux. Much more stable, secure, open, standard ...

  120. To ALL Systems?? by PPH · · Score: 1
    Even systems that are required, by various federal regulations (FAA, FDA, etc>) to maintain strict software version control?

    Boeing is going to be very upset what the cal/cert department determines that all their automated shop floor equipment is out of compliance and shuts down production.

    --
    Have gnu, will travel.
  121. Re:Good in some ways... Use Flock, or.. by davidsyes · · Score: 1

    "YOOZ Netscape... YOOZ Netscape... YOOZ Netscape... YOOZ Netscape..."
    "YOOZ Op-ra... YOOZ Op-ra... YOOZ Op-ra"
    "YOOZ FireFox... YOOZ FireFox... YOOZ FireFox..."
    "YOOZ Konq-RER... YOOZ Konq-RER... YOOZ Konq-RER..."

    --
    Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
  122. In four years by symbolset · · Score: 1

    Because most vertical web apps are so poorly written that they rely on the bugs and problems in IE6 to function. Almost every single app I had to manage at my last job was IE6 specific and written by a bunch of blathering idiots, I regularly went into the asp code to fix something they said cant be fixed. Most companies buy the low grade dog food webapp suites as they have no other choice and then they are stuck having to support it's quirks until that company actually hires competent programmers or someone else comes along and makes something different.

    And in four years when the upgrades to these webapps rely on the bugs and problems in IE7 to function we'll have this discussion again. At that time try not to treat them like idiots. They're not stupid. They're just crazy.

    Crazy = doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result each time.

    --
    Help stamp out iliturcy.
  123. Re:Firefox! by sgt+scrub · · Score: 1

    It sounds like your getting the same results as Firefox on Vista. I've had complaints from users with Vista "i can't use Firefox. it is unbearably slow on my new laptop". All of the complaints come from users that had been given new laptops with Vista on it. The users are also technological morons but...

    --
    Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
  124. IE 7 and Intuit by neoseity · · Score: 1

    I know Lacerte 2004 and older will not work with IE 7.

    Also Quickbooks 2005 and prior also will not work with IE 7.
    See also:
    http://smalltechnotes.blogspot.com/2006/10/quickbooks-and-internet-explorer-7.html

  125. Re:Firefox! by DianeOfTheMoon · · Score: 1

    A large part of the problem here is that this isn't a simple 1->2->3 progression. There are days when I can use firefox all day and have it be snappy and only use about 100MB active with about 500MB in virtual memory.

    There are other days, however, when Firefox uses 700MB of active memory and nearly 2.5GB of virtual space. Now, this is the result of 2-5 days worth of browsing. How in your right mind do you expect me to keep track of every click that I made over 5 days so that you can file a bug report? Do you have a keytrapper and site visitation storage engine that keeps up every image, flash video and html of the site? After all, it could be any of that. I don't mind trying to help out, and I'm sure a large portion of the FF community doesn't either, but we've gone beyond what the end users can do to help you with this issue, percieved or real, and it's now in your hands to be the developer and QA this to find out what is going on.

    --
    Problems are like gifts, it's better to give than to receive
  126. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    How in your right mind do you expect me to keep track of every click that I made over 5 days so that you can file a bug report?
    I do not. But unless you can demonstrate how to reproduce a specific problem, all the complaining in the world will not fix the problem. You sit back tight and let someone else find the problem and report it. Until that time, do not add to the noise that is possibly drowning out an important signal. That is the way you can help. Thanks.
    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  127. is it fixed? by tcc3 · · Score: 1

    I recently reverted back to IE6 on my Media Center. I spent hours making my mp3 collection platform agnostic by embedding the album art into the file. Much to my horror MCE stopped showing the album art. Turns out for some crazy reason IE7 affects how album art is displayed - it shows as black if the eart is embedded. Doesn't seem to affect Media Player 11 or Vista.

  128. Why so slow on dev? by TibbonZero · · Score: 1

    Why the hell didn't you upgrade your development systems in 2006? Microsoft released the first develop versions of IE7 in Jan 2006, and released the "release" version in Oct 2006. We are nearly 2 years into the public existence of IE7. Integrating new technology, even if it's not "certified" in such a slow way is unacceptable. Don't say that it's for "security" as IE6 looks like swiss cheese. If you were truly concerned about security, you'd likely not run IE of any version let alone IE6.

    Just seems silly to me.

    --
    Tibbon
    tibbon.com
    1. Re:Why so slow on dev? by afidel · · Score: 1

      Uh, this isn't an inhouse system it's a multimillion dollar COTS financial package with minimal customizations. If the vendor had supported IE7 when we started implementation in August 2006 then we would have had support but they didn't and with a project big enough that even in a fast moving environment it takes 5 months to implement there was no way we were switching code midstream. After a 5 month implementation we had a few months of shakeout where we worked out the wrinkles in the system. Then we spent most of 2007 building reporting and other systems around the core financials system (including a paperless accounts payable workflow process). Now we are going through our first year end process. With a system that large and with that many moving parts you don't upgrade on a whim. Like I said in a previous post our most likely time to upgrade code will be when we reach the end of our 3 year hardware lifecycle and we have a chance to run parallel systems. Heck our admin who specializes in this package came from a previous employer that had a HEAVILY customized previous version version of this system that was running on 7 year old base code, they were looking at a 2+ year project to upgrade to the newest version. If you haven't worked with Peoplesoft, SAP, JDE, etc then I guess you just can't understand how large and how absolutely business critical these systems are, you don't change things for the sake of change.

      --
      There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
  129. Re:Firefox! by Kalriath · · Score: 1

    Load of bullshit. Individual ActiveX controls can have security issues. ActiveX in general can not. And considering the tools are available (Group Policy) to block all controls except whitelisted ones, your situation cannot happen with IT administrators who know what they're doing. Essentially, the first part of your "scenario" is completely made up and can't happen.

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  130. Re:Firefox! by Kalriath · · Score: 1

    So you're looking forward to Firefox violating the HTML spec by introducing an element which is not within the DTD? Are you insane? As a web developer, I hope Firefox drops this mad "video" element idea, since it's only meant to exist in HTML5, which no browser implements (since it's still not even a draft spec).

    So you lambast Microsoft for violating the specs, and then praise Mozilla for doing the same? Double standard much? This'll go the way of Netscape - we all remember "" don't we?

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  131. Re:Firefox! by Kalriath · · Score: 1

    So you lambast Microsoft for violating the specs, and then praise Mozilla for doing the same? Double standard much? This'll go the way of Netscape - we all remember "<blink>" don't we? This is what that's meant to read like. Apparently Slash eats unsupported HTML rather than rendering it as text.

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  132. funny story by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, I am a gold microsoft partner trying to renew my account on their partner site. However it keeps disallowing me to select a certain checkbox that I need to finish my renewal. Of course firefox is not supported so I give it a try with an old pc that still has i.e 6 on it that I use for testing. Surprise surprise, it works fine. If M$ can't even get all of their sites i.e. 7 compliant how do they expect us to?

  133. Re:Firefox! by Kalriath · · Score: 1

    Specific problem: Firefox chews ungodly amounts of memory doing nothing.
    Steps to reproduce: Use Firefox. Internet Explorer eats 40MB of RAM to display 8 tabs, Firefox uses 120MB. Three times Internet Explorer's.

    Seriously, it cannot get more detailed than that. From what I've seen, all you're doing is answering every person who says what the problem is with "that's a useless bug report" just so you can avoid admitting Firefox has an issue. It does, just some of us don't really care that much and don't bother jumping through hoops to get such responses as "Mozilla is not an HTML user agent" (and Firefox by extension, but that bug is ancient).

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  134. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    All I can say is that any time I try doing the same thing in Firefox and another browser, Firefox really does use less memory than the other browser. I cannot prove to you that I personally do not see a problem, and you obviously don't believe me. On the other hand, I do believe you see a problem. My suggestion is to discuss the problem in the MozillaZine forums so you can get a resolution. Perhaps you can point out a specific problem in Firefox or fix a problem that is happening on your computer. Surely if there's an obvious problem, you'll find many people who can see the same problem you do, and it will be trivial to reproduce. Then, you can report the bug and get it fixed. It'll be as simple as that if Firefox really does use three times IE's memory opening any particular eight tabs. Why not go there and point out the problem already?

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  135. Re:Tsk Tsk by GrBear · · Score: 1

    How long do you need? IE7 was released in August 2005 so Web developers could start testing and fixing their apps well ahead of the October 2006 release.


    I don't know, you'd have to ask Microsoft.. I've been running around the office uninstalling IE7 because it breaks ALL our MS Access 2000 databases (as in, they won't load when you click on the MDB files, they silently fail). Apparently it has to do with security settings and having to lower them because the extra crap rolled into IE7 doesn't allow our "unsigned" database applications to run unchallenged. So the choice is a) lower the security requirements in the Internet Settings control panel or b) ungrade to a newer version of MS Office.

    The way I see it, it's a forced upgrade to generate more money and has nothing to do with IE6 or previous being this big security risk monster they are making it out to be.
  136. Re:MS coders have it made, no longer update old pr by Eskarel · · Score: 1
    IE6 is crap, it's been crap for a long time. It's almost a decade old and from a time when no one worried about web security much. When CSS was barely used, and things like AJAX didn't even exist yet. Fixing it would involve rewriting the rendering engine and basically creating, guess what, IE 7. You can whinge about Genuine Advantage all you want, and you've got a case, you can whinge about how your core app requires IE6 crap in order to work, but the only way we're ever going to get rid of IE6 bug fixes is to get rid of IE 6 and that means forcing every schlub who is being a recalcitrant tool for no good reason to upgrade.

    IE6 should have died years ago, if it had we wouldn't be in the mess we're in(though we might also not have firefox), and now getting rid of it is going to be painful, but it needs to be done and the web isn't going to get better until it's gone.

  137. this is from my work... and this was back then... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    10/31/06 UPDATE: HIGH PRIORITY INTERNET EXPLORER 7 WARNING!
    If you are a current or future Business Tools for Schools (BTS) user, DO NOT download and install the upgrade to Internet Explorer Version 7.

    It has been determined that this upgrade is not currently compatible with the BTS software that has been in use since July 2006.

    This upgrade may be sent through the normal Windows Update process. If you have your computer set to automatically download recommended updates and install them you will need to make the following changes to your Windows Update.

    Instructions for how to change your setting for Windows XP users are provided here. Please note: IE7 can not be installed on any Windows version before Windows XP.

    If you have already upgraded to IE7, instructions on how to unistall IE7 and reinstall IE6 are found here.

  138. MLK Timing by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Someone in MSFT management must have a sick sense of humor because they had to know that, even if slightly prematurely, millions of developers around the world are reacting to the very thought of a post-IE6 world with loud shouts of "Free at last... free at last... thank God almighty, free at last!"

  139. Re:Firefox! by Comsn · · Score: 1

    How do I give you a specific set of steps, when no set of steps is necessary?


    step1: open firefox
    step2: go to www.websitethatcausesproblem
    step3: look at cpu/memory spike

    thats how you report the steps. is it difficult for you?
  140. Why is anyone surprised by this? by Whuffo · · Score: 1
    Same old story; MS forces an upgrade. Nothing to see here, move along...

    If this does bother you, consider upgrading your head to Linux or even Firefox. It's much easier than raving about the same old stuff...

  141. Re:Firefox! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    ...your situation cannot happen with IT administrators who know what they're doing.... I think you just made my argument for me. Thanks.

    Oh, and ActiveX is, in general, a massive sucking security hole.
    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.
  142. Re:Firefox! by Atlantis-Rising · · Score: 1

    I have just finished pointing out that all sites take memory. It's a gradual process whereby firefox eats more and more resources until it becomes unusable and has to be killed. There's obviously a leak somewhere, but I freely admit I am no programmer and wouldn't know where to begin looking for one.

    --
    "It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance
  143. The virtues of knowing what you are talking about by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've gotten zero viruses, ever, from Active X.

    The only thing I've EVER gotten a virus from in the past ten years is Java, because some stupid app my brother needed had to use Sun's crappy JRE security hole package. And the amazing thing is, since Java is so easy to exploit, the majority of Java viruses are network-aware.

    Active X is just fine. If there's a problem, it may lie between the chair and the keyboard.

  144. Re:Firefox! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    you fuckers need to stop shunning ownership of the problem and create an easy way for end users to report complex problems, say an option in the help menu "the browser is using all my fuxking cpu and ram, report this to the devs" which sends the steps the user took to get to the current state

  145. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    How would one go about seeing this problem? What should I do so I can finally see it? If I can see it, I can get someone to look into it and fix it. If I can't see a problem, then there's nothing I can do.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  146. Re:Firefox! by bunratty · · Score: 1

    I don't have to do anything. I'm a fellow Firefox user and I'm trying to help you with your problem by getting a bug fixed in Firefox or figuring out what's wrong on your computer. If you're going to just be argumentative with me, I'll just stop trying to help.

    --
    What a fool believes, he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.
  147. Re:Firefox! by QuantumG · · Score: 1

    You're fucking kidding me right? 25 tabs open.. using 600MB of ram.. that's 24MB per page.. exactly how can you consider that a bad thing? I think you're one of the few people who have actually managed to understate the amount of memory Firefox uses (being that most no-one knows how to measure memory usage).

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  148. If you do use WSUS.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You will need a SQL CAL and Windows Server 2003 CAL for each PC getting updates. That could equal a pile of cash even for small companies. If they do not read the fine print then the BSA has something to help you license correctly... :-)

    WSUS and Crack are not free, both come a a cost after the initial use.

  149. Re:Firefox! by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

    Don't be silly. Firefox 3 (or, rather, Gecko 1.9) is basically the available reference implementation for most of the HTML 5 proposals, and Opera 9.5 is the independent implementation of such. They're what will be dragging everyone else kicking and screaming to the party.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  150. Don't want IE7 for OE font problem by danjonwig · · Score: 1

    Maybe someone with more geek cred' than I has solved this, but the only reason I haven't upgraded to IE7 is that, when I do, *Outlook Express* stops working correctly: when I hold down CTRL and scroll the mouse wheel, it no longer changes the font size. I do this fairly often in the day, because of my bad eyes and wanting to minimize screen space. Anyone know how to fix this behaviour? (sorry, I know this isn't a tech support site :(

  151. Ass-backwards by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

    But this is ass-backwards. You don't fix things to make them work with bugs. You fix the bugs.

    1. Re:Ass-backwards by nevali · · Score: 1

      I don't know if you're in some position the vast majority of web developers aren't, but most of us don't have the ability to fix Microsoft's bugs for them.

    2. Re:Ass-backwards by CarpetShark · · Score: 1

      Which is exactly my point. Problems with website renderers can't be fixed in the website -- only in the renderer. So it's stupid to try.

  152. Nearly Ironic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I've actually been doing an eval of WSUS 3 for the past week or so. Not anymore, GOODBYE. This just reminded me that I have NO interest in having to manually workaround Microsoft's selectively forced updates, among other things.

  153. Re:Firefox! by Kalriath · · Score: 1

    I did no such thing, and this will be my final response, as you're clearly one of those people who refuses to let the truth get in the way of a good flame. There's another user around here like that: Twitter.

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  154. Re:Firefox! by Kalriath · · Score: 1

    So I assume Wikipedia will be removing their DTD to comply with the HTML5 standard (and causing all versions of IE, Firefox, Opera, Safari, and others to drop into Quirks mode, screwing it up) or adding that weird "empty" DTD (and causing all versions of Firefox to drop into quirks mode, and all versions of Firefox, Opera, and Safari to jump into HTML4 standards compliant mode, also screwing it up)? This of course assumes that this change occurs before the HTML5 compliant Opera is released, and IE8 isn't HTML5 compliant.

    I also don't see them dragging Microsoft, Apple, Opera or Google kicking and screaming at all (nice hyperbole though) since they're all on the group that's WRITING the spec.

    --
    For a site about things like basic rights, Slashdot users sure do like to censor "dissent".
  155. Re:Firefox! by David+Gerard · · Score: 1

    We'll be doing whatever reaches the readership effectively (IE brokenness and all). However, Firefox 3 being released will promptly mean a huge chunk of the readership will have something that supports the VIDEO tag, and a top 10 site with a bundle of Theora and Vorbis content will we hope be quite the use case.

    --
    http://rocknerd.co.uk
  156. Re:Firefox! by Gr8Apes · · Score: 1

    Well, final it is then. That's fine and this will be short as well.

    1) Who's Twitter? I don't care, really but that's a seriously disingenious way to attempt to libel by association - a good tactic when you're out of facts. Does that sound like someone you know?

    2) The Active X framework sucks. Arguing otherwise with no facts is precisely what you're accussing me of. Being how pretty much everyone, including MS, have acknowledge that ActiveX is insecure, I believe the ball's in your court on this one. This does not mean that a specific individual ActiveX control is dangerous/insecure. That's like saying an individual driver is a bad driver because some drivers are bad drivers. But it is comparing the ActiveX framework to our road system in general, which is dangerous, otherwise 40+K people a year wouldn't die on them in the US alone. ActiveX is the equivalent of giving everyone 20 year old ill-maintained yugos with no seatbelts and forcing them to drive 100mph in the rain at night.

    But, don't let the facts get in the way of your stated opinion, they haven't yet.

    --
    The cesspool just got a check and balance.