I pretty much agree with all the comments made above.
We do all of that where I work (a Uni where we have about 500 PCs all running XP).
I'd like to back up the point about lecturers/teachers not needing admin rights on machines, and would suggest limiting admin rights to as few people as possible. If necessary, compartmentalise them. An example of this: We have two sets of administrators here. One with rights over the student machines (labs) and one with admin rights over the staff machines.
Where I work, lecturers can do pretty much whatever they want with the machine in their office as they have admin rights over that, but if they need anything installed on the lab machines, they have to email a mailing list that gets sent to the technicians. This may seem beurocratic, but we get quite a few requests, so we need a centralised way to keep track of who is installing what.
So,the record companies (who are, after all, who these organisations represent) are "leeching"? They exploit their own artists by removing their right to their own creations? With all due respect, you appear to know nothing of how the industry works.
Sure, the record companies make a lot of money. However, they also have to spend a lot. First, they have to spend money searching for new acts. Then, they have to get those acts launched. This costs money (and can cost a lot). They also have to buy studio time, and staff to produce albums/singles. Again, this isn't cheap. Inevitably in today's times, they also need to pay for a video, and these cost tens of thousands of pounds as well. Now, bear in mind that most new acts initially fail, so may well have to be reformed or relaunched. All of a sudden, you could potentially have millions of pounds being spent with little or no return.
I personally don't agree with the way the Record Industry is acting, put simply, I don't think Piracy is the major problem.
Anyway, it's entirely possible that the site the OP is referring to actually USES those features specific to IE (such as Active X). Especially if it is some sort of Corporate intranet site.
Our old Admin site used IE specific DHTML code to generate "nice" (I put that in quotes as I hated them) looking menus. Luckily, the new one uses standard HTML links, and therefore works equally well on all browsers.
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I pretty much agree with all the comments made above.
We do all of that where I work (a Uni where we have about 500 PCs all running XP).
I'd like to back up the point about lecturers/teachers not needing admin rights on machines, and would suggest limiting admin rights to as few people as possible. If necessary, compartmentalise them. An example of this: We have two sets of administrators here. One with rights over the student machines (labs) and one with admin rights over the staff machines.
Where I work, lecturers can do pretty much whatever they want with the machine in their office as they have admin rights over that, but if they need anything installed on the lab machines, they have to email a mailing list that gets sent to the technicians. This may seem beurocratic, but we get quite a few requests, so we need a centralised way to keep track of who is installing what.
So,the record companies (who are, after all, who these organisations represent) are "leeching"? They exploit their own artists by removing their right to their own creations? With all due respect, you appear to know nothing of how the industry works. Sure, the record companies make a lot of money. However, they also have to spend a lot. First, they have to spend money searching for new acts. Then, they have to get those acts launched. This costs money (and can cost a lot). They also have to buy studio time, and staff to produce albums/singles. Again, this isn't cheap. Inevitably in today's times, they also need to pay for a video, and these cost tens of thousands of pounds as well. Now, bear in mind that most new acts initially fail, so may well have to be reformed or relaunched. All of a sudden, you could potentially have millions of pounds being spent with little or no return. I personally don't agree with the way the Record Industry is acting, put simply, I don't think Piracy is the major problem.
What about Opera?
Anyway, it's entirely possible that the site the OP is referring to actually USES those features specific to IE (such as Active X). Especially if it is some sort of Corporate intranet site.
Our old Admin site used IE specific DHTML code to generate "nice" (I put that in quotes as I hated them) looking menus. Luckily, the new one uses standard HTML links, and therefore works equally well on all browsers.