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IE8 Released As Critical Update For XP
Binestar was one of several readers writing in to note that Microsoft is listing IE8 as a critical update to Windows XP. CNet reported a couple of weeks back that Microsoft would be rolling our IE8 to users in a gradual fashion, and requiring an opt-in before installing it. Opinion has been split as to whether IE8 is worth installing or not. Binestar notes delicately, "For those not interested in upgrading to IE8 at this time, the MSDN released information back in January on how to keep IE8 off your machine."
shouldn't they patch the version XP shipped with instead?
They're using their grammar skills there.
I didn't even know that IE8 would be available for XP. I wonder how well it renders MathML.
I use Firefox as my default browser. Should I care what version of IE is on my (XP) system?
"For those not interested in upgrading to IE8 at this time, the MSDN released information back in January on how to keep IE8 off your machine."
Install Linux
I am a free slashdotter. I will not be modded, blogged, DRM'd, patented, podcasted or RFID'd. My life is my own.
...the better!
So this means that more of the browser market will be standards compliant?
What exactly? I don't know. I am a bit confused though.
So MSIE8 is more standards compliant in a significant way. Is this still the case? Is the "default" mode standards mode or compatible mode? I ask this because I want to understand what Microsoft's expectations are going to be.
If the default mode will be standards mode, then I have to say that this is a courageous move on Microsoft's part.
If the compatible mode will be default, then I still have to applaud Microsoft for taking some initiative on this. Even if it doesn't break everything or anything, it's still a gutsy move and is clearly a step in moving in the direction of standards compliance. While this move might potentially slow the growth in use of alternative browsers, Microsoft will potentially lose their edge when it comes to maintaining their lock-in status in IT. And potentially losing some of that edge is a really gutsy move.
Microsoft can lose me and I am sure quite a few others here as Microsoft-haters if they were to just straighten up and fly right. I am hopeful that they will. I once loved Microsoft and all they did when it was still an exciting time... I know... but I speak the truth.
Whenever I encounter a computer running ie6, I want to take a sledgehammer to the computer.
Fuck Beta
I was hoping they would fix the issue where WMP11 Media Sharing stops working after installing IE8 on Vista before rolling it out like this.
I've reported it myself, and so have many others. I guess they will wait until the masses have it via automatic updates and they get a significant number of complaints the next day before they do anything about it.
I.O.U One Sig.
It's good news because it will help kill IE6, which has serious CSS rendering problems and doesn't support PNG24 graphics.
As of today, IE6 still has significant market penetration. My guess is that corporate users keep that number high.
Step into a huge movement. Don't Tread In Me.
s/trollmagnet/cocksocket/
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
The same is true for Windows 2003 and Server 2008. But isn't it still in beta? It does not have a real uninstaller as some people at work have found and it breaks tons of web apps.
I'm currently unemployed and don't have to deal with the fallout from this!
I'm the same. I use Opera and Firefox for almost all sites and use IE6 only for those sites that do not work with Opera or FF.
MultipleIE allows standalone installs of MSIE3-6 by utilising DLLHELL technologies
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE
You can choose which versions of IE it installs (I only test in IE6). Perhaps IE7 will be included in the pack in the near future.
Does this include the XP version shipped on netbooks? I have enough space problems without worrying about how much IE8 will consume - especially since I will never actively use it. ...A Firefox using Anonymous Coward
Normally I'm opposed to Microsoft pushing out feature updates as compulsory (versus security fixes and bug patches), however, in this particular case I'd have to say this is a good move. The benefits are many and the negatives few.
IE might have a bad reputation, and not at all unfairly much of the time, but no matter how much you hate IE, IE8 brings a lot to the table; even if what it brings is long overdue. Improved security, much better standards support, and even some genuine innovative features.
The debate can rage on about the ethics and legality of bundling the browser with and integrating it into the OS, but the reality is this is the case, and the security benefits alone make the upgrade sensible in my view.
However, the upgrade should be done in the background and in no way alter any preferences. Provided no configuration settings the user has set are changed (in particular, default browser), then the background benefits are gained, and the user can check out IE8 at their leisure if they wish, or ignore it completely.
Oh, and finally, this helps to kill off IE6, which really does need to FOAD.
IE8 has the ability to render using IE7's engine (either with a meta tag in the site, or via the "Comaptibility Mode" button, or - with greater granularity - through the development tools). For testing stuff older than 7, I really can't say. Incidentally, for web dev, the develpment tools are pretty sweet. A couple things in there Firebug could learn from.
There's no place I could be, since I've found Serenity...
Microsoft's definition of "critical" is not "critical for YOU" it's "critical for THEM". WGA? Now IE8? One to supposedly give you some advantage and some peace of mind for the "millions of users who have been begging Microsoft to tell them they are not theives" and one to hopefully get some market share before more users switch to better browsers. Both ARE critical.....to Microsoft, as far as the user is concerned, their job is to STFU and open their wallets when required. Remember, Microsoft own the OS, you only license it under their conditions.
My thoughts too, initially. But the people that use automatic updates will already have been forced to install IE7. Whether or not IE8 is forced will do very little about IE6.
The 20-30% of computers that still use IE6 either have updates turned off, or they are in some company that won't switch to IE7 yet, because of outdated intranet software, or just an incompetent IT staff.
Perhaps a bit OT, but it seems apropos to me.
I have no problem upgrading to IE8, as I use FireFox as my primary browser, but I do use it to test web applications and design. Even as a critical update, IE8 won't take out the huge number using IE7 and IE6 for some time; and there are still a small number using IE5.5 (horror of horrors). Since IE is tied into the OS, it's my understanding that you can only have one version installed at a time.
Is there some way to use older versions of IE on the same PC? I've seen an "IE Pack" of sorts, but it got a lot of bad reviews and haven't tried.
Microsoft has freely downloadable VMs on their site, even if you dont use virtual pc (which you also can get free) which most non windows users dont (and most windows users dont either due to speed reasons) you can crossconvert those images by third party tools!
The VM images expire usually at a certain date but Microsoft then adds a new one on their site!
This is probably currently the cleanest way to test it.
You might laugh, but there are even users of IE 5.5 we had recently such a case where a customer complained loudly that something did not work on his browser (which turned out to be IE 5.5)
Speaking of making others life hard, my personal preference would be to violently enforce an update towards Firefox or Chrome onto those people. With violently I mean by using all physical means necessary!
Does anyone know if this is still in effect?
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2009/02/19/ie8-standards-mode-opt-in/
http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/12/03/compatibility-view-improvements-to-come-in-ie8.aspx
Does this seem like a way for Microsoft to require people to mark their pages as "standards compliant" in a Microsoft-specified syntax?
It seems like IE8 users would click the compatibility mode button not because they think the site should render better in IE7, but because it doesn't look right. Won't this populate Microsoft's "render as IE7" list with sites that are just poorly rendered in IE8? Surely this can't be what's going on. It'd be a train wreck in progress. Any good, standards-compliant pages IE8 can't render very well get rendered even more poorly unless you put MS markup in them?
Can't be.
My guess is that MS are engaged in some kind of gambit to pollute the existing DOCTYPE standard somehow, by requiring browser-specifying markup, but it's not clear to me exactly how. Well, IE8 is here. We'll see what happens.
It is not critical.
It is not an OS update. It claims to be an integral part of the OS, but as the result of lawsuits, as well as the many available "stand alone" versions of previous "integral parts of the operating system", it has been proven that IE was written to make it appear to be so but in fact was not.
It's release via automatic update is not, as they claim, more convenient. It is more convenient to initiate your own download when you choose to that to have to start to download this fairly "required" software when abd because you're told to, then cancel or delay that download.
That process is the normal one for refusing an automatic update download. It is not, as the headline states (with an exclamation mark no less) an IE8 Blocker Toolkit.
Simply put, Microsoft is lying about these things. If they're lying about these, what else are they lying about? Anything?
Well, for one, they're faking the popularity of related searches/links on IEBlog. The "Tags" box lists related items with different sizes of fonts. Elsewhere these are usually generated by user searches, the larger the font, the more often requested. However, the links from these are hard coded to constant items which frequently have nothing to do with IE. Some of them contain a single line blurb such as a statement from an IE development team member saying they're going to tell you something, but haven't posted that promised nugget in months since their first statement.
Let's say I'm your car's mechanic. I've been been charging you for your car's muffler bearing. I keep telling you it's a necessary part of the motor, even though there are plenty of people driving around with no muffler bearing, but rather an entirely different and optional piece of equipment, like a Kentucky Gofaster (that's a raccoon tail on the radio antenna) that does the same thing better. But I'm also insisting that it's my muffler bearing, not yours, and you're only paying for my permission for you to use it. Now I tell you that for your convenience I'm going to put your car up on the rack, start to replace your muffler bearing with a new, chrome plated muffler bearing, which you can then choose not to have installed. What would you do? Nod your head and say "uuuuuuuh, yep, uh huh, put her on up there bub", or find a mechanic who doesn't lie to you and try to sell you a "required" piece of equipment that's not required?
But wait! There's more! With this new chrome plated muffler bearing you will only be able to have certain things done at my garage, unlike your old muffler bearing which allowed you to have anything done at my garage. Last I checked, there were parts of msn.com that wouldn't work with IE8.
NOW how much would you pay? Call in the next 15 minutes and we won't charge you anything, except you'll have to have our Genuine Advantage mechanic take a look at it monthly to make sure you haven't fiddled with it to make it look like you own it rather than it still being our property installed on your car. And if you don't call in the next 15 minutes, we'll call you and make the same offer again, because it's for your own good. We promise.
"I may be synthetic, but I'm not stupid." -- Bishop 341-B
If you're a home user, figure it out yourself.
If you're on a corporate LAN, you should be using WSUS to control updates yourself anyway. its a free download with minimal updates, all you need is a domain controller or copy of regedit to push your workstations to the WSUS server's IP instead of microsoft directly.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Well, you still use the IE engine with IETab... So if you've got IE7 installed, it will render like IE7.
I have an XP virtual machine that is pre-WGA, and I see no way to update it normally without installing WGA... that includes DL'ing IE8.
Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the Law
My company falls in the "outdated intranet software" category. Some software that is critical for us to run won't work with IE7 or IE8. So our users are stuck with IE6. Since they're using IE6, I'm forced to remain on IE6 to test out our Intranet (different intranet site, this one I designed with IE6/7/8 & FF compatibility) on IE6. However, my problem is that I still need to test out our public website on IE7 and IE8 (which outside users use). Thank goodness for http://www.xenocode.com/browsers/ . It lets me run IE7 and IE8 while still having IE6 on my computer.
My sci-fi novel, Ghost Thief, is now available from Amazon.com.
While all the Two Minute Hate attenders are busy bashing MS for this move it seems that none of them, even those who were vocal in their support of Firefox, care to point out that Firefox is set to automatically update out of the box.
At least with Windows you're forced into making a decision on the hows and whens of your updating process on set up. No such luck with Firefox. Infact, I'm having a hard time thinking of any other software package that handles updating as poorly as Firefox does. Even Java is nice enough to ask permission first.
I'm a Microsoft fan boy (MCPD for web development). I usually stick to a three step process. 1. Start by writing with a focus on IE7 and try to keep everything up to XHTML standards. Test locally for FF and Chrome. 2. For public facing websites that focus more on displaying information than providing interaction I use browsershots.org to see how the pages render on common browsers. A VM machine with lots of browsers (including IE6) is used for local debugging. 3. With web applications functionality is the most critical. Clients will usually have a handful of browsers that they expect their users to be running. Each browser they request support for needs to pass unit testing. For some projects compatibility testing goes smooth and for some it's the biggest hangup in the SDLC.
I can say [REDACTED] anytime I want!
I bet most of us like slashdot, so i consider it a good thing MS pushes IE8 as it renders Slashdot a whole lot better then IE7.
...no.
The beta version pulled out bizarre layout and coding issues already.
It seems another MS try to establish their own standards. They are relying on prevalence of Windows / IE to take over some businesses' environments (as IE4 did back in the 90's) thus weakening other platform's appliances... and messing up developers' life.
We maintain a JavaScript / php / googlemaps mashup pplication, and unless switched to 'compatibility mode' the CSS layout simply breaks (in strange and undocumented ways) . We use Prototypejs 1.6.... and its code breaks too.
The application was developed targeting IE6 / FF2. Since then it has evolved through Safari, FF3, and IE7 with relative ease. At the first glance this move is going to be tough.
For those developing complex AJAX-style applications, these are pretty bad news.
It is true even if it isn't exactly prompt. The rollout of IE8 to critical updates began between 2-3 weeks ago.
You can lead a man with reason but you can't make him think.