IE7 Released and Available for Download

Luis Escalante writes "After over a year and a half, IE7 has been released to the public as of Monday afternoon. Download it directly here. Word hit the streets after several mangers of the IE division posted on the IE blog."

Security patches

[TommydCat (791543)]

in 3..2..1...

"funny" but true

[User 956 (568564)]

It's completely telling that the first comment on that page, is a comment by a guy who's worried IE7 is going to trash his computer [digitaltrends.com].

If that's the first reaction people have, firefox has a pretty good chance.

Re:"funny" but true

[shmlco (594907)]

And in typical Microsoft fashion, downloading and installing an internet BROWSER requires... what else? That you reboot your computer.

Maybe it IS integrated, after all...

Re:"funny" but true

[compupc1 (138208)]

IE 7 is actually less integrated than IE 6 was. However, the IE rendering engine is provided as a library for other applications to use. Any other applications that have embedded browser controls depend on IE -- and as they should. Applications should not have to deal with HTML rendering on their own. I would imagine this would cover everything from help systems to chat clients to things like the Add/Remove programs dialog.

Since other browsers don't come pre-installed on Windows computers, IE tends to be a neccesity (whether Windows should make it easier for applications to rely on other 3rd party browsers is a separate issue). As such, a system reboot is neccesary as the rendering engine itself, exposed as a library, must be updated. Basically it just ensures nothing is using the browser control at the time of update.

Re:"funny" but true

[/ASCII (86998)]

A perfect example of why the filesystem model in Windows is broken.

The kind of issue you describe is solved automatically by the filesystem on Unix systems. If one process deletes a file that is opened by any process, then that file will be unlinked from the filesystem, but remain useable to the process that was already using the file. The file is not actually deleted from disk until all processes stop using it.

Among many other things, this means that you can safely upgrade a library, or even a program, that is running. The old processes will keep running the old library with no issues but any new processes that are created will automatically use the new one. Once all old processes die, the space used by the old library is returned to the filesystem.

There are gotchas with the 'Unix way', like correctly handling configuration files that are only open on startup and shutdown, but these issues can be handled with a bit of care.

Under Linux, people routinely upgrade Firefox or even the X windowing system while the programs themselves are still running. Afterwards, they simply restart the program in question to run the new version.

Re:WARNING

[moresheth (678206)]

I know that this sounds like a troll, and you can mod it that way if you want, but it did really happen.

I already had RC2 installed on it. I downloaded the exe linked from the article and ran it.

It uninstalled the old IE, rebooted, worked on installing for about five minutes, then rebooted.

After that, it would get to the desktop without the menu bar at the bottom and show errors:

lsass.exe
The application failed to initialize properly. (0xc0000005) Click OK to terminate the application.

It had the same error for services.exe, and show them both twice.

After that, it does nothing.

This is just a warning for people. It screwed up mine, I assumed it was screwing up others, too.

Re:"funny" but true

[NetDanzr (619387)]

Same here. All it did after about fifteen minutes of installing was to give me the link to a IE Troubleshooting page [microsoft.com], where I found out that "Something has caused the computer not to trust the Internet Explorer 7 installation package."

It was bound to happen eventually: my computer became smarter than me....

Re:Security patches

[moresheth (678206)]

What's that sound?

Oh yeah, it's thousands of webmasters scrambling to test their sites on the latest mutilation of web standards.

Re:Security patches

[jZnat (793348)]

Since MS fixed the "* html" hack and a few others yet forgot to fix the rest of CSS they shit on, we're going to have fun with this one...

Re:Security patches

[Antique Geekmeister (740220)]

Oh, it's much worse: did you notice this part from the Webmaster checklist?

          HTTP content cannot be included in an HTTPS page (see the Internet Explorer Blog article).

Now expect the sound of thousands of admins whining as their critical mixed-content webpages fail to load, and the sound of millions of dollars of new servers and SSL accelerators to support SSL encryption of all the dancing bears on web servers that are signed into with HTTPS, but have all their image content on HTTP.

And oh, yes, expect the sounds of millions of tech support people with Indian accents getting phone calls from irate Americans and asking the inevitable question "Have you rebooted your computer, sir?" I hope Microsoft will pay for the new fiber-optic cable to support all the tech support calls.

This is going to be fun to watch, especially for web pages designed with old pieces of Microsoft design garbage like FrontPage.

Re:Opportunity for SSL vendors?

[panaceaa (205396)]

Actually, the change isn't as major as I thought. According to an IEBlog article [msdn.com]:

"In addition, users will no longer see the so-called Mixed-Content prompt, which read: This page contains both secure and nonsecure items. Do you want to see the nonsecure items? IE7 renders only the secure content and offers the user the opportunity to unblock the nonsecure content using the Information Bar. This is an important change because very few users (or web developers) fully understand the security risks of rendering HTTP-delivered content within a HTTPS page."

So basically, if pages previously displayed the Mixed-Content prompt, now they'll act slightly differently. But there's very few serious corporations or online services that display that error message, so I believe the impact on F5's revenues will be minimal. Oh well, I thought I was on to something :).

Oh thank Christ..

[QuantumG (50515)]

of course, I would have prefered them to have released it before I bowed to management and hacked around all the non-standard shit in IE6 which IE7 fixes. urg!

Several Mangers?

[Guido del Confuso (80037)]

Word hit the streets after several mangers of the IE division posted on the IE blog.

It's official--IE7 is the web browser used by Jesus!

User interface?

[FlyByPC (841016)]

So can the WMP-inspired interface be made to go away, and the interface made to look like a real Windows app (with the menu bar, and IE6-style controls etc?)

I think I'll stick to Firefox, thanks.

Re:User interface?

[Z34107 (925136)]

Hmmm... a cleaner interface is a bad thing because it was Microsoft that innovated?

IE7 leaves much more space open on your screen for actual web browsing compared to IE6 (or Firefox, or most any browser minus lynx). Everything's accessible from a toolbar that uses the same icons Windows and IE have used since the dawn of time. And your precious menus that'll make it look like a "real Windows app" are hidden by your "alt" key.

Office 2007 uses a "ribbon" - a tabbed toolbar. It's pretty damn slick - you don't need your drawing tools open unless you're editing a picture, so you go to your drawing tab. (Or, you can use the toolbar that hovers by your mouse when you start editing a picture, or the formatting toolbar that appears by your mouse when you select text, etc.) It's so much cleaner, and intuitive.

But Microsoft changed things. They're not ugly and just-barely functional anymore. That's why I'm getting a Mac.

A year and a half?

[gumpish (682245)]

After over a year and a half, IE7 has been released

I hate to break it to you Luis Escalante, but IE 6 was released in August 2001.

(Yes, strictly speaking 5 years is "over a year and a half", but the point remains.)

Re:A year and a half?

[Mikachu (972457)]

I believe he's referring to a year and a half since IE7's development was announced. According to wikipedia, that's about accurate. [wikipedia.org]

Anyone know

[kihjin (866070)]

... when the Linux port will be available? ;)

*ducks*

Competition

[Concern (819622)]

Once again, competition wins. Microsoft, after leveraging their monopoly power to win the browser wars, had summarily decided that there was no longer anything else in IE that needed work. IE was effectively frozen for years, bugs and all - cracked open, by stern policy, only for security fixes.

It took a free software effort with no hope of profit to do so, but MS has at long, long last bestirred themselves to code again. This has once again demonstrated the baseline of what MS' monopoly will do. Since it is not economically feasible to confront MS's monopoly powers, the commercial market for product X (browsers, office apps, OSs, etc) is effectively destroyed (sorry Opera), but at a minimum, MS is forced to compete against what the community can develop for free.

Never forget - human beings are lazy by design, and so are our organizations. No business, no politician, no religious leader, will exhibit much virtue except under threat. This is why competition and democracy have been largely effective as policy.

Whether MS wins or loses the browser war (or these days, the browser cold war), or the OS war, we have already won, because we have pushed them to innovate, to make their products more stable, more credible, and more powerful.

Re:Competition

[Kelson (129150)]

And best of all, Microsoft has realized they have to keep going [microsoft.com]:

Dave Massy (Moderator):
Q: Now that IE7 is nearing completion, can you give any information on how regularly you plan to release future versions of IE?
A: We definitely plan to release on a regular basis. Exactly when the next release will be is difficult to predict adn we still have plenty of planning and work to do. You can be assured that it will not be 5 years until the next release of IE though :) we are plannign the next two versions now.

Nice Troll

[pedestrian crossing (802349)]

I'll bite...

And yet, Linux continues to be the same impossible-to-use monstrosity it has always been.

My wife and kid do fine with it, thank you very much, and we do a lot more with our computers than most folks I know.

It is truly fascinating how the open source community can stand there like deer in the headlights congratulating themselves on how their most powerful competitor is learning so much from them. Microsoft is now creating open standards, open formats, even open source applications - not one hundred percent of the time, but hey, they're doing it! They're starting to look more and more like us.

You are correct, not 100% of the time. In fact, not even 0.1% of the time. But if they open up at all, that's a good thing. It's not a competition in the traditional sense of snarfing up market. It's a competition to be Free, which is a win-win, always. If they become more Free, good. It's not like Free has to try to be less Free in order to 'compete'.

Hey, wait a minute. Why don't we look more like Microsoft? Where's our readily accessible documentation localised in dozens of languages?

Here. [debian.org]

Where's our toll-free licensing hotline?

Not necessary. We don't compete on their terms! But if you must, this [gnu.org] will do...

Where's our reliable and knowledgeable tech support team?

Choose your interface. I like this [google.com]. BTW, it is very difficult and unwieldy to get MS tech support (human, not website) for the average user. I have never heard anyone say, "Gee, MS tech support is so reliable, knowledgeable, and easy to use!"

Our software assurance subscription that actually sends a disc in the mail when there's an update?

1990 called, they want their software distribution model back!

apt-get update && apt-get upgrade

You know what really bugs me? That last one. I used to pay $4.95 a month for a quarterly package of three major Linux distributions. I liked that. So how come now I only get that from Microsoft?

Apples and oranges. MSDN releases are limited. Linux distributions are free to use as you please.

Honestly, people. Why is Microsoft getting so much better, while *we're* really starting to SUCK?

ROTFLMAO!! We continue to get better all the time, certainly at a faster rate than the 'competition'. I would know, I actually -use- Free software, instead of trolling about it.

And on a more pressing note, just look how much closer those headlights are getting! So how many seconds to *SPLAT*?

There is no splat. Free is pretty tough to make go away.

Alternate download link

[by Anonymous Coward]

www.ie7.com [ie7.com]

IE division mangers

[mybecq (131456)]

... after several mangers of the IE division posted on the IE blog.

Several cattle and horses also tried to post, but they were quickly herded back into the cubicles.

CSS Opacity

[Ark42 (522144)]

If IE5.5+ supports "filter: alpha(opacity=50);" why couldn't they be bothered to add "opacity: 0.5;" CSS supoprt to IE7. At least they got the Alpha PNGs working good enough now. Also the <input type="button"> still renders with tons of extra padding you can't get rid of, even with padding: 0px; so buttons still show up super large in IE compared to all the other browsers.

Subtle Naming changes

[Chapium (550445)]

Did anyone notice its Windows Internet Explorer 7 and not Microsoft Internet Explorer 7?

Re:Subtle Naming changes

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

Yeah, it's so that when you load up Vista for the first time, your Start menu will be jam-packed with Windows Internet Explorer, Windows Mail, Windows Media Center, Windows Media Player, Windows Live Messenger download, Windows Calendar, Windows Defender, and more.

The marketing group controls Microsoft now, which makes sense since the guy leading it, Ballmer, is a marketing guy. It's the reason we have 14 versions of Vista coming out.

Tabs!

[BeeBeard (999187)]

Guys, you've gotta try this tabbed browsing! Have you ever seen anything like it before?!?

*wink*

10 Minutes from Installation to UnInstallation

[wjramsey (461694)]

Here's my experience:
1) Install IE7 since it's out of beta - downloads and installs in about 2 minutes.
2) Reboot PC - 1 minute
3) Enable menu bar - 2 minutes trying to get it to move to the top. Nope
4) Try to change search engine to Altavista - 2 minutes - exception thrown just typing a letter in the search menu.
5) Remove IE7 - 2 minutes
6) Reboot - 1 minute

(I guess I might have also added the about 5 minutes svchost ran my cpu to 100% after the first reboot)

How horrible..... :(

How widely will this be used?

[jez9999 (618189)]

We hear reports of huge numbers of corporate machines using a warezed XP key to allow them to install Windows en masse; huger numbers of people in countries in Asia, etc. that can't afford an official copy of XP and so warez it.

How widely will IE7 be installed? I think a relatively large percentage of the Windows userbase will be unable to install it because of the WGA stuff. You might end up with a long term 50/50 split between IE6 and IE7.

I prefer to think of it as...

[patio11 (857072)]

"Yay, finally half of my incoming support calls will vanish without me needing to make a housecall to install Firefox first."

Headline 3-4 years from now...

[suggsjc (726146)]

I completely agree that not having *all* of the CSS support is a bummer. However, it is a minor piece of the puzzle in the grand scheme of things. You can't count on all of your users having an updated browser. You (in general) have to code to the lowest common denominator. Sites are just now starting to drop support NN4, but IE5 is still a big player. So...this is actually a headline for about 3-4 years in the future when people are considering having to accomodate IE7 and its shortcomings, and consequentially considering dropping support. Today, I still sit in backwards compatibility hell...tomorrow doesn't look good either.

Re:Be glad

[suggsjc (726146)]

Web dev is an understatment. When I release this beauty upon the tubes, well not sure what is going to happen, but hopefully it will be good.

Actually I'm designing a site from the ground up. Trying to do everything* right. Semantic markup, accesibility, proper source ordering, user customizable/specifiable everything...AND trying to accomodate most all browsers or degrade nicely. Its currently just me, but I've got a few other people that are about to come in and start working on it as well.

I'm doing this on the side, so no I wouldn't be out of a job, just gain a lot of spare time. Actually even if I could guarantee that all of my users would use the same 100% standards compliant browser I'd still have to make some of the same decisions...layouts, color schemes, etc. not to mention just implementing features...

I've mainly been focusing on making sure my markup is *perfect*. CSS can't do everything, but the nice thing is that if done correctly, you can turn CSS off and still be able to use the site. Same goes for javascript. My first version will require no javascript and all future core features will be able to run without it as well. AJAX and all this "Web2.0" hype is going to take a backseat to functionality, they'll be added as needed in future releases. I also like to test the experience from using a PDA. What's nice about this approach is that my "full" version and "mobile" version are the exact same codebase.

To top it all off, it has been developed entirely using...drumroll...vi(m).

Every "web dev" should do what I am doing at least once, so they can understand how sites work and not use their WYSIWYG "tools" as crutches and actually understand (x)HTML, CSS, and javascript. Dreamweaver is killing the web!

Re:Ah yes.....

[wkitchen (581276)]

The massive stampede to go out and download this truly amazing piece of software.

chirp...

chirp...

Re:Actually

[arth1 (260657)]

Sadly, you still can't ignore IE.

Watch me.

Re:Actually

[bcat24 (914105)]

Sadly, you still can't ignore IE.

That's not necessarily sad. As a hobbist/freelance web developer, I love that Microsoft is finally starting to get their act together. A more secure, more standards-compliant, less buggy IE is a Good Thing for almost everybody. It might not be perfect -- I was hoping for CSS display: table support -- but it's a nice place to begin.

Re:Actually

[Overly Critical Guy (663429)]

Frankly, IE7 is a disaster in terms of a sane interface. It's bizarre--toolbar buttons on the same row with the tabs, giving you less space. A weird mini-tab always visible. Stop and refresh over on the right side of the address bar. The weird button+drop-down menu motif of the toolbar.

It's 2006, and Microsoft STILL hasn't learned how to simplify its interfaces? On the contrary, they're complicating them even further.

Re:What happened?

[eebra82 (907996)]

How come this is on Slashdot before news about Flash Player 9 for Linux?

Let's see now.. It's the world's most widely used internet browser. It's probably the most commonly used application in the world. It marks the date when Microsoft finally started to worry about Firefox. It is a huge improvement over IE6. Yeah, I guess that makes this news more important, despite the fact that Slashdot is more Linux oriented.

Last but not least, your complaint is ignorant because not only is there no such thing as a race for news, but a lot of people might find the IE vs FF wars more interesting, too. You know, almost 90 percent of the world's users browse with IE, so there's a pretty good chance that at least a few Slashdot users will enjoy this story.

Re:What happened?

[electronerdz (838825)]

What worries me about the Flash player update are the people who are downloading it:

THANK YOU A BILLION TIMES!!! OMG THIS IS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GREAT. FINALLY AN ALSA-FLASHPLAYER!!
still cant believe it =)
niiiiiiiiiiiice nicenicenicenicenicennice.!!

*kisses*

OMG!!! PONIES!!!

Re:What happened?

[njchick (611256)]

There are many web developers here. IE7 will affect them much more than Flash for Linux.

Re:What happened?

[MillionthMonkey (240664)]

Oddly enough it won't. It will only affect web developers who code to non-standards. Most of us code to a set of standards so that all our code can work well in ALL browsers not just IE. Those who focus on IE only and use IE specific tags and ActiveX usually put themselves out of a job by neglecting a large percentage of the market

You've obviously never coded a page that had to display correctly on IE.

Re:What happened?

[babbling (952366)]

Flash 9 for Linux is newsworthy, too, but this is a new version of the best Firefox download tool available on Windows!

Re:What happened?

[Sancho (17056)]

I may be paranoid, but on a new install of Windows, I usually use FTP to get Moz builds. Just in case I mistype the name or something and hit a site with malware.

Re:What happened?

[Kelson (129150)]

Hmm... Number of people worldwide who use Internet Explorer vs. number of people worldwide who (a) use Linux, (b) want to have Flash animations in their browser, and (c) are OK with installing the proprietary Flash player.

I'd say based on numbers alone, the new IE release qualifies as "stuff that matters."

(P.S. Thanks for the link -- that's great news!)

Re:What happened?

[MikeFM (12491)]

Dude, Flash is one of the few things that sucks worse than IE. On any OS it's buggy, poorly designed, and frequently misused. When Flash is cleaned up and opened up enough to be fully intergrated into IE, Firefox, Opera, and Safari in the least then it might be worth caring about. The general concept of plug-ins has proven to lead to a sucky web browsing experience even if the average user isn't aware that it's these crappy plug-ins making their browser crash, run slow, give confussing plug-in required messages, and sites that are poorly indexed by search engines, have strange hard to use interfaces, and difficult to use for people with accessibility needs.

Just say no to plug-ins for things like Flash. They can be useful at times but in the vast majority of uses they are only used because programmers are to lazy, stupid, or harried by lazy stupid bosses to use more compatible solutions that do the exact same things.

IE7 isn't that big of news to us geeks but it is a huge relief to us as it goes mainstream - it isn't as good as Firefox, Safari, or Opera but it is worlds better than IE6 and will make it much easier to develop nice websites without having to disable everything cool because it doesn't work in IE. Of course it'll be a few years before the majority of users have updated but at least the process has begun.

If only Microsoft wasn't so lame as to make it difficult for developers to run IE6 and IE7 side by side.

Re:What happened?

[jez9999 (618189)]

Dude, Flash is one of the few things that sucks worse than IE. On any OS it's buggy, poorly designed, and frequently misused.

I don't think I agree with that analysis. With the arrival of things like YouTube and Google Video, it's starting to be used properly and implemented well. These companies get large numbers of people using their services mainly because they can pretty much assume Flash 7 is installed on the vast majority of browsers and they know they have it available. Would streaming video over the net be anywhere near as popular if they required an MPG-compatible embedded media player? I rather doubt it; we had those before, and they never got as popular.

Re:What happened?

[hdparm (575302)]

I wonder what is it that she knows about Windows? Does she double-click icons in some other way? Or is it that she can't switch because she is a devoted gamer?

Re:What happened?

[sumdumass (711423)]

No, no no.. It is that grandma doesn't do much of anything but cause problems with her windows allowing me to come over and fix it. I look like a genuis and I am pretty much guarenteed a place in her will.

Fist, I try the trained monkey thing were I just click things and see what happens. If that doesn't work, I try looking for help on the interweb, If that doesn't work I'll post something on a message board or maybe microsoft's help and support mailing list, If still nothing after a day or so, I just reload everything and talk about how tuff it was. I might even throw out some scarry words like virus, spyware and malware. Generaly it isn't any of them but grandma has heard just enough of it on the eveniing news to know it is something to be reconed with.

Now everything works and I'm the hero! You see, If i install linux, I would likley loose the chance of being the hero, possible the spot in her will, and if something actualy did mess up, I would have to call someone who actualy knows something to fix it. So windows is good, linux is bad.

Automatic update

[Kelson (129150)]

You'll be glad to know it's possible to block the automatic update [microsoft.com] to IE7.

Re:People will be working hard tonight!

[aussie_a (778472)]

Customer: Where can I locate this sexy girlfriend?

Agent: Just go to firefox.com

Customer: But.... I can't. My internet is broken. I already told you that.

Agent: Aaaaah... I gotta go. Bye.

Re:My First impressions

[Crayon Kid (700279)]

The second thing is that the /. main page doesn't render correctly.

Which brings home an interesting point. Are we going to see complaints that "IE7 doesn't work right" because of millions of sites using IE6-specific hacks? I mean, "they" used to pull that crap with Opera and Mozilla and Firefox a lot, claiming it was their fault. Can't wait to see the downfall this time, when IE7 gets a taste of Microsoft's own medicine.