24 replies to this topic

[Randy]

If we could get the entire IE-using world to move to IE-7 simultaneously, it would be very nice.

And therein lies the age old problem. IE users are typically the slowest to upgrade.

From the webmaster perspective I'm hoping that MS will push the IE7 upgrade with their normal OS upgrades once they're ready to release it. The average user wouldn't know how to get rid of it if that happened. Even if they did have an under-powered system that suddenly began running slower.

However as a user they'd better not push it with the other upgrades. If they do, I'll be have to take a week out of my already too-busy schedule because of all of my aunts and uncles wanting me to install additional RAM in their systems.

[MaKa]

Can you post a screen cap of what the page looks like in IE7?

Sorry for the big file size, but I only have good old Paint available on this PC to save it to a JPG.

The blue page title runs through into the blue sub nav box to the right.

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[jchris]

I had IE7 installed for a while. I liked it so much that I had to uninstall it


If we could get the entire IE-using world to move to IE-7 simultaneously, it would be very nice.

Beware. Rumour has it that IE7 might be distributed via Windows Update. That would mean an impact we've never have had before in a short time.

/chris

[Randy]

It wouldn't surprise me if it's not pushed out as an update Chris. There are a few new security things built into IE7, so I can see how MS would be able to justify it as a security update.

That said, knowing how often my own extended family actually update their 'doze, it doesn't bode well for there being an immediate impact. Certainly quicker than ever before, but not immediate.

If MS pushes it out as an update I can already hear a lot of grousing from all of the people who don't have enough memory installed to handle the way IE7 does things. It is more of a hog than IE6 could ever dream of being, so all of those computers that were already clogged up with needless software, spyware and the like running are going to start crashing.

[torka]

Not to mention that there will be many, many corporate IT departments that won't allow it (or any other update, for that matter) to be installed until they've had a chance to test it against their standard configuraton to insure that it won't break any of their other mission-critical applications.

You'll see that alot in places like financial services and other highly regulated industries. It's not simply a matter of them being overly cautious or dragging their feet -- they could get in trouble with the state or the feds if they allow an update on to their systems they haven't thoroughly tested beforehand, particularly if it turns out the update causes problems. You won't see too many CTOs willing to put their necks on the line just so the rank and file can play around with the cool features of the latest version of IE.

Said testing does not happen overnight. You could potentially be looking at months (possibly many, many months) before some of these companies get around to letting the upgrade through to their users.

There are still some companies even now that are running W2K or even (saints preserve us) Win98 because they've got some vital proprietary application that requires it and they don't have the expertise (or the money to hire someone) to update it, or their IT department just hasn't gotten around to certifying everything with XP, or they've decided they don't want to incur the cost of updating everybody, or they think what they have works well enough and they can't be bothered to change, or whatever.

At my own company, we had an application that was running on (be sure you're sitting down) Win3.1, which we only migrated off of less than a year ago. Granted, we only kept one Win3.1 machine lying around to run this thing while the rest of us were on XP, and we didn't use that box for surfing the web, but still, it was there.

Heck, every now and then I see somebody surfing through my company's site using IE4.

So, yeah, if it gets pushed out as a security update, it will get implemented faster, but it won't be an "all at once" by any means.

--Torka

[mcanerin]

On a related note, one of the things I do for client reports is a cross-browser test. But I ran into the issue of "only one IE per machine" and the need to have a dozen OS's, etc.

As a result, I went looking for some simulators. I tried a bunch, but finally gave up and actually paid for a service (this is a big deal for me - I'm really cheap...).

If you are doing cross browser testing, check out browsercam.com. It's worth it, trust me.

The best free one I could find was anybrowser.com, which is OK but not nearly as nice as browsercam, which isn't a simulator - it actually does screen shots of the browser on a computer running the proper OS, etc.

On my own computer, I'm currently running IE6, Firefox 1.5, Netscape 4.8, and Lynx, with seo-browser.com as backup.

After some "interesting" and occasionally nearly irreversable experiences with other MS beta software, I now make an effort to avoid being an unpaid lab rat for MS programmers...

Ian

Edited by mcanerin, 29 September 2006 - 08:46 PM.

[qwerty]

Ewww! NS4??

How do you test with that? If it looks good in Netscape, something must be wrong? I still have it installed too, but I haven't used it a long time.

BTW, do you test with Opera?

[mcanerin]

At one point I had Opera installed, but that was when your either had to pay for it or suffer huge pop-up ads all the time - I removed it.

I now test Opera (and Konquerer, Camino, Safari, and tons more etc) with browsercam.

Soooooo much easier. They have a power user feature for developers, but I usually just rent the service for a day and do screen captures. You can use remote sessions for surfing on those browsers, though.

BTW, I'm not related or an affiliate - just a user.

Ian

[harpsound]

How far away are we from not using IE6 hacks?
Will Win98 users switch to Firefox?
My IE6 CSS Nav crashes in IE7

I need to redesign a CSS only Nav system for IE7.
One with IE6 compliance too will be very difficult to produce in an IE7 only computer

S

[qwerty]

Ditto. Thanks, Microsquish!

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