Internet Explorer 10 Drops Vista Support

Pigskin-Referee writes "This week at Microsoft's MIX11 Web developer conference, the company surprised many by making a pre-release version of Internet Explorer 10 available — less than a month after IE9 came out in its final form. But another surprise was uncovered by Computerworld's Gregg Keizer: the next IE won't run on any OS before Windows 7, including Vista. Microsoft took some heat when it came out that Internet Explorer 9 would leave millions of Windows XP users in the lurch, as the new browser would only run on Windows 7 and Vista. But the company confirmed that IE10 won't even run on Vista."

Comments

This is the best thing they can do.

[Mage Powers]

Great marketing for alternative browsers :^)

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[PsychoSlashDot]

Great marketing for alternative browsers :^)

There's an implication beyond "Vista support is dropped", which considering the number of companies that avoided Vista on the desktop itself isn't a big deal... Server 2008 support is also dropped. R2 is the Win7 kernel so that's still valid, but my users on Terminal Servers as little as three years old won't have access to the next IE version.

Think beyond your desktop and consider that much of the corporate ecosystem "supports" IE. I've got clients who need - through no choice of their own - to access partner sites that are only officially supported on IE. For many of them, alternative browsers aren't something I can recommend, sadly. Now we're also being told our future with IE is... "OS upgrades".

Thanks Microsoft. Dropping XP is understandable. Vista/2k8 is too soon.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[rbrausse]

afaik Ubuntu - like Windows Vista - is not a supported platform for IE10. Why should Microsoft's decision push the usage of alternative OS?

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[cyber-vandal]

Not for those of us who will now need to add a Vista VM to our 3 XP VMs to make sure that our websites look right in IE6, 7, 8, 9 and 10.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[MightyMartian]

I'm a little confused as to the limitation at all. Under the hood, Vista and Windows 7 are pretty damned close to each other. I can't really think of an architectural reason for this limitation. At least I'm unaware of any vast difference under the hood between the two operating systems, mainly some UI differences, some speeding up (although Vista with SP2 isn't too bad) and some extra goodies like VM tacked on to some of the editions. They pretty much can run on the same hardware, and I've heard some reports that Windows 7 is less resource intensive than Vista.

Other than perhaps trying to egg people still running Vista to bump up I don't see the point. We've got a ton of Vista machines, many of them the Business Edition, and I'm sure not paying a couple of hundred bucks a pop just to run IE10.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[clang_jangle]

No, you watch. Two years tops and win7 will be "legacy". That's obviously what they want, and who can blame them? They've long had the potential to make an OS competent enough to far surpass their commercial offerings thus far. The bugaboo holding them back has always been backward compatibility. Now that we're probably about to enter an era where most CPUs will have four or more cores the time is right for them to drop the legacy support, in spite of the inevitable kicking and screaming. This users won't be happy with machines old enough to run XP or Vista for much longer anyway.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[wmbetts]

Because 2011 is the year of the Linux desktop!

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[maugle]

That's not a valid implication.The installer would and does do SKU checks, not just kernel version checks, so it's easily possible that it can still be installed on Server 2008 and that it can be tweaked to be installed on Vista as well. What Microsoft is announcing is effectively a lack of support for Vista, so even if it can be tweaked to be installed on Vista, Microsoft wouldn't offer any support for it.

Oh yeah. Running tweaked, unsupported applications. That's the sort of thing businesses love.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[cyber-vandal]

Know what. Your clients are not representative of all Windows users, some of whom are trapped on IE6 due to corporate reliance on apps that will only run on that terrible POS. In any case even if you're right I will still need to support IE7, IE8, IE9 and IE10 for similar reasons.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[hairyfeet]

Oh please! You think they wish to commit suicide? What do you think keeps people locked into Windows? It is all the time and money they have invested in legacy applications that's what! If I can't run my old Windows apps, what is to keep me from buying that new iShiny or even that cheaper Linux box? Why not a thing!

After all they can ALL surf the web, only the Apple has more style and intuitiveness, while the Linux box is cheaper. So the ONLY thing MSFT has going for them is the billions of dollars in programs that run ONLY on Windows.

Now if you were to say "they are gonna figure out a seamless way to VM all those apps" I might agree with you, except so far we haven't seen anything of the sort. But to kill the golden goose that is backwards compatibility? Never!

As for TFA, I think this is a sign MSFT will soon be giving up the "browser wars". After all they aren't making any money on IE, being locked in to IE has been gone since Firefox, and with the exception of corporate IE has become "that thing you use to download Firefox/Chrome". By tying specific versions to specific OSes they have made sure IE will be so fragmented nobody will write for it anyway, so they might as well say "This is what you use to download Chrome/Firefox, we'll plug any glaring obvious holes, but other than that tough luck, its a tech demo for MSR".

Because last I checked while Win 7 has passed XP in the USA, the world map still has XP at nearly 50%, and another 17% for Vista. That is 67% of the world market that can't use your product but can use your competitors and if that isn't giving up I don't know what is. Unless there is someone over at MSFT so stoned they actually think they can get people to spend $100+ on a new OS just by dangling a new IE? If so can I have some, that must be some good shit.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[Belial6]

Within 12 months of buying VirtualPC, "backward compatibility" was no longer a valid excuse for MS.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[Belial6]

Honestly, dropping XP is even questionable. You don't start counting an OS's death from the date it was first introduced, you do it from the date that it was last sold. MS was still selling new copies of XP in 2009. This is only 2 years ago. Combined with the fact that Vista was basically still born and MS knew it (making it not a real option for many), dropping XP support in IE is basically telling their customers that they don't really support their OS for more than 2 years.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[SpryGuy]

I disagree. "corporate users" are the only ones trapped on IE6, and so they can just find some way to use that on their coporate LANs. There is no requirement they use IE6 at home or anywhere else. If it's such an issue, the corporation can either pay to upgrade the sites, or pay for their customers to have VMs that run IE6 to access their legacy sites. Or you can just install FireFox or Chrome next to IE6 and use one for legacy sites, and the other for everything else.

The vast majority of people have no NEED to use IE6, and the vast majority of web developers have no need to support IE6. In fact, I's say there is ZERO requirement for ANY web developer to EVER support IE6 at this point. Anyone who says otherwise is making excuses or lying.

And there's no need to support IE7 either. Because it's such an easy, pain-free upgrade from that to IE8, and there aren't any sites out there that REQUIRE IE7 in the way that some coporate sites require IE6. IE8's "compatability mode" is "good enough".

So you're just wrong here. You only need to suppot IE8 and IE9 right now. Period. Once IE10 comes out, you will only NEED to support IE9 and IE10 (IE 9's compatibility mode is "good enough" for any site quirky enough to run only in IE8).

Every web developer just needs to put their foot down on IE6 support (and now IE7). Period. Even MS wants developers to do this. Nobody should code to, or test on IE6 any more, period. It's a complete waste of time and money and effort. Just stop it.

Re:This is the best thing they can do.

[jez9999]

So, I guess their support timeline for Vista must've been about a month?

That's ok

[countertrolling]

I don't run on any OS before System 7.5

Wow

[dmomo]

If this browser is unable to run on even Windows XP, all it says to me is "Hi, I have to interact with your computer in a way no browser should need to."

Re:Wow

[Anonymous Coward]

Back in the times of Netscape, they wanted the browser to replace the OS (the user-visible parts of it, of course, not the kernel/drivers/etc.). The company failed to achieve it, but its brainchild -- Firefox -- managed to push Microsoft and Google close to that point.

The more `rich content' (3D graphics and whatnot) runs in browser, the closer it needs to be to extra hardware (3D accelerator) and OS software (security provider, data store etc.)

Re:Wow

[TheCycoONE]

Most modern browsers are or will be interacting with those same parts of Windows (Direct 2D) for hardware acceleration. The difference is that most other browser manufacturers include fallbacks for legacy OSes and hardware. Strangely IE9 has fallbacks for legacy hardware, but not for a lack of DirectX 10.

Re:Wow

[Bogtha]

I'm sorry, as much as I loathe Microsoft, what you are saying is nonsense. Newer operating systems offer greater functionality. It's entirely possible for an application - browser or otherwise - to require features that older operating systems don't have without nefarious "interaction".

Just recently, I've stopped supporting iOS 3 because iOS 4 offers features that cut down development time significantly. My applications are sandboxed away from the operating system just like any other, much more separate than any typical application running on a desktop machine. There's nothing sinister about it, it's simply more cost-effective that way.

Re:Wow

[KiloByte]

There's a massive architectural difference between NT-based and DOS-based Windows.

For example, all system library calls that pass a string need to use a different API on Win95/98/ME and NT+. Using SomeFunctionA will mysteriously break the moment someone tries to input a string with a letter that happens to be not present in a legacy locale-dependent "code page", or access a file with such a character in its name. Supporting both APIs is possible but is a major chore, even with wrappers like MSLU.

And this is just a tip of an iceberg. What if you want to write some persistent data? Can't use C:\Program Files\YourProgram\ since it is not writeable without elevation. Easy -- SHGetFolderPath(). But, that function is not present on Win98 that did not have a specific Internet Explorer (???) update. So you need to fall back to that fixed location in C:\Program Files\YourProgram\. And so on...

On the other hand, there are no significant changes between 2000 and Win7 where user mode programs are concerned. New API has been added, but it gives little advantage, you can do about everything the old way with no functionality loss. I think the only actual goodie are filesystem transactions.

There was a large change for kernel drivers between XP and Vista, but a program like Firefox has no valid reason to touch that. Not any program which doesn't touch debugging, hardware or virtualization -- ie, any game which installs a kernel driver has a rootkit like SecuROM included.

Re:Wow

[asa]

Vista and 7 both "require" a GPU powerful enough to do that, so MS can get away with not keeping a software renderer in the browser.

Um, no. Microsoft cannot get away without a software render in the browser even on Windows 7. There are far too many GPUs on Win7 systems that they don't support or don't support them. There are also plenty of places that the "renderer" doesn't use the GPU.

I know it's a common thing on /. to take a little bit of knowledge about things and pretend it's a lot of knowledge, but when you get this far away from what you actually understand and start making completely false claims, you hurt more than help. Please be more careful in the future.

- A

Re:Wow

[shutdown -p now]

On the other hand, there are no significant changes between 2000 and Win7 where user mode programs are concerned. New API has been added, but it gives little advantage, you can do about everything the old way with no functionality loss.

Um, have you actually looked at what Direct2D does?

How would you paint, say, an anti-aliased rotated gradient rectangle in Win2K (where you only had GDI)? Aside from writing all the code for that yourself?

Re:Wow

[man_of_mr_e]

I haven't had any trouble with WIndows 7 search, but if you have.. my guess is that you have a permissions issue that search isn't able to look in some locations.

I'm not sure what you mean about the useless clutter. Every option in the network config has text links, some have icons next to them but the actual controls themselves are text.

UAC is essentially the same as that used by OSX and Linux... At some point, a user has to have some knowledge. If they don't, then they need to contact someone that does before clicking Yes willy nilly. There is no magic bullet that tells users when it's ok to give a program access and when it's not. THEY have to make that decision for themselves.

Obligatory "It ain't half hot mum" reference

[der_joachim]

Oh dear! How sad! Never mind!

And nothing of value was lost

[dotHectate]

Doesn't bother me. While I'm sure someone will do something to prove that it can operate just fine on "Vista-or-less-than" OS, do we really care when we've got better options in Chrome, Firefox, Opera, and many more? Oh, I forgot, I need it to run a "Native HTML5 experience", darn them.

Re:And nothing of value was lost

[shutdown -p now]

How much is a cost of an abstraction layer in native code, really? A well-designed abstraction layer would pretty much always just call directly into the underlying API where the latter provides all the necessary functionality. And modern C++ compilers are exceedingly good at inlining, even across translation unit boundaries (with link-time code generation, which VC++ supports), which puts the cost squarely at zero.

Even where the features are available but semantics are sufficiently different where translation would be required on one of the platforms, it is reasonable to designate one platform as primary, and design the abstraction layer such that it maps directly, with no translation, to the API provided by that platform. On other platforms, you pay the price of translation, but at least they're supported. In case of IE9+, the primary platform would then be 7 (and API would be D2D), and secondary platform would be XP.

So it's a weak argument from a technological point of view. Now, from a managerial one, implementing the layer where there was none before is extra cost. If it can't be justified, then why do it? But that's a different matter entirely, and has nothing to do with "native HTML5" and similar marketing silliness.

Fixed that for you....

[ZosX]

"Windows Vista customers have a great browsing experience with IE9, but in building IE10 we are focused on continuing to drive the kind of innovation that only happens when you take advantage of screwing customers into buying modern operating systems and modern hardware for no good reason other than greed.""

I fail to see why IE 10 would not run on vista which is like 98% the same as Windows 7. What could there possibly be in Windows 7 that Vista lacks? It even has DX11. So hardware acceleration is not the issue.... I mean seriously. There is probably some mere flag in the installer that forces it to only work on Windows 7 and that is likely the only thing preventing it from running on Vista.

I mean google chrome runs on ancient P4s running XP. Give me a break.

Re:Fixed that for you....

[Mouldy]

I'd guess they're dropping Vista support to speed along their release cycle. IE is still very integrated with the operating system. Windows gets all of it's code that deals with internet communication from whatever IE version is installed. Therefore, updating IE is not the same as just updating a standalone browser like FF or Chrome - it's also making changes to a lot of stuff behind the scenes.

There probably is no technical reason why IE 10 couldn't work (to some degree) on Windows as far back as XP. But, given the timeframe (which is short due to the new release cycle), MS cannot develop and test OS-level code across so many platforms.

Re:Fixed that for you....

[cyber-vandal]

Since you value £100 so little please send it to me.

Internet Explorer? I think I've heard of it...

[MasterOfGoingFaster]

Uh... Internet Explorer? Oh yeah - that thing I use to load Chrome, Firefox and Opera on a new PC?

Why? Does it do something else i'm unaware of?

Re:Slashdot's Microsoft Icon

[erroneus]

I'd vote for a chair flying through a broken window!

Re:Finally! This is Great!

[QuietLagoon]

-1 mod points, you used "Microsoft" and "innovation" in the same sentence.

Re:Finally! This is Great!

[erroneus]

That's certainly one way of spinning it. On the other hand, the way I see it is they are once again, illegally using one product to affect the users of another product. In this case, they are trying to use MSIE to draw people away from Windows XP and to buy Windows 7.

I'm waiting for someone to package MSIE9 for Windows XP. Maybe it has already been done....

Re:Internet Explorer? I think I've heard of it...

[tepples]

You need four browsers on a system?

A developer or tester of a web site needs each browser.

The owner of a PC used by multiple people in a household might need to approve installation of multiple browsers. One needs IE for work, someone else prefers Chrome, someone else needs a specific Firefox extension, etc.

Best use for IE

[shatfield]

The best use for IE is to download another browser after installing Windows.

Re:Slashdot's Microsoft Icon

[derGoldstein]

"Developers" x 4

Horror barely describes it...

[fox171171]

Oh no! You have to use Windows 7! The horror!

My wife's new laptop came with Win7, and so far "I hate it" barely scratches the surface about my feelings for it. Can't seem to customize it in any way that makes it more convenient. I just cringe every time I have to do something on it.

Her brother wanted her to get an Apple. She wanted to stick with something she was familiar with. She may as well have gotten an Apple.

Re:Horror barely describes it...

[magamiako1]

That's fine, but the security benefits provided for win7 are great. The technical benefits, also great.

OS customization seems to me like painting racing stripes on your car--you may think it's cool, everyone else doesn't care and thinks you're an idiot.

Safari is similar...

[Aphrika]

Doesn't run on anything less than OSX Leopard. Make no bones about it; an OSX point update is really a major OS version update akin to Vista or 7, but all hiding within the OSX moniker.

Interestingly, they do build it for XP, Vista and 7. so in effect, they're supporting rival operating systems that are older than their own. That's interesting as it enables them to fragment the opposition more; giving the older OS users less of a reason to upgrade to 7...

I'll be honest though, I'd like to see IE10 on other platforms. It won't happen, but I think the underlying changes and the direction that a current Microsoft are taking are good. Crap marketing speak not withstanding, IE9 is a good browser, whatever the past history for the name.

Who on earth

[Flipao]

Would spend hundreds of dollars buying Windows just to run the newest version of IE?, it has to be the ultimate act of masochism.

Um, it's just a web browser ya know....

[rsilvergun]

If Opera, Mozilla and Google can all make their browsers run just fine on Windows XP/Vista, why the heck can't Microsoft? Or did you really buy into that 'native HTML5' stuff?

Vista = favorite excuse to bash M$

[judeancodersfront]

You'd think it would have gotten old after Vista was fixed with updates but to Slashdot it is endless entertainment.

Re:Vista = favorite excuse to bash M$

[judeancodersfront]

Win7 improvements over Vista are minor. Releasing Win7 fixed their image problem and allowed them to make more cash. Vista was fixed with updates, there are plenty of benchmarks on the web that show this. But I realize most Slashdotters enjoy bashing M$ more than objectively measuring software.

This is easy to answer.

[bhpaddock]

What could there possibly be in Windows 7 that Vista lacks?

Just look at the public IDL files in the Windows SDK and look at what's inside #ifdef NTDDI_WIN7 blocks.

Hint: It's not a small list.

Re:This is easy to answer.

[shutdown -p now]

Isn't that only for driver developers, though? Since we're talking about browsers here, a list of changes relevant to userspace applications would be more interesting.

What a load of bull

[SmallFurryCreature]

Yet all this backward compatibility is NOT hurting, Chrome, Opera, Firefox and yes, even Safari.

How come ALL these can support older windows versions without problems but MS somehow runs into issues supporting its own OS that they are STILL selling?

Yes, I want to get rid of old Windows as well but mostly because of IE. If MS actually released some decent upgrades to its old crap they could help people who can't afford to upgrade their PC constantly. If IE9/10 was available XP (as other browsers more capable browsers are) then IE6 would be dead and buried. Clearly MS doesn't want IE6 gone badly enough, or are their browser developers not as capable as EVERY other browser make out there?

Re:What a load of bull

[Rinnon]

If MS actually released some decent upgrades to its old crap they could help people who can't afford to upgrade their PC constantly. If IE9/10 was available XP (as other browsers more capable browsers are) then IE6 would be dead and buried. Clearly MS doesn't want IE6 gone badly enough, or are their browser developers not as capable as EVERY other browser make out there?

Not sure what you're basing this on. IE 7 has been out for ages, and is available for XP. Lots of people still use IE 6. IE 8 is also available for XP, still there are people on IE 6. Why on earth would IE 9 or IE 10 Make a difference to the IE 6 market share?

Re:Vista User Base

[Rising Ape]

As a remaining Vista user, I can't see the point in forking out £80 for Windows 7, and my existing PC is more than powerful enough for what I need. I doubt I'm the only one.

Would Vista Users Even Care?

[Sarusa]

Every person I know who's still running Vista and hasn't bothered to upgrade to Win7 is only running Vista because that's what came on the new PC/Laptop and they didn't know any better. They certainly don't care whether they're using IE9 or IE10.

Everyone who'd actually care upgraded to Win7 so fast you could hear the sonic booms.

Okay, so we're not really using IE at all either... ... who's IE10 for again?