MSR Consulting TechnoBlog

Internet Explorer Is Out. But Should I Install It?

November 30th, 2006

Microsoft has released version 7 of its popular web browser, and is pushing it out via its Automatic Update service. Should you install it, or decline? At least for now? We take a look at the question.

Why is installing IE7 any different than installing earlier versions?

First things first.  I personally love Internet Explorer 7, but since this isn’t a review of the product (you can see one here) I won’t go into all of its features.  Suffice it to say there are many, and some that will completely change the way you browse the web.

That said, I have some real problems with the way that Microsoft released this product to the masses.  In a normal release cycle (at least all prior release cycles anyway) there wouldn’t have been much need for this article.  Most articles dealing with ‘should I install it?’ were only focused on what you would gain from the features, i.e. was it a better product, what would it allow web developers to do now that they couldn’t before, etc., etc.  Unfortunately that is not the case this time.  Yes, there are great new features.  But there are also some issues that are going to cause users, and especially owners of existing websites, some problems.  There are such drastic changes in feature sets, and the product rollout is being done so quickly that most owners and developers of websites are left holding the bag.  There simply wasn’t enough time between the final release candidate of IE7 and the actual release of the product to consumers for them to have fully tested their websites.  One of the major reasons for this is that Microsoft is including the new web browser in its “Automatic Updates” feature as a ‘Critical Update’.  Which means that virtually everyone will be offered the installation pro-actively.  So you need to know what you’re getting into before you say “yes”.

Never before have we had a situation when a newly released product will become so widely used in such a short period of time.  It should be noted that none of this is specifically Microsoft’s fault.  They provided early versions of the product for testing, and all web developers and site owners could have easily done so.  But that’s not really the way the world works, especially in the SMB marketplace.  I’m pretty sure that the owner of “Joe’s Window Cleaners” never thought that when he had that website built last year by the small firm down the street that he would need to stay on top of the latest trend in web browsers, much less need to revise his site and spend more money just because a new web browser came out that doesn’t work well with his website.  Still, there are areas of ‘backwards compatibility’ that one expects to be covered….and in some instances, particularly the handling of certain scripting languages, that compatibility took a back seat to insuring better security.  So wherever you decide to place the blame, from a users perspective you should just know that for a while at least some of your favorite websites may act a little funny.

Quit your jabbering, just tell me if I should I install it or not?

If you are a home computer user, and reading this, you can stop now.  Go ahead and install IE7 (instructions on how to do so are at the end of the article). 

This article is targeted at business users, particularly small and medium business users.  Why is there a difference in the size of the business?  Because the types of websites you use for business are typically different than the home user, the environment in which the software runs is usually different, and it is likely that you have your own websites externally and internally that you have to include in your decision process.  But the biggest reason is that most small and many medium business users have the ability to install IE7 if they want, in a large organization that choice would be mandated.

So if you are a business user, particularly those in a small or medium business, you will want to follow the following few steps to insure your experience with IE7 is a positive one:

The 12 6-Step Program

• First, if you have multiple computers you should only install it on one of your business computers.  And then use that computer for testing the following steps.  I recommend not installing on the rest of the machines for a couple of months to insure that there has been enough opportunity to find any issues on the machine running IE7.  Once you have confirmed that IE7 is ok for your environment then you can move on to installing it on the rest of the machines.
• Do you have your own websites?  Whether a public site or an internal intranet you will want to go through every page, function, and feature of your existing website(s).  You need to verify that you receive no errors when using IE7 (at least no errors that you weren’t already receiving with IE6 anyway).  If you have errors you need to inform your web developer so that the error can be resolved, providing them with the specific location of the error would be helpful and save time.  If you have an eCommerce website you should go through the complete checkout process, especially any parts of the website which use a secure certificate (e.g. https://).  IE7 handles security errors very differently, and more diligently, than prior versions but this can cause a problem for you if not handled.
• Do you use Quickbooks in your business?  You should know that only Quickbooks 2006 Release 8, and Quickbooks 2007 are currently working correctly with IE7.  If you have any other version you should hold off on installing IE7 (at least on the computer(s) that use Quickbooks) until you have upgraded your Quickbooks, or Intuit has provided a fix.  You can find info and links for IE7 and Quickbooks here.
• Do you use Microsoft’s Small Business Server (SBS) on your company network?  You should keep in mind that while everything ‘works’ just fine, there is an issue when using the Remote Web Workplace (RWW) and Outlook Web Access (OWA) due to the way that IE7 handles security certificates differently than its predecessor.  You can find instructions for dealing with the error page, and any other issues specific to SBS and IE7 after you’ve upgraded here .
• If you are a prolific user of creating shortcuts/icons on your desktop that link to various websites (or some of your applications have created them for you) be aware that they may not work the way you are used to.  In particular you may find that the icons have changed, that the links won’t open IE7, etc.  There have been various related bugs since the Beta releases that are still around in the final release unfortunately.  But in many cases the issues can be worked around.
• If you use web based applications as a critical part of your business be sure and test every one of them on IE7 prior to upgrading every computer in the company.  Many companies don’t think they use websites that much, but the reality may be different.  In particular you might use a banking site for checking your account balances, a brokerage site for your stocks, a support site like this one for submitting help requests, web based email sites, etc., etc.  You should pay particular attention to web based CRM applications, they seem to have been hit the hardest.  In general, the more complex the website is the more likely there will be issues as many of the changes took place in the realms of security and the handling of JavaScript.  The good news is that you can roll back the installation if you find that something you really need just doesn’t work, and website owners will eventually make their sites compatible with IE7.

Additional Information and Sources

How to install IE7:

• If you have Automatic Updates turned on, and most of us do, one way is to not do anything and just wait for it to eventually come to you.  And don’t worry, it will ask for your approval once it’s ready to install 
• To manually install it you can download directly from Microsoft here
• Note that the IE7 setup will preserve your current toolbars, home page, search settings, and favorites and will not change your choice of default browser.

How to block the automatic installation of IE7

• Microsoft has provided a Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7 

Information about IE7

• Quick Tour of the product
• IE7 Features
• Handy Quick Reference Sheet that you can print out that includes shortcut keys, ‘how to do…’, etc.
• System Requirements:  Internet Explorer 7 will run on Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2), Windows XP Professional x64 Edition, and Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 (SP1).  Any machine with the recommended amount of memory for Windows (for example, 128 MB for Windows XP and 256 MB for Windows XP Professional x64) will meet the memory requirements for Internet Explorer 7

Cheers,

Matt Ridings – MSR Consulting

Entry Filed under: Small Business Server, Sharepoint, Internet, Internet Business Tools, Consulting