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Internet Explorer 7 To Be XP Only

Posted by Zonk on Sat Jul 23, 2005 03:33 PM
from the more-for-the-fox dept.
Internet Explorer Mozilla The Internet IT
WindozeSux writes "The new Microsoft browser, Internet Explorer 7 will only be available for users of Windows XP. However, due to the fact the that a large amount of Windows users do not own Windows XP, IE7 is expected to boost the amount of Firefox users. From the article: 'Improvements in Firefox, along with IE 7 restrictions, could lead to a dramatic increase in the open-source browser's market share, according to Dotzler.'"
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  • Another Dupe, Zonk (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:34PM (#13145534)
    No IE7 For 2k, Now In Extended Service [slashdot.org]... posted by ZONK! More proof he doesn't read things he approves.

  • Stop the spread of Firefox! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:35PM (#13145536)
    This is getting scary.

    We must fight against the Mozilla organization, for it distributes a "gateway OSS", which leads users down the path towards more powerful OSS, such as perl and emacs, which can be downright dangerous, leading to all sorts of permanent afflictions such as repetitive stress syndrome (featured in the well-known film, "Ctrlfinger"), as well as a gluttonous addiction to loosely typed programming languages. Over time, they tend to turn into "hackers," exploiting and even distributing OSS from their basements. This is just the first stage.

    In Stage II, they join nefarious communities, with alien names such as "comp.theory," even wasting weeks and weeks to learn foreign languages just to communicate in locations such as "ruby-dev". They also begin typing in tongues. Just the other day, at our clinic, I walked across one addict with a window open, or I think it was a window -- the screen was all weird with footprints and insignia all over it, and in it he was writing material which looked like text yet did not read like text. It looked like he was trying to express something with a violent combination of chomps and chops and splices!

    At Stage III, they begin idol-worship -- of demons and penguins, displaying their idols in public with stickers on their laptops. They begin to find pleasure in strange, alien activities, like changing their keyboard layouts around so that nobody else can use them, and buying calculators that read in input in some backwards order, with no equals key, and then they become fanatics who insist that everybody should learn this backwards method! If you ever see somebody lend out a calculator and then smirk when a borrower innocently walks away, you know they have reached Stage III.

    At Stage IV, they wonder how to emulate their freshly bought calculator on their computer, in one of the tongues that they have learned. Those who have spent weeks of using the powerful and addictive OSS called perl begin to write "rpn.pl" in progressively smaller scripts, using that violent abortion of chops and slices. First, they make one that works in twelve lines, which is unhealthily short already. Then they naturally levitate towards three lines, two lines, one and a half lines, exhibiting some obsession towards achieving their goal in less than 80 characters. Some succeed, but only after several nervous breakdowns and complete distachment from spouse and family. Some begin their ramblings with references to primates, as seen in one quotation I've seen,

    perl -ape 'eval(("\$s[-2]$_=pop\@s",q[push@s,$_])[!/^[-+*\/] $/])for@F;$_="$s[-1]\n"'

    If they succeed, this usually means that Stage V has been reached. It is believed that they begin to realize that they are seriously damaged, because they rather suddenly start mumbling about the "brainfuck" they're enduring. This realization dies away quickly, as they type out long meaningless random strings.

    Occasionally, they manage to come out from their mental ruts, but only for short periods of time. These spells give our researchers a rare glimpse at what happens to their minds, as they make repeated references to things that don't exist, except perhaps in their hallucinations. They still have connections to their dreamworld. For example, I mentioned to one patient about how my niece got an A++ on a recent examination in school. And the patient replied, "She got a B? Well, better luck next time." He must have misheard, or so I thought, so I answered, "No, she got an A++," enunciating the A + + slowly. And the patient smiled knowingly, responding: "Exactly. I hope she gets an A next time." I gave up on that conversation.

    There are further stages of this terrible affliction, but they would be too graphic to list here. My point is, this "Firefox" isn't just a harmless OSS that causes minor but and temporary impairment; it is the first step of a path towards destruction, and we must fight its spread with all our resources.

  • Skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SnAzBaZ (572456) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:37PM (#13145543) Homepage
    I doubt this will cause a 'dramatic' increase. The kind of people not running XP aren't the kind of people who care about upgrading their browser either. They will probably stick with IE5/6 whatever they are currently using and continue to be oblivious to the options available to them. Those people who are even following IE7 or even care, are the kind of people who are already using Firefox/Opera/etc anyway.

    • Re:Skeptical (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Coneasfast (690509) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:41PM (#13145577)
      i'm not even sure XP users will upgrade to IE7 manually. people just use whatever comes with their system.

      of course, there is the automatic windows update system, which will tell users to upgade, and they will do it.
    • The kind of people not running XP aren't the kind of people who care about upgrading their browser either.

      Mmmm, I love sweeping generalisations...

      (This comment posted from Firefox 1.0.6 on XP SP2)

    • Re:Skeptical (Score:5, Funny)

      by ottergoose (770022) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:46PM (#13145610) Homepage
      No kidding. Why leave Netscape Navigator 3 Gold when it works just fine?

      Also, has anyone else caught the virus that prevents all of the websites they look at from working properly? I seem to have it and can't figure out how to fix it...
    • Actually I'd say there is another type not running XP you forgot about... Those who see no benefit over Win2k, but a good deal of bloat and that stupid "phone home" activation thing. (Yes, fyi, my copy of 2k is paid for...)

      When I actually get around to buying that dual core A64, then I'll have a reason to upgrade (XP64). Until then, 2k does everything I need.

      • Re:Skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)

        by Master of Transhuman (597628) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:56PM (#13145665) Homepage

        While I agree that this is specifically targeted to corporate users still running on 2000 - since IE is known to be the number one security problem, corporate techs will definitely be interested in a new browser - I doubt Firefox will get much if any benefit out of it.

        I just don't think a new browser is worth the pain of upgrading an entire corporation from 2000 to XP, if it hasn't been done already by that corporation. So corporations on 2000 are not likely to be upgrading to XP based on IE7.

        At the same time, I don't think any corporate management currently STILL on IE 5-6 will bother to upgrade to Firefox in any great numbers that will be noticeable. I'm sure some of their techs will recommend it, especially given that it's free, but there is the problem, for some corporations at least, about compatibility between their in-house browser-based apps (granted, not a huge number) and Firefox.

        Bottom line: If it costs them money to upgrade either the OS OR the browser without a clear payback in better security or productivity, they won't do it. It's the same problem as with Linux - it's not that they WON'T benefit, it's that they don't PERCEIVE the benefit.
        • the other issue about recomennding firefox in corporate environments is accountability. In my short work experience and that of my friends, many who've tried to (or have been successful in) installing firefox on work machines (desktops as well as notebooks) were sternly rebuked and chastised. Sometimes warned against it during orientation, etc. IE all the way.

          I'm not sure the reason why. Accountability seems to be a major issue. to recommend firefox and have mission critical failures puts the blame solely
          • I'm not sure the reason why.

            Because your employer purchased the machine for one and only one reason -- to make them money. They didn't buy it so you could fuck around with it like it was your damned toy.

            As far as your boss is concerned, there's no difference between you "trying" to install firebox on your work machine, and the counter person at McDonalds "trying" to install firefox on the cash register.

            Someday, you might work in a development or IT job, where your boss feels inclined to trust your judg

          • Re:Skeptical (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Master of Transhuman (597628) on Saturday July 23 2005, @05:30PM (#13146177) Homepage

            Your bosses should read Marcus Ranum's rant about that, called "Stupid On Software."

            His point: NO company ever sues a software company for software that fails. (Actually, of course, there are breach of contract suits all the time, but it's almost never COTS software, it's contracted software.)

            Companies want "accountability", but they NEVER hold software companies like Microsoft "accountable." It's strictly a CYA maneuver to cover them with their bosses.

  • A large amount of Windows users (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:37PM (#13145546)
    "a large amount of Windows users do not own Windows XP"

    I'd say that a large amount of the Windows XP users also do not own Windows XP...

  • Yet Another Reason Why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Ann Elk (668880) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:37PM (#13145547)

    ...making the browser part of the OS is a Bad Idea. If it was "just an app", it could (probably) easily be made to run on Win2K. Since it's in bed with the OS, upgrading the browser now requires an SP-level update to the OS.

    Dumb. Very dumb.

    • nah i bet its just a ploy to get win2k users to upgrade..
    • I wouldn't think that it would be too hard, per se. But, hey, they're MS, when a new API in the OS itself is introduced, they want to use it.

      Also, as IE 7 was originally slated to be Vista/Longhorn only, and they know backport it to XP, I wonder if the backporting of Avalon (or Indigo, but Avalon should be the mest relevant here) is related. That, too, will only be available under XP SP2/2003 SP1, and if they have made the UI or rendering engine to make use of Avalon, we wouldn't talk about only a few API

  • Backward compatible (Score:5, Insightful)

    by alienfluid (677872) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:38PM (#13145551) Homepage
    MS realized that the last IE as well as the last OS (prior to XP) had some major security problems. Making all software back compatible is only going to make them more susceptible to similar problems. Going forward, and considering the fact that it has been over 5 years since the release of XP, it is thus wise that they are restricting it to XP only. In the IT industry, if you have not upgraded in 5 years (user programs, OS, Apps etc - not mission critical infrastructure), then there's something lacking and left to be desired. The software industry is constantly evolving and so should you. Who here run pre-2.0 kernel on their Linux boxes? I am sure some of you do, but not many.

    • Nonsense (Score:5, Insightful)

      by RiffRafff (234408) on Saturday July 23 2005, @06:52PM (#13146548) Homepage
      The software industry is constantly evolving and so should you.

      What does a business benefit, if their current software does the job? Is a new version of Word going to suddenly make all of a secretary's documents better? Are their spreadsheets suddenly going to command more attention?

      And as far as IE7 is concerned, what will it bring to a business whose intranet is optimized for IE6?

      None of these increase cashflow; in fact, they will probably reduce productivity with all the Help Desk calls it'll generate when the new software doesn't look exactly like the old.

      Most businesses will get IE7 when they buy new machines, not before.

    • Re:Backward compatible (Score:5, Informative)

      by jmv (93421) on Saturday July 23 2005, @08:45PM (#13146999) Homepage
      Who here run pre-2.0 kernel on their Linux boxes?

      Sure. Except that kernel 2.0 came out early 1996 (or was it late 1995), while XP came out in 2001. It would be more like dumping support for kernel 2.2 (which was still in stable Debian until Sarge was released a few months ago).

  • As expected... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by bogaboga (793279) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:40PM (#13145565)
    ...The new Microsoft browser, Internet Explorer 7 will only be available for users of Windows XP.

    But how long will it be before M$ discontinues IE7 updates for users of XP given that that OS is almost 5 years old? I am still not so happy with Firefox on Linux mainly because it looks a bit ugly as compared to its windows counterpart. I am sure work is being done in this department.

  • Good news for Windows users! (Score:5, Insightful)

    by SamSeaborn (724276) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:40PM (#13145569)
    This is the kind of approach Microsoft should take more often.

    Part of the reasons MS's product releases take so long and are so complex is their obligation to be backwardly compatible with all previous versions. And they've done a great job of it. (I have software that was written in 1994 for Windows 3.1 and it still runs fine on XP.)

    Cutting the cord and telling Windows user's they must have XP is tough love, but will likely result in a more stable product and faster maintenance releases.

    This approached worked great for Apple when they went to OS X.

    Sam

  • Not good news for the web (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Sv-Manowar (772313) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:43PM (#13145592) Homepage Journal
    This isn't good news for the web in general. One of the better things to come from XP was IE 6.0, which brought an improved CSS model to both XP and 2000 at the time. If the improvements in IE 7.0 are restricted to Longhorn only, it could be a very long time before reliance on older methods can begin to fade out. I'd like to believe a lot of the users will move to Firefox, but due to its already high levels of publicity, I'm unsure as to just how much of an unaware market remains for a 'better browser'

      • IIRC Microsoft has specifically stated they will NOT support CSS2 - they claim it's a "flawed standard".

        Typical.

        And you can bet they'll add a number of "extensions" to maintain control of the Web market - no doubt about that at all. "Featuritis" is the terminal Microsoft disease and they WILL add incompatible "features" to the new browser that idiots will take advantage of, thus perpetuating the browser problem for another five years at least.

  • If MS were smart.... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by linguae (763922) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:43PM (#13145593)

    ....they'll release versions of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows 2000 and Windows ME as well. Heck, they should release IE 7 for Windows 98 and Windows NT 4. There are still tens of millions of users (like myself) still using these older versions of Windows, who don't feel like "upgrading" to XP, and who won't have an updated Internet Explorer browser. However, the latest Firefox is readily available for every Windows version that supports Win32 except for Windows NT 3.x. If Microsoft truly cared about trying to steal Firefox's thunder, they should port Internet Explorer to a few older versions of Windows. I don't know too many people who would spend $100+ for an operating system just for a browser.

    Well, it doesn't look like I'm giving up Firefox on my Windows NT laptop. Long live Firefox!

  • Flawed reasoning (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Stormy Henderson (316646) <stormy@raincrazy.com> on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:44PM (#13145597)
    The predicted mass conversion to Firefox is flawed reasoning. IE 6 users aren't going to say, "Oh my gosh, IE 7 for XP is out! My IE 6 on 98 is now worthless! Oh horrors! I'd better download Firefox pronto!"

    They'll just ignore the announcement and keep on using IE 6.0, 5.5, and 5.0, just as they have been for years.

  • What? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by teslatug (543527) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:45PM (#13145604)
    Didn't we already know that IE7 would be XP only? Also, why would that boost FF numbers? There are users still using Windows 98 and IE4. Why haven't they switched to FF? Why would those who haven't updated to XP or to FF all of a sudden start using FF when IE7 for XP is released??

    • Re:What? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Dracos (107777)

      Point by point:

      1. Yes.
      2. Because users are more likely to get Firefox for free than spend $200 to upgrade IE.
      3. They don't know about Firefox.
      4. They won't, without influence. Microsoft will try (and likely fail) to convince users to walk their upgrade path (to XP) for a price. Friends/relatives/coworkers will attempt to get the user to switch to Firefox for free instead, and will probably be more successful at it.

  • So... (Score:3, Funny)

    by creimer (824291) on Saturday July 23 2005, @03:48PM (#13145628) Homepage
    ... a large amount of Windows users do not own Windows XP ...

    No wonder Bill Gates is complaining about software piracy. All Windows user should own a legal copy of Windows XP.
  • About half of all searches through Google are from WinXP. The implication is, that if MS controls ~90% of computers, that they have failed to convince roughly 4 out of every 10 of their users to upgrade from previous versions.

    Thus, MS is screwed no matter what they do:

    • Continue trying to support old and broken Windows platforms, some of which (9x) had absolutely no concept of security.
    • They drop support for old platforms and try to force users to buy the new versions. Many people who didn't buy XP fall into the categories of A) Use their computer for light web browsing, e-mail, and maybe music, and/or B) They refuse the buy a version that phones home like XP and presumably Vista.

    If they choose door #1, they will ultimately destroy themselves trying to secure the versions of their products that run on a fundamentally insecure base. They know this.

    If they choose door #2, the A group users will continue to use their existing platform for as long as possible. When MS's lack of support finally burns them, they will jump ship and migrate to Linux/Mac (which are more than capable for light E-Mail, Web, music, the occasional document, etc) because their old PII is incapable of running XP, let alone Vista. The group B users will probably grudgingly upgrade and keep an eagle eye out for any escape route. They know this too.

    Ultimately, because of this effect, MS will see a huge loss of market share because thier current business strategy (Provide the minimum quality of software needed to keep users from jumping ship) fails in the face of mature competitors (Linux, Mac, Solaris (?)). Then they will be forced to clean their platform up and take their place alongside other vendors. Competition is wonderful.

    Microsoft undoubtedly knows all of this, and is trying to delay it as long as possible by trying to find a less-unacceptable mix of options 1 and 2. Eventually, they will have to start weaning users off of old platforms. This is it.

  • Double Standard (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Deviant (1501) on Saturday July 23 2005, @04:13PM (#13145748)
    You can say that the Linux browsers are backward compatible but I would like to see you take modern v ersions of Firefox or KDE and the like and build/install it on a distribution from 1999/2000. Can you imagine the library differences or the effort you would have with upgrading all of the RPMs in a version of RedHat from that era. Now, since you are charged for most of the commercial Linux distros when you are told to upgrade the distro for the sake of getting modern libraries you are in essence being told to upgrade to get a modern browser and modern versions of all of the software. This is totally ok but when MS wants to depricate their OSes in the same way you hear "they are charging $100 for just a browser upgrade." You are not paying just for a browser upgrade but an upgrade to all of the latest versions of everyting in the OS and you are paying for the security and bug fix updates for years and years. MS is a company and they put out a good product in modern windows and office that is worth paying for. I love and I use Linux but I get disgusted occasionally by such bias, double-standards and MS-can-do-no-right additude.

  • My boss will be so happy (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gothzilla (676407) on Saturday July 23 2005, @04:53PM (#13145928)
    The network I admin is all Win2000 machines. I've already started putting firefox on some of them and the money and time it's saved me and my company on maintenance is very measurable and it's no small amount.
    Now I have justification to replace IE on every machine with firefox, since inevitably some sites will become IE7 only and Firefox has done pretty well in rendering even these IE only broken websites.
    This may even help justify not ever buying XP and waiting until the next windows release.
    MS just lost a big sale and saved us a ton of money!

  • DirectX (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Dachannien (617929) on Saturday July 23 2005, @06:33PM (#13146471)
    Microsoft went this route already with DirectX, which is why nobody who likes computer games runs Win95 (or Win98 non-SE) anymore. You need at least Win98SE to use DirectX 9.0b/c, and they plan to require Win2k to use DirectX 9.0d.

    However, this leverage actually has some effect, because a lot of games don't include both DirectX and OpenGL support, and hardware manufacturers have no interest in writing new drivers for old OSes when the DirectX component won't even work on the old OS. So, in order to play the next generation of games, users are forced to upgrade.

    On the other hand, in the web browsing arena, any competent web browser gives you the same functionality as IE (if not better), and there are several to choose from. What's more, the current crop of web browsers is not under threat of obsolescence, since web standards don't change nearly fast enough to make that happen. IE7 not working in anything earlier than XP might not create a mass exodus to Firefox, but it also won't cause mass upgrades to XP, as long as IE6 still works.

    Note that I'm not saying that Microsoft's original intentions related to either DirectX or IE7 were to coerce users into upgrading. However, I'm sure that once their team of marketing wonks got ahold of the idea, any concerns held by the programmers about unsupported users were quickly cut asunder.

    • why would this open to lawsuits ?

      I don't remember anyone suing RH for cutting the support for RH 9.x and before, or not releasing a binary of a new product for the RH platform.

        • Mainstream report for XP runs out 31st December 2006 according to this [microsoft.com] (however according to note 14 which it references - "Mainstream support will end 2 years after the next version of this product is launched. Extended support will end 5 years after Mainstream support ends." so I wouldn't worry too much about suddenly having to switch to Vista).

      • Re:Suing Firefox? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Jorkapp (684095) <jorkapp@@@hotmail...com> on Saturday July 23 2005, @05:09PM (#13146039) Homepage
        Now if IE fuckes up a computer, and someone gets pissed off enough, they can sue Microsoft, saying the user PAID money for a product and trusted that product.

        Actually, you didn't pay for IE. You payed for Windows, and IE came free with it. It was a cunning move Microsoft made back in the day.

        In fact, It was a good move on Microsoft's part to make IE free. Since IE is based on NCSA Mosiac technology, MS agreed to pay a small quarterly license fee plus a share of the profits from IE to NCSA. Since IE has been free for the past decade, all NCSA has gotten has been the small quarterly license fees.

        NCSA thought they had a good deal, but ended up getting the short end of the stick.

      • Re:Suing Firefox? (Score:5, Informative)

        by Anonymous Brave Guy (457657) on Saturday July 23 2005, @05:39PM (#13146218)

        Wow. Just wow.

        There is far more to the law than whether you pay for something. Try asking a lawyer about promissory estoppel, and enjoy.

        Microsoft no doubt have all kinds of disclaimers written into their EULAs about not being liable for more than the price paid for the software, etc. So do many other firms. I'm not aware of these ever being tested in court anywhere, which makes me suspect it's clear to lawyers that they are valid (given the obvious scope for massive damages if it weren't, and how long they've been routine for).

    • Re:nothing really assounding here (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Xoo (178947) on Saturday July 23 2005, @05:51PM (#13146278) Journal
      Wrong. Windows 2000's mainstream support was retired on June 30th, 2005. See here [microsoft.com].Microsoft will continue to support Windows 2000 for corporations that have purchased the extended support license until 2010.

      However, according to this site [microsoft.com], Microsoft is going to support IE6 until September 2006. I'm not really sure what that means since they haven't updated the browser significantly in 2 years or so.

      IE7 will be bundled with Longhorn, and people will likely continue to use whatever is bundled on their PC's... I don't see IE's dominance letting up anytime soon, despite Firefox being a superior browser (in my opinion).

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