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Microsoft Upgrading Windows Users To Latest Version of MSIE
helix2301 writes "Microsoft will be upgrading all Windows XP, Vista and 7 users to the latest IE silently. They are doing this because they have found a large number of non-patched systems. Microsoft pointed out that Chrome and Firefox do this regularly. They will start with Australia and Brazil in January, then go world-wide after they have assured there are no issues."
Because they are not running Windows updates. at all. And therefore this is not going to have an effect.
Not really: since IE 9 is not available for XP, there will still be millions of IE 8 installs around evem after a forced update to the latest version.
after they have assured there are no issues
IE 6 is a very, very different browser from IE 9. We've had plenty of clients who can't move off IE 6 (or are in the middle of a large project to do so) because it's the only one that will run their Intranet site correctly. I've seen MS make this type of mistake before - they don't see many public-facing sites using a technology, so they feel safe getting rid of it. Well, yes, very few public-facing sites are going to use crazy IE specific stuff, and most are (by now) going to be making reasonable efforts to work between browsers.
Intranet sites are a whole other kettle of fish; corporate programmers often target a single browser - and for many of them, that was IE for a long time. They got away with that from IE 4 to IE 6 because MS just added stuff. With IE 7 and, particularly, Vista, they started fixing insecure and non-standard behaviors - and that's part of why so many companies are still on XP and IE 6.
If MS does this, there will be a lot of pissed off people and gnashing of teeth. I'm not saying it's the wrong choice but "once they've assured there's no issues" sounds pretty silly.
Let's not stir that bag of worms...
How about reading the article before commenting on it?
"While the benefits of upgrading are numerous, we recognize that some organizations and individuals may want to opt-out and set their own upgrade pace. One of the things we’re committed to as we move to auto updates is striking the right balance for consumers and enterprises – getting consumers the most up-to-date version of their browser while allowing enterprises to update their browsers on their schedule. The Internet Explorer 8 and Internet Explorer 9 Automatic Update Blocker toolkits prevent automatic upgrades of IE for Windows customers who do not want them. Of course, we firmly believe that IE9 is the most compelling browser for business customers, and we want them to make the decision to upgrade at their convenience.
Similarly, customers who have declined previous installations of IE8 or IE9 through Windows Update will not be automatically updated. Customers have the ability to uninstall updates and continue to receive support for the version of IE that came with their copy of Windows. And similar to organizations, consumers can block the update all together and upgrade on their own. Finally, future versions of IE will provide an option in the product for consumers to opt out of automatic upgrading. "
One thing that makes a difference between FF and IE pushing upgrades, if I have IE6 installed on my machine, it's because there's some horribly written intranet site that will only work in IE6. I'm not saying that every IE6 user can use that excuse, but there exist some number of us for whom it is true. Do they have a way to force a downgrade or install versions side by side?
Remember kids, MSIE is _NOT_ a "web browser". It is a part of the Windows operating system. Microsoft has said so in court. Therefore, when you want to go on-line, be sure and use a "web browser" such as Chrome(Win/Mac/Linux/etc), Firefox(Win/Mac/Linux/etc), Safari(Mac/Win/iOS), or even Opera(Win/Mac/Linux/iOS).
When people ask you why you hate IE (and of course Microsoft by extension), be sure to have this fact handy and correct them about referring to IE as being a "web browser". After all, if it really was you could:
keep more than one version installed at a time
install different versions for different user account
and of course... easily uninstall it.
*** Sigs are a stupid waste of bandwidth.
There is a way to opt-out of the upgrade and also to downgrade if you happen to get it.
Link for the opt-out tool: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=179
-1 overrated isn't the same thing as "I disagree".
Then install MultipleIEs, and you can have your IE6 still exist somewhere, while the main IE on the machine is 8 or 9.
So if you opted out before you're not going to get it. And I imagine you'll be able to back track anyway. Also they have "blocker toolkits" so you can really be sure.
IE9 is configurable to a compatibility mode so it will operate like IE6 for all or specified websites. Most people do not have the time or the knowledge to get it configured properly though. Microsoft went through a lot of trouble to build this compatibility mode though.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
I have no problem with this but my main issue is that they bundled C++ 2008 runtimes with IE9... In my office IE9 patched our runtimes and it caused issues with the software we are developing which made it unable to be compiled. I hope for their sakes that they don't do the same thing.
If they've got any sense at all they'll be using WSUS - can Microsoft override this? I wouldn't think so.
And then we can finally stop the H264 vs WebM battle, because IE9 will only support H264.
Internet Explorer 9 supports both H.264 and WebM. No other video codecs are supported by IE9. WebM support is added by installing the media foundation components:
http://tools.google.com/dlpage/webmmf/
You can test WebM support in IE9 with Microsoft's IE9 test drive video support demo:
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/graphics/videoformatsupport/default.html