Microsoft to force upgrade to IE7 on Feb. 12th

Will be automatic unless steps are taken to prevent

[Marcia]

Microsoft has warned corporate administrators that it will push a new version of Internet Explorer 7 their way next month, and it has posted guidelines on how to ward off the automatic update if admins want to keep the older IE6 browser on their companies' machines.

Microsoft warns businesses of impending autoupdate to IE7 [infoworld.com]

[encyclo]

This is generally speaking good news, as overall everyone wins:

- the end users win because they get a safer browser than IE6.
- webmasters win because everyone who moves away from IE6 is one more step towards not having to support that browser.
- Microsoft wins because they can concentrate on fixing bugs in one browser not two.

Of course it's not the death-knell for IE6 just yet, as corporate users won't be part of the forced upgrade.

[Marcia]

The way I read the story is that corporate users will automatically have the update push unless they take steps beforehand to prevent it.

Personally, I've got two computers, one with IE6 and the other one with IE7, and have had unresolved problems and annoyances with IE7 since the upgrade. So the IE6 machine will automatically upgrade unless I disable autoupdate, which is what I intend to do.

It's a secondary issue, but there are CSS inconsistencies with IE6 and not everyone out there allows autoupdates, so IE6 won't disappear completely.

[kaled]

Just out of interest, will illegal (or suspected illegal) copies of XP be upgraded. When I downloaded IE 7 for testing (ages ago) I seem to recall there was some WGA stuff to get through.

Kaled.

[mikedee]

IE7 has already been pushed out to all desktop users via windows update (they removed WGA). This announcement is only for corporate desktops updated via WSUS.

Anyone know when we can expect IE8? IE7 seems like a halfway house.

[Dabrowski]

Woohoo! No more IE6 hacks! :-D

will illegal (or suspected illegal) copies of XP be upgraded

Kaled, yes IE7 will attempt to validate when it's installed, regardless of whether your copy of XP is validated or not.

[edited by: tedster at 6:19 pm (utc) on Jan. 22, 2008]

[swa66]

Time to start to add

 <!--[if IE 6]>
  <p style="font-size:200%; color:red; background-color:yellow; font-weight: bold">Please <a href="http://www.windowsupdate.com">update</a> your browser for enjoying all features of this website.</p>
 <![endif]-->

Perhaps add a <blink>? :evil grin:

Or will that bit of CSS confuse it already ;-)

Alternatively you can also promote e.g. Firefox instead and earn a bit of money in the relevant referral program.

The faster we can get rid of IE6 the better. Actually the same is true to some extend or IE7: we really need compliance with standards, hence the push for IE8 or any other browser.

Unfortunately I'm still getting 48% of the IE using visitors on IE6.

[mikedee]

Even if you do not pirate XP yourself, you can still be interested if IE7 installs onto it, since a large number of the internet uses a pirated copy, the number of IE6 users will depend on this.

Here is the (semi-)official announcement to say the dirty pirates can have IE7.

Because Microsoft takes its commitment to help protect the entire Windows ecosystem seriously, we’re updating the IE7 installation experience to make it available as broadly as possible to all Windows users. With today’s “Installation and Availability Update,” Internet Explorer 7 installation will no longer require Windows Genuine Advantage validation and will be available to all Windows XP users.

[blogs.msdn.com...]

[rominosj]

I have been using Firefox for two years, so no big deal to me.

[Marcia]

I've still got 85-90% IE visitors to sites, so IE is a priority and there are still too many problems with IE7 to give it up completely:

[webmasterworld.com...]

[webdoctor]

IE7 has already been pushed out to all desktop users via windows update

Not really ... IE7 has been OFFERED to all desktop users via Windows Update / Automatic Updates. Not every user installs all the stuff that MSFT offers to them!

[junkiet]

if you use IE7 for long time, the IE7 will be loading slowly, and also sometimes it will open new tabs by itself.

Someone who knows how it is? why? I met that problem, now I'm very hate it, because it makes my PC got hanging, so i prefer to use FF now.

[centime]

only for xp users & vista users surely

[Dabrowski]

the IE7 will be loading slowly, and also sometimes it will open new tabs by itself

This is typical behaviour of Adware, download AVG anti-virus and Windows Defender, both free to use....

[free.grisoft.com...]
[microsoft.com...]

(incidentally, Vista comes with Defender included as standard)

only for xp users & vista users surely

As W2K is beyond the 7 year support time now, I imagine IE7 probably won't deploy to W2K anyway.

Don't know if anyone here has tried that?

[LifeinAsia]

open new tabs by itself.

I just started messign with it- the message I saw was somethign about having to open a new window/tab if you visit a site in a different security zone.

[aaronmicalowe]

I upgraded to Firefox because it was faster and more stable than IE 6. Just installed IE 7 and it loads webpages faster, loads the application itself faster and also changes tabs faster (on my old comp). So, looks like MS sneaked ahead again and I'll be switching back to IE (I know - I have no conscience).

[vincevincevince]

aaronmicalowe; try the new Firefox beta - you'll probably flip back the other way again!

[junkiet]

i used AVG already, but it is still same, no any help.. :(

[rominosj]

I would stay with Firefox.

[balam]

As W2K is beyond the 7 year support time now, I imagine IE7 probably won't deploy to W2K anyway.

Don't know if anyone here has tried that?

As I W2K user, I'll verify that IE7 is not available.

[aaronmicalowe]

vincevincevince:

It just occured to me that maybe the reason why my FF is slower is because of the tons of plugins and addons I've put on it, whereas my IE7 doesn't have any. FF loaded up quickly before and I've done the usual OS and disk optimisations. No doubt if I put all the DivX, Flash, Shockwave, Real, Quicktime, Adobe, Media Player, Java etc plugins onto IE 7 then it won't be quite so quick either.