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Microsoft Offers IE7 to All, Pirates Included
Posted by
Zonk
on Sat Oct 06, 2007 03:58 PM
from the so-generous dept.
from the so-generous dept.
sjdurfey writes "Microsoft recently decided to open up IE7 to all users of Windows, not just the ones with legitimate copies of Windows. They claim it is in the 'end-users best interest'. As a result, Microsoft has decided to mark IE7 as a 'High-priority' update. This is essentially a forced update. Granted, its only a forced update if you are running Windows and have windows update set to automatically install all updates, but nevertheless, it's unnecessary. You can however uninstall IE7 from the Add/Remove Programs menu after its been installed. 'A blocking tool kit is still available for companies and organizations that don't use Windows Server Update Services and want to permanently prevent IE7 from automatically installing on PCs equipped with IE6.'" Update: 10/06 21:19 GMT by Z :Sorry if this seems a bit familiar.
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Internet Explorer Drops WGA Requirement 220 comments
Kelson writes "The Internet Explorer team has updated the installer for IE7. Mostly they've adjusted a few defaults and updated their tutorials, but one change stands out: The installer no longer requires Windows Genuine Advantage validation. Almost a year after its release, IE7 has yet to overtake its predecessor. Was WGA holding back a tide of potential upgrades, or did it just send people over to alternative browsers?"
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IE7 on Linux? (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:IE7 on Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
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But not on Windows 2000 (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:But not on Windows 2000 (Score:4, Informative)
http://tredosoft.com/Multiple_IE [tredosoft.com]
http://tredosoft.com/IE7_standalone [tredosoft.com]
Works an absolute treat. The only problem I've come across (aside from a few sporadic crashes) is that some of the IE version don't identify themselves as the appropriate IE version when using [If IE x] tags to call different stylesheets in the XHTML. There areregistry fixes for this, but I don't have links to hand.
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
Yes [msdn.com].
The only downside is that the virtual machine image is time-bombed to expire in December 2007. They usually release a new version of the image a month or so before it expires, each image lasting around 6-8 months. Since you only use this for testing it shouldn't be a big deal.
The alternative is to use one of several methods that allow you to have both IE6 and IE7 installed on the same machine, but this rarely works 100%. The most common problems
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Unfortunately... (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re: (Score:3, Informative)
On the plus side, conditional comments [quirksmode.org] help with that. They make it much easier to target a section of HTML or a stylesheet link to only IE6, or only IE7, or only IE up through 7, etc. And since they're intended functionality, not bugs, they're less likely to stop working in the future.
Re:IE7 on Linux? (Score:5, Informative)
Considerable amount?
html/xhtml support went from 73% to 73%
css 2.1 support went from 51% to 56%
Yeah, sure that is better than before, but they are still far behind the other browsers:
Firefox 2:
html/xhtml: 90%
css 2.1: 92%
Opera 9:
html/xhtml: 85%
css 2.1: 94%
http://www.webdevout.net/browser-support-summary [webdevout.net]
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Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
I used to work for a company where the attitude towards Firefow web browsers was "They are a small percentage of the browser market. If your page works in Firefox then that's great but if it doesn't we don't really care enough to fix it."
In other words it doesn't matter how much of the officia
"open up IE7 to all users of Windows" (Score:4, Informative)
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Re: (Score:2, Funny)
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Competition (Score:5, Insightful)
counterpoint (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Competition (Score:4, Insightful)
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Stranger Daze||Days (Score:4, Interesting)
I was robbed! (Score:5, Funny)
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I'm Siding with MS on This (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
IE6 is still standard in many places that would have no problem with WGA (nice XP pro corprate edition with legit keys, just have to make sure your key doesn't get leaked to widely or you could have a LOT of rekeying to do). Afaict the main reason is intranet apps (either inhouse developed or bought in) that only work properly with IE6 and which are difficult, expensive or even impossible to fix.
I know that here at the university of manchester they officially do not support IE7 (though many machines tha
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
Please support all gecko based browsers. I run Seamonkey and it is very irritating when sites only support Firefox.
There is no reason that a gecko based browser has to masquerade as Firefox
A forced update? (Score:5, Funny)
Yes, if you have configured your computer to automatically download and install "high priority" as well as "critical" updates, and if you haven't installed the well-publicized, one-click tool that Microsoft provides that explicitly overrides any other settings and prevents you from ever accidentally installing IE7, you are "forced" to sit there and watch as your computer does exactly what you've configured it to do.
I had a similar problem with Ubuntu the other day - I have this script that automatically apt-gets any updated packages, and damned if the thing didn't force me to update all my packages that had updates! Commie bloodsuckers won't get my money again.
But Ubuntu lets you go back (Score:2)
That is one thing that I always hated about windows, once you "upgrade" there is no turning back.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Ah, you must be a trolling Apple fanboi. Any Windows user knows about the "Reinstall" hack. From personal experience.
Gotcha!
Why all the hate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Speaking as a web developer, IE7 makes my life a hell of a lot easier. It's not perfect (it's not even great), but it's definitely better than IE6. If all the people still using IE magically became IE7 users, at least I wouldn't have to worry about some of the retarded things like the lack of alpha PNG support. I can understand that you might not want to upgrade if you're a business with a variety of web apps that rely on IE6--my heart goes out to you--but I would really like to see it pushed on the home user. Another legitimate complaint, of course, is that the GUI for IE7 is not what I would call intuitive; I do wish Microsoft had provided a version with IE6's GUI but IE7's rendering engine.
We should be trying to make the web incrementally better whenever possible, instead of making snide remarks because it's not a 100% solution.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
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antiMS feelings of slashdot. [rightfully so]
as a web designer you probably appreciate firefox, opera and pretty much every other browser follwing the standards better than IE. there isn't really a technical reason why IE doesn't follow the standards, it seems to be sole
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as a web designer you probably appreciate firefox, opera and pretty much every other browser follwing the standards better than IE. there isn't really a technical reason why IE doesn't follow the standards, it seems to be solely to lock out the competition. look how many webpages have been written for IE and to hell with other browsers... the bast thing MS could do in the situation would be to remove any roadblocks, artificial or technical to adopting their browser and by extension any standards, OSes etc. that tie in with that. it's in their best interests to get people accustomed to using their software, pirated or otherwise. at least in that case they aren't using anyone else's browser.
Heh, it's like you didn't even read what you commented on. IE7 isn't perfect so yes, some of what you say still apply, but it's much better off than IE6, so they're at least lesser problems than before.
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And ditto for CSS. Although IE7's CSS support isn't perfect, it's waaaay better than IE6's.
I can understand that you might not want to upgrade if you're a business with a variety of web apps that rely on IE6--my heart goes out to you...
My heart doesn't go out to those businesses (although it might go out to their IT staffs). Anyone who hitc
Not all users of Windows. (Score:5, Informative)
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pirates my eye, arrr (Score:3, Interesting)
Catch-22 is the Reason (Score:2)
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Ah (Score:2)
My first thought (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft has all but admitted to the trend (Score:5, Insightful)
Gone are the days when people are excited by the next thing from Microsoft. (I remember lines outside of CompUSA when Win98 was released!) Gone are the days when people just blindly 'upgrade' to whatever is the latest thing from Microsoft. People have learned to mistrust them. Microsoft granting 'concessions' isn't really enough! They've lost TRUST. That can't really be restored with concessions and free stuff. Regardless of whether people actually accept the concessions or not is no indication that trust could be earned back or restored.
Nope. Something Else is Going On (Score:2)
E7's "are you sure?" endlessly maddening "security" model is the antithesis of innovation and Genuine Disadvantage (dude that's funny!) is not the deal maker here.
I think investors are tired of hearing about browser alt
forced updates (Score:3, Insightful)
Thank god, now if just everyone installed it (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh I don't mean the linux or the mac or the firefox or the opera people, these people I don't care about. NOT because they don't matter, but because if a website doesn't work for their browser version they know that they must upgrade.
But the windows people, that is a different bunch of idiots, and I for one am sick to death of having to design each and every site to cope with the most obsolete version of IE. IE is already bad enough to code for, but the different version (Extreme cases 4) are a nightmare, not only do they not support any kind of standard, among the versions there is no standard. That is not even beginning to talk of the horror that is the mobile versions of IE.
I finally managed to have to only support from 5 onward and just accept that those with IE's older then that can just go and stuff themselves, IF (and I doubt this will happen) the cattle is FORCED to go to IE7 it will still mean I got to code to a crap browser but at least only one version of it.
Offcourse that won't happen, you still got people not on XP and people running CE and got knows what else kinda MS crap that has been making website design a living nightmare since MS found out about the web.
It is still amazing to me that in 2007 we still can't do implement those "cool things" from the mozilla demo page like the moving shadow because IE users can't be bothered to upgrade. This is 2007, and if you want to change the bankground color of a page, you better include a new set of images for all those "transparant" effects like the slashdot logo has (png support).
I would go further then just a forced upgrade, use IE7 or a real browser of you just don't get on the net anymore. Or maybe I should just work on sites where the audience is educated enough to upgrade their software. I am just sick to death of having to say "no, we can't do that cool thing because X% of our customers browsers don't support it and NO I cannot do a "this page best viewed with X link" because it ain't the 90's anymore.
Dropping WGA requirement (Score:2)
Re:Dropping WGA requirement (Score:5, Insightful)
* People bought a copy, and upgraded every computer they owned. And probably their parents' computer, too, if they were feeling particularly masochistic. Even the old, lame, and barely-running PCs & laptops that nobody would EVER spend $200 or more buying a separate copy of Windows for.
* People upgraded their work computers. This made admins unhappy, but it also forced them to deploy new versions of Windows a lot faster than they'd have otherwise liked, because they knew that the longer they waited, the more guerrilla upgrades they'd have to deal with. Most people who'll install a "free" copy of Windows to their work PC won't spend $200+ of their own money to buy a new copy of Windows for it.
In short, by locking down Windows to a single installation, Microsoft has gained very, very few actual new retail sales compared to what they would have had... but they've lost a HUGE amount of mindshare and free PR. Is there anyone who SERIOUSLY believes that Vista's issues with apps & drivers would have dragged on as long as they have if Vista had become ubiquitous overnight the way Windows95 did? By limiting Vista installations, Microsoft has effectively ensured that Vista represents a minority of Windows users. A minority whose wails have thus far been largely ignored by the next group...
THESE are the REALLY dangerous users, because they're the "influencers" who others turn to for advice. And these are the same users who are currently pissed as hell at Microsoft for annoying them with WGA, and want nothing to do with Vista due to its DRM (real or imagined). God forbid, they might even be playing with Ubuntu on one or more machines. So... when Joe Sixpack asks his coworker Joel Aleet what he thinks about Vista, Joel is going to roast Microsoft and Vista, regardless of whether he's ever actually touched Vista. And Joe is going to walk away convinced that Vista is the Spawn of Satan, and when he orders his new PC from Dell, he'll ask to get it with XP. Stir, rinse, and repeat a few hundred thousand times, and you have Vista's current plight.
IMHO, Microsoft had the product breakdown mostly right with Windows XP -- a "Home" edition that's cheap, but lacks networking & management features businesses want, and a "Pro" version with everything else for about 50% more. If they really, REALLY had to, they could add a third level -- "Enterprise" -- that cost a lot more, but with a twist: it would come on the same CD/DVD as "Professional", and simply ask you at installation time which version you had. In other words, enforced purely by legal license rather than by technical means (like a different CD key). Why? Because it's a wonderfully-elegant way of ensuring that TRUE "Enterprise" users pay the higher cost, without burdening or pissing off everyone else. IMHO, the defining trait of an "Enterprise" (vs simply a "business") i
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Not News (Score:2)
Is this news? Microsoft pushing for the latest marketable thing, regardless of need or desire?
Please, just take it!! (Score:3, Funny)
IE7 64, very secure browser? (Score:4, Insightful)
There was at least one exploit against IE that didn't involve shellcode - you could ask a particular ActiveX control to download and run a program. Obviously IE 64 wouldn't be immune to that...
Arrrgh! (Score:3, Funny)
end user's best interest? (Score:3, Insightful)
It's in Microsoft's best interest that they regain market share.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)