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.
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
A working reverse dictionary (hosted by Onelook.com) is one of the most useful sites out there. We’ve all had those moments when we know there’s a word for some concept, but we don’t know what it is. We need something more than a thesaurus, because we don’t know an equivalent word. Onelook.com’s reverse dictionary helps. You can even enter wildcards, if you know what part of the word looks like.
Here’s a comprehensive list of ping services that you can use for when you post a new blog entry. Note that there are a few additional ones that we have not included due to the fact that they only work for specific blog software.
Check to see if your blogging tool or software requires a separator (such as a semicolon, comma, etc.) between each item, and if so be sure to add it before pasting into your tool. For example, Community Server requires a semicolon after each URL.
Microsoft has released Windows Sharepoint Services v3.0 to the web for download.
More importantly for those of us in SBS-land, the SBS team have released a whitepaper on how to install WSS v3.0 side by side with the existing Companyweb intranet. I highly recommend following the whitepaper explicitly if you desire to actually get this working right.
As many of you know I’ve been looking for a decent desktop tool to assist in publishing to my blogs. As you also know I’ve been sorely disappointed so far in the tools I’ve tested to date (Qumana, w.bloggar, and ecto) with most of them getting thrown into the can after a single post. In most cases it’s been due to issues with formatting of the posts as they are pushed to WordPress. The one tool that I’ve stuck with thus far is the Performancing plugin in Firefox. It works great, it has a small footprint, and it’s easy to use. In fact I’ve become convinced that having your blogging tool directly inside of your browser is not only convenient, it also makes me much more productive. But that’s another story for another day.
Well in the midst of all of this testing (and bitching and moaning) Microsoft came along and released Windows Live Writer. Their very own desktop blogging tool. So of course, I immediately downloaded it.
As it gets into the mainstream Windows Live Writer will be found and mentioned primarily by others in relation to Windows Live Spaces, the public blog space on the Live community. But it is also compatible with(untested by me at the moment other than WordPress) Blogger, LiveJournal, TypePad, and WordPress. Of course since it supports the underlying API’s that those blog platforms use like Metaweblog API , Movable Type API , as well as Really Simply Discoverability (RSD)it should also be compatible with just about everything else.
I’ll be testing Windows Live Writer Beta over the next few days and letting you know whether it’s ready for primetime, as a blog publishing tool in general and for WordPress in particular as that is what this blog runs on. This review is specifically an overview on basic features, etc. The most important part to me though is how the actual posts look once they are published. That will take a little more time to do that final review.
This article by the way is being written in it, my first one. So we’ll see how it goes. In regards to the experience so far I really like the interface, the customizability that you have in regards to creating a template for different blogs and/or posting styles, and the supposed compatibility with various blogging tools (again, haven’t tested on other API’s yet). Another nice item but slightly more controversial is that it can be tightly integrated into the Windows Live toolbar, another item that I downloaded at the same time and actually like. What I don’t like so far is that it appears to be a victim of bloat when it comes to memory usage in the background, but as a beta I’ll hold my judgement on that.
A couple of the more unique features are its handling of inline images and insertion of Live Maps. The images you see in this post where inserted with the tool. The nice thing is that it will automatically manage thumbnailing and resizing for you. The images in this post where resized by the tool with a link popping up the full size source image that I handed it. You’ll also notice that it inserted a watermark for me into the image (lower right corner ‘MSR’). You can choose dozens of options for imagery and it was certainly more powerful than any other tool I’ve used to date, but also extremely simple. In fact it was basically automatic unless you wanted to modify the properties.
You can also insert a ‘Live Map’. Here I have selected the St. Louis Gateway Arch as it always looks cool with its shadow from an overhead satellite shot. You can choose a regular road map, or an aerial map like the one shown here. Zoom level is up to you, you can insert push pins like the one I placed on top of the arch, and also add a title.
The map then links to full size interactive version of the map at the Windows Live site. Not a bad balance of adding a useful feature to a blogging tool while also pushing traffic to your own web properties. I’ve definitely seen more aggregious non-useful uses before. Besides, if you don’t like it just don’t use it. Nothing stopping you from inserting whatever tool you prefer instead.
As far as add-on possibilities are concerned I’m impressed with the openness of the API that they’ve developed for the tool, from the rough glance I’ve given it so far it looks pretty straightforward to hook into and add your own plugin for Live Writer. Should mean some decent gadgets coming down the pipe as the product gets into the mainstream. I should have really said API’s plural as technically there are really two. First, there is the “Application API” – For when you want to launch Writer from other applications to “Blog This” for Links, Snippets, Images, or Feed Items and then there is the “Content Source Plugins” to extend the capabilities of Writer to insert, edit, and publish new types of content, for example:
Images from online photo publishing sites
Embedded video or audio players
Product thumbnails and/or links from e-commerce sites
If you are looking for more general information or assistance I would recommend checking out the authors pages here and here. There is also a RSS feed now that you can subscribe to at http://windowslivewriter.spaces.live.com/feed.rss
P.S. – I’ve been hearing that it’s been difficult for people to find the download location of Live Writer. You can download Windows Live Writer directly from the following link here .
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
