Microsoft Internet Explorer 7 released

It's here!

[swa66]

[microsoft.com...]

Time to check your sites for compatibility, esp. if you have MSIE 6 hacks in place.

[edited by: encyclo at 12:38 am (utc) on Oct. 19, 2006]

[encyclo]

From the News.com article [news.com.com]:

The browser is back.
Some 18 months after Bill Gates pledged to revamp Internet Explorer, Microsoft is ready with the final version of Internet Explorer 7. The new Web browser, which has been in testing for months, is now available for download from Microsoft's Web site.

[JeremyL]

So is IE7 going to automatically replace IE6 on my computer in the next few days if I auto updates on? I don't see a roll out schedule.

[encyclo]

The current message is that IE7 will be distributed via Windows Update in the next few weeks (rather than days). The upgrade is not a critical one, and end-users can decide to opt out if they don't want the new version.

[vincevincevince]

The installer looks pretty - almost like a child's toy. They missed out the icon on the executable and it now looks like a run-of-the-mill virus.
Downloading 'updates' is poor as there is no progress bar - just a scrolling indicator which starts at the beginning when it gets to the end - you have no idea if it's going to take a month or a minute to complete.
There's no stop or cancel option for the download updates phase - I killed it with the task manager after 5 minutes waiting.
The license terms to which you must agree refer you to a web-link ... useless if you don't have an internet connection (i.e. intranet deployment, isolated VM, etc.).
It forces you to validate windows, again reaffirming that despite the court order Microsoft still think it is acceptable to have the browser and the OS tied together.
There is no option to select only the malicious software removal tool or only the updates - you can choose both or neither.
The installation process itself also lacks a progress bar.
There is no minimise on the installer so despite it taking forever to do anything you can't send it down to the tray until it completes.
So far it's been 10 minutes 'Installing Windows Internet Explorer Core Components...' without a status bar. I'll post back if it ever completes.

--update--

It has now completed installing and forced a computer restart (why? surely Microsoft know how to update these things on-the-fly by now?). Took forever to load, asked various things including whether I wanted an anti-phishing filter.

I chose no anti-phishing filter - saved settings and pressed the home link - only to be rewarded by another popup offering the anti-phishing filter. It gave an option of 'turn off' or 'turn on' with no indication of current status. I chose 'turn off' (again), and was then given a pop-up balloon about the anti-phishing filter. Poor job all around on the anti-phishing filter - if I say no I mean no, now and forever.

The fonts look, err, awful. I don't know what they've done but they are all fuzzy around the edges. Bring back my nice crisp fonts please.

The biggest problem with the browser...? There are no menus. At first I thought it was in full-screen mode so pressed F11 but found it displayed even less. Please put my menus back in an intuitive place to match the rest of the operating system.

The colours are wrong. I can't believe that they would actually mess with the colours, but they are wrong. Colours no-longer match previous IE versions or firefox, even when defined by hex-code.

Balloons keep popping up asking if I want to know if a given site is a phishing site or not. Forget about it!

The biggest disappointment is that there is no animated paperclip to utter profanities such as 'It looks like you are writing an email, do you want to see help with writing emails?', 'It looks like you you are trying to search with Google, do you want to change to Microsoft Live search' or even 'You searched for uninstall this *$#!, do you want me to *#!#$ off?'.

[edited by: vincevincevince at 1:16 am (utc) on Oct. 19, 2006]

[Wlauzon]

IMO, IE7 is a huge improvment in many ways over IE6. I have been running the RC1 version, and just installed the final, and so far all seems to be working. Most of the little glitches I saw in RC1 seem to be gone.

I am hoping that for the most part that IE6 goes away as soon as possible, but I am sure there will be some holdouts.

So far it's been 10 minutes 'Installing Windows Internet Explorer Core Components..

Hmm.. my entire install took maybe 15 minutes total, and I had status bars. But maybe that was because I had the RC1 version already installed?

[edited by: Wlauzon at 1:11 am (utc) on Oct. 19, 2006]

[europeforvisitors]

The installation went fine here. It probably took 10-15 minutes on my 3-year-old Windows XP SP2 PC. (I would have liked one of those "X% done" thermometers instead of the constantly moving needle to show that things were happening, but that's just a personal preference.)

The only problem I had was in figuring out how to turn the menu toolbar on so I could view my "Favorites" explorer bar, since IE7 opened without either.

So far, IE7 seems to be working okay, although I think I liked the page rendering better in IE6. (Maybe that's because I've got "ClearType" enabled. ClearType does make Times New Roman type look very sharp and black on my 20" LCD monitor; it just doesn't look like Times New Roman.)

[Conard]

Pretty simple to get the menu back and to move things around to the old view. The only thing I don't like so far is the home link is on the right instead of the left as before.

I turned off all the extras and phishing checker first thing.

All my sites render and function just fine.

[CritterNYC]

And the security patches for IE7 will be released in 3... 2... 1...

[ideavirus]

Does the current Google toolbar release work with IE7?

I had RC1 installed and had enough problems... so just want to check, if it is okay now to install. ya i understand its a public release.

Thanks

[beavis]

Microsoft did a pathetic job with the layout. With FF, the forward, back, refresh, home buttons are all together logically. With IE 7, you've got to search all over the place. Cumbersome.

[CritterNYC]

Wait to install the Google toolbar until they say it is compatible with IE7. Same for any other toolbar, really.

[bill]

The Google Toolbar is listed as one of the top downloads [ieaddons.com] on the IE7 Add Ons [ieaddons.com] page. <added> (beware of that first link...it's an RSS feed)

[edited by: bill at 5:34 am (utc) on Oct. 19, 2006]

[webdoctor]

I can't find any information on corporate deployment of IE7.

How do I downloaded *all* the bits just like the easy-to-remember ie6setup.exe /c:"ie6wzd.exe /d /s:""#E" command you used for IE6 and then push them out to workstations using Group Policy software deployment?

[natural number]

I dislike the IE7 toolbar. I installed it after reading this post, gave it a chance, and went back. I can't believe they let it be released and it is laid out so poorly.

[bill]

To which IE7 toolbar do you refer? Google's? Most of the functions of the GG toolbar are built into IE7. I uninstalled that one immediately.

[mandarseo]

The facility that I liked in IE is new tabbed behaviour for surfing websites.

With regards,
Mandar Thosar

[mcavic]

The new layout is a model of absolute and utter stupidity. And the fonts are not an improvement for me.

[born2run]

I'll wait for IE 7 sp1

[aly4848]

Been using it for weeks now, like most I don't like change and nearly went back to old version after an hour but now I love it. Someone mentioned colours and fonts, I like the colours, more modern than old and fonts are crisp for me. Everything I used before is there plus more. Tabbed browsing is superb. I got nothing to complain about. Thanks MS

[idolw]

i love the font blur. makes it easy to read from monitor.
in fact, i am sort of paradox - a webmaster who hates reading from monitor.
ie7 helps a lot

[dillonstars]

Can you run a standalone version of IE6 (for checking) in XP once you have upgraded to IE7?

I found this - [webmasterworld.com...] - is that still the best way to do it?

I think I read on here somewhere that not all IE6 users will get auto-upgraded to IE7.. only those with XP. Is that right?

If so it will be important to be able to keep checking pages in IE6 as it renders very differently to IE7.

[sonny]

ie7 has something called cleartype which can be fine tuned. this might help with the font issues.

[musicales]

I'd like to turn off the cleartype option but can't see where to do it - anyone got any ideas? (I ticked it when I installed on the assumption I would be able to undo it later)

[Hester]

I am not aware that it renders "very differently". There are some bug fixes and also new bugs (!) but if you code to standards, your pages should be mostly the same.

The colours are wrong. I can't believe that they would actually mess with the colours, but they are wrong. Colours no-longer match previous IE versions or firefox, even when defined by hex-code.

I haven't noticed this myself in the standalone version of IE7 I've been testing with. I will look out for colour differences now!

i love the font blur. makes it easy to read from monitor.

You could always have got that in the past at any time by turning ClearType on in Windows. IE7 sins by forcing it on when it's only meant for LCD screens. Many people are still using CRTs. I do prefer it on my LCDs though.

I'd like to turn off the cleartype option but can't see where to do it - anyone got any ideas?

Right-click on the desktop, select Properties, then Appearance and hit the Effects button. That's the global setting, but I don't know if it also works with IE7.

[edited by: Hester at 10:39 am (utc) on Oct. 19, 2006]

[musicales]

just found the turn off cleartype option in IE under tools/internet options/advanced/multimedia

[adb64]

The first (less critical) advisory for IE7 is already on secunia [secunia.com].

[menton]

I am seeing a lot of movement when I click through the tabs... the one feature I do like is the overview of the pages you are looking at. Otherwise I don't see myself using it

[Rugles]

Well, the early reviews from WebmasterWorld seem "poor" to "ok".

I really do not want to install it but seem forced to do it right away to make sure my sites run properly in IE7. .... I am off to screw up a little used computer in this office somewhere.... fingers crossed.

[icantthinkofone]

Cnet recommends Firefox and Opera over IE7 [news.com.com] Notes non-web standards compliance.