IE7 beta2 preview

[tedster]

How about that -- beta+2+preview all in one offering! At any rate, Microsoft has released a consumer level beta of IE7.
[microsoft.com...]

Warning -- there's some eye bending Flash and darned little information on that page.

[encyclo]

I waited in vain for someone to hack Beta 1 to work on W2K. Maybe now that the beta is public, it will happen.

I really don't think that this will or can happen - the IE7 code is completely closed and there is a huge difference between W2K and XP, in particular with regards to the security model. W2K is dead now, and XP is the only remaining option, despite its numerous weaknesses.

This is just the way it goes with closed source - you are bound by the restrictions and forced upgrade paths given by the developers.

Damn... Vista needs to come out so I can check out the "Genuine Advantage". ;-)

I can hardly wait! ;)

[SuzyUK]

I don't know if it's any help, but for beta 1, I installed IE6 as a standalone from evolt [browsers.evolt.org], before installing IE7 over system existing IE6 and it's working just fine, I had to uninstall IE7b1 to get b2, and so far everything is fine,

any time I've run into problems accessing sites with IE7B1 the IE6 standalone has worked, and I've had no problems using it as a testing environment

and also if/when IE7 becomes mainstream you will already have IE6 standing alone beside 5 and 5.5 ;)

Suzy

[robzilla]

After installing IE7 and rebooting, all the text on my screen went blurry like you often see on TFT/LCD screens. This new version (even though only a preview) is very disappointing - Firefox is so much better.

[SuzyUK]

robzilla, that's IE's ClearType option which is enabled by default in this release (it's unclear if the final release is going to be shipped with it turned on by default)

you can disable it
Tools > Internet Options > Advanced, then under the Multimedia section uncheck the "Use clearType" box..

Suzy

[le_gber]

I quite like it, it looks really nice. I like the font rendering as well it seems that the bigger fonts render more smoothly than before.
BUT it screws the css footer on our corporate website :-( I hope this gets fixed before the 'official' release.
ps. the footer looks ok on all the other browser I tried - ie older and current version as well as the usual suspect Opera, FFox, Mozilla, Netscape, Safari and Konqueror.

Won't be switching from FFox though

[Hester]

BUT it screws the css footer on our corporate website :-( I hope this gets fixed before the 'official' release.

Shouldn't that read as below? ;-D

BUT it screws the css footer on our corporate website :-( I hope I can fix our code before the 'official' release. Probably the star html hack to blame or something.

[RonPK]

MS provides a developer toolbar [microsoft.com] with many handy and familiar features ;)

[Hester]

Suzy, where is the page on Evolt? I can't find it!

[DanA]

Not sure about evolt, but the standalone IE6 can be found there :

[downloads.skyzyx.com...]

[edited by: encyclo at 7:50 pm (utc) on Feb. 1, 2006]
[edit reason] fixed link [/edit]

[SuzyUK]

>> Suzy, where is the page on Evolt? I can't find it!

did that link not take you to a list of zip files? ..
if not >evolt.org, top menu "test (browser archive)" then on that page they're not in the master list, but the third link down under "Recent Changes to the Archive", then the file named: ie6eolas_nt.zip.. or I see the skyzyx one (linked above seems to be the same.)

As far as I can remember it's just extract to a folder and off you go, but it's been a while since I installed it.

Also you might need a registry tweak for enabling conditional comments to work properly in all standalones after installing IE7 ~ (I had to redo it after installing IE7B2), instructions for that and customising the title bar can be found on PIE - Taming Your Multiple IE standalones [positioniseverything.net]

HTH..

[a1call]

Hi,

I installed the IE7 from the MSN link. My drop down menue(file, edit,...) disappeared.
Is it only me?
Any way to get it back?

Thanks

Added:
I can get it back by clicking on tools>toolbars>classic menu
but am having other bugs now the system calls the google toolbar the developer bar.:(

[oddsod]

I know it's beta and all but....

I took a new PC with a clean, new Windows XP installation. I took all the update.microsoft.com updates after installing SP2. Then one or two precautions like Giant (now MS) anti-spyware. Then I installed IE7 beta2. Then I reboot....

and I get just a splash screen! Can't go into Windows.

I'm bloody glad I didn't try it on my dev machine.

Incidentally, did anyone notice that the flash page in the OP's link "loads but with errors"? :)

[robzilla]

Thanks, Suzy. Text now looks good in IE7, but the installation also enabled ClearType in Yahoo Messenger as well as Outlook Express. Can't find a way to turn it off in either application's settings.

[SuzyUK]

robzilla,
I can't get rid in my HTML-Kit either :( (though that's not mission critical, in fact it's likely a bonus for now, because at least in there I'm seeing what most others are seeing for dev/testing..)

but maybe you can try the following for OE, and Yahoo ( I'm using MSN and Thunderbird and both of them are non-cleartype using this)

Right click the Desktop > Properties > Appearance, select "effects" and uncheck the "Use the following method to smooth the edges of screen fonts" box .. any help?

Suzy

btw, in case I forget to say, and also I don't want to take this thread into a tech hijack (I'm far from tech) ~ I'm not ignoring the fact that IE7 is looking pretty good from a user perspective, I'm just set in my ways is all ;) and seeing how I've used it more in the last 2 days than the last two years I don't feel qualifed to comment in the "preview" sense of the word yet..

[robzilla]

"Use the following method to smooth the edges of screen fonts" is already unchecked. I just noticed another great side-effect: links in e-mails in Outlook Express no longer work, and when I click on links in a Yahoo Messenger chat it opens up My Documents. LOL, this is insane!

Do *not* install this version of IE7!

[a1call]

I will have to second robzilla's warning.
This is my scenario:
*created xp restore point A
*installed IE7
*tried to restore to point A
-*restoration failed
*removed the IE7 installation through add/remove
-*success
*tried to restore to point A
-*restoration failed

[mykel79]

Anyone tried to create a new Adwords campaing using IE7? I can't get the part where you add countries to work! I'm trying the lowest security settings and clicking the "add" button still does nothing. ARGH!

[fsm2005]

I have the same problem as mykel79. You can't select countries in adwords. I guess we'll have to use firefox a little more since it seems from reading these posts that you can't uninstall IE7 very well either.

[Richie0x]

I love it so far, the font smoothing is very cool and everything just looks so much better.

However, one small problem. Every time I click onto a webpage, or a program wants to connect to the net, the dial up dialog pops up. It's as if it doesn't realise it's already connected. It is REALLY bugging me so any advice on how to prevent this would be much appreciated!

[johnnie]

Addresses many of the major inconsistencies that can cause web developers problems when producing visually rich, interactive webpages. Improved support for CSS2.1, including selectors and fixed positioning, allow web developers to create more powerful effects [b]without the use of script[/b].

Looks like they know about the 'other' IE7 :D

[tictoc]

Yes the IE beta browser works with Alexa and the New Beta Google Toolbar...

[le_gber]

BUT it screws the css footer on our corporate website :-( I hope this gets fixed before the 'official' release.

Shouldn't that read as below? ;-D

BUT it screws the css footer on our corporate website :-( I hope I can fix our code before the 'official' release. Probably the star html hack to blame or something.

Hester, actually no I have no css hacks on the stylesheet.

[RonPK]

The phishing filter seems to be calling home (IP 65.54.*.*) for every page I visit. I guess it checks the IP address against some central blacklist - enabling MS to collect data about what sites IE users visit. I probably agreed to this obvious privacy violation when I accepted the license agreement during the installation, but surely it would be better to use an opt-in technique?

[Hester]

Won't that make it incredibly slow? Perhaps a locally stored list would be better, that is updated once a week via an update.

[Hester]

IMPORTANT NOTE: The standalone version of IE6 contains a text file that says:

"Internet Explorer 6 SP1b Update

October 28, 2003

Internal Version 0.23"

So this appears to be an EARLIER VERSION THAN THE ONE SHIPPED IN SP2. Now think security...

I checked the menus and indeed there is no popup blocker in this version! It strikes me that it may not be as secure as the current IE6.

If anyone can clarify this situation, that would be great. I'm holding back from installing IE7 until I know the standalone IE6 is safe to use.

[a1call]

Hi Hester,
You won't have to install the stand alone IE6 if you have it now. You can probably successfully remove the IE7 (update) in the control panel's add/remove as described earlier in this thread. This will make IE6 your browser again. Just keep in mind that you might lose the ability of restoring the windows xp to an earlier restore point. I have lost this ability, perhaps due to installation of IE7(Always possible something else is the cause).

[robzilla]

You can probably successfully remove the IE7 (update) in the control panel's add/remove as described earlier in this thread.

I couldn't. It wasn't on the list.

[netmeg]

I installed it on my laptop, as opposed to my development machines. The UI was a little startling at first, but I'm getting used to it. I like the way they do the tabs, better than Firefox in my opinion - the one click open and close is handy. My Google toolbar and IE Dev toolbar seem to work okay, but a friend pointed out that all the stuff on top takes up too much room and you can't move it around as much as you'd like. I'd like to get rid of the search box altogether, since with the Google Toolbar, I now have two up there. And I'd rather have the options to put the Home and other icons over to the left side of the screen.

It's locked up a couple of times on a couple of sites, but overall, it seems to be an improvement to me. I agree, the anti-Phishing feature is nice, but it would also be nice to be able to include certain sites as exceptions (there's a couple of client sites where their hosting company has the administration on an IP number instead of the domain name, which triggers an SSL warning, which triggers the Phish filter)

[StupidScript]

Robzilla re: uninstall

Either use Add/Remove Programs and make sure that "Show Updates" is checked (it's an OS update, after all ... despite that they say there are no system files included ... hah!) or:

If you don't see it in your list to uninstall, try running:
%windir%\$NtUninstallie7bet2p$\spuninst\spuninst.exe. You need to have "view hidden folders" enabled.

"%windir%" here is your main Windows directory (usually C:\Windows\).

This is detailed in the release notes [msdn.microsoft.com].

(From the bug report blog.)

BTW ... neither of these may work. Users have had varying degrees of success with the uninstall. Some had crashes during uninstall and had to reinstall some of their other software (like McAfee), too. Even restoring to a previous date may not work for ya ...

One user reported:

17.406: Registering Uninstall Program for -> ie7bet2p, ie7bet2p , 0x0
17.469: Unable to get File Version
17.469: Failed to copy spupdsvc.exe to system32
=============
00:27.765: INFO: Process 'update.exe /quiet /norestart /er /log:C:\WINDOWS' exited with exit code 61453
00:27.765: ERROR: ¦Inst. IE >>> Internet Explorer installation completed with errors, exitresult=0x00000000, exitcode=0x0000f00d
==============

which might cause uninstall problems, too ... as it indicates a problem with the installation of the uninstallation program. (!)

Good luck!

[Krapulator]

The font smoothing is an excellent touch!