IE7, IE6 and The Windows Lifecycle

Articolo
08/30/2006

I’ve been getting questions from folks lately who are wondering what will happen to IE6 (SP1) when IE7 ships. “Will Microsoft continue to provide security updates for IE6 after IE7 ships?” “Will customers have to migrate to IE7 by some point in time?”

The answer is simple: IE6SP1’s support policy will not change when IE7 ships. Everywhere that IE6SP1 is supported today, IE6SP1 will continue to be supported until the OS it ships with expires. Are you running IE6SP1 on Windows 2000 SP4? You will continue to get support for IE6SP1 until Windows 2000 expires (slated expiration: 2010). Are you running IE6SP1 on Windows XP SP1? You will continue to get support there until it expires in October. If you’re running IE6 for Windows XP Service Pack 2, you can stay with that version of IE for as long as Windows XP SP2 is around. I would continue listing versions of Windows, but I think you get the idea.

Additionally, users will not be forced to migrate to IE7 when it’s released. Of course, we hope our users will upgrade – we’re proud of IE7 and are excited to see it ship! But, if you don’t want to move, you won’t have to. We will continue to keep our IE6 customers secure for those of you who can’t or don’t upgrade to IE7. As previously mentioned, Windows Update’s Automatic Updates will offer IE7 to everyone by default, but it won’t force you to install it.

I’ve blogged about this before as well in case you want to see what I said about the lifecycle 18 months ago. And as always, be sure to check out our official lifecycle site for a full list of products, dates, and definitions.

Thanks,

Christopher Vaughan

Edit: Title change to remove amp;

Comments

Anonymous
January 01, 2003
PingBack from http://www.aesjkt.com/wp/?p=1802
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Hi, I am a die hard fan of Microsoft and their products. However, I am not sure I can say the same about IE 7. I have been trying out IE 7 since Beta. There is one issue that causes me to un-install it every time. That is the screen fonts become blurry with IE 7. I thought, Microsoft would fix it in the release version, but they have not (yet anyway). I just tried the release candidate, but the same issue remains. If Microsoft is not going to fix it, I am staying with IE 6.

Can you help me to send this message to the IE 7 developer team? Seems like they are not listening to users about this critical issue.

Thanks.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
A few things that I would like to see:

1) The security lock indicator be placed inside the address bar
2) the search button be placed inside the search bar
3) stop and refresh be made into one btn.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Yaheya: use the Cleatype tuner (available at http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx) or turn off Cleartype (available from the Advanced tab in IE's tools/options menu).

Kanwal: The lock icon has been in the address bar since Beta 1. The search button is in the search bar. The stop & refresh buttons were the same button in Beta 1 but due to overwhelming feedback we separated them in Beta 2. There are good reasons to have them separate (for instance, you can hit 'stop' on an already-loaded page to stop any sounds from playing).

-Christopher
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Can't we all just upgrade to IE7 and get along?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Why can't I use the Help Center after I install IE7 RC1 (http://channel9.msdn.com/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=230151)

thanks
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
I currently working for a very large company in Germany that runs Windows 2000. I doubt they will upgrade anytime soon. And my question would be, why is not IE 6 SP 2 released for Windows 2000 as well?

We develop intranets for them and it's just very frustating when IE 6 crashes when you use filters. This is not the case with IE 6 SP2.

Here is testcase that will crash IE 6 SP 1:
http://www.jeria.net/ie6_win2000_crash/

You do say you do support this system and this browser, so why not release SP 2 for it as well?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Jose: there is no product called IE6SP2. I think you're thinking of IE6 for Windows XP SP2. That product contained a large number of changes all over the operating system, not just in IE. Per earlier posts in this blog, we have no plans to develop a browser update for Windows 2000, especially now that it's in the latter half of its support cycle.

-Christopher
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Compugab: I hadn't heard about this. I'll file a bug and we'll investigate.

-Christopher
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Will WGA be required to install IE7 through windows update? Or will it be treated as a critical update?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
ck: from what I understand, if you go to WU you can download the installation package w/o a WGA check. Also, if you have AU turned on, the package will be pushed to you with a WGA check. However in both cases, in order to install IE7, a WGA check is performed at install time, and your system must be genuine in order for the installation to complete.

-Christopher
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Legal mesmo.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Christopher: Its a bit of a pity that no more updates will be developed for IE 6 on Windows 2000. This practically forces people this system to switch to Opera or Firefox. Which is the best thing to do, even though you would have released IE 7 on Windows 2000. I asked since I have to develop for IE 6... and you can imagine how fun taht is.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
@ Christopher Vaughan [MSFT]

Does that mean security fixes, scheduled for the next "service pack", need to go out before October for our Win2k bretheren?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
woops! I guess that'd be October 1010. My bad... and July 11 has already come and gone for Win98/ME.

Microsoft Security Response Center has previously indicated to me that my issue would be resolved for IE6 in a "service pack" (this occurred well before July 11 2006).

They must have been thinking there'd be an update along for IE6 on Windows 2000.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
I am a web developer, both as a hobby and career. As we all know, some people will not be upgrading to IE7. Because I need to do any testing for personal pages at home, I want to be able to have access to both IE6 and IE7 on the same machine. Is there any way I can do this without going through anything fancy configurations?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
For some reason IE7 RC1 cuts off some images on my website. It is the only browser that does this. Can anyone help me out on this?

www.navarinounincorporated.com

1st page has a nano image cut off, 2nd has a pic of David Hasselhoff, which I can't blame any browser not wanting to fully render.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
<<There really isn't anything in IE6 for XPSP2 that is "dependent" on OS changes.>>

That's a pretty big assumption to make-- where's your data to back it up? Even if it were true (and no one should be convinced) then limiting to XP dramatically shrank the test matrix so they could ship it more quickly.

As for the idea that IE7 wasn't ported to Win2k because of the XP thing, are you calling the IE team liars? They've very clearly denied that rumor here.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Ted: You're right, I don't have any data. But if all other software makers can make software for Win2K, MS should be able to too. The changes between IE6 SP1 and SP2 are not that huge. They are significant, but no huge architectural changes like we've seen in IE7.

I wouldn't specifically call the IE team "liars", but remember what they said back in May 03: "Legacy OSes have reached their zenith with the addition of IE 6 SP1. Further improvements to IE will require enhancements to the underlying OS." (http://www.microsoft.com/technet/community/chats/trans/ie/ie0507.mspx) Microsoft was going to make future IE versions only available through new OS versions. In other words, IE7 was going to be for Longhorn only (it would "require" Longhorn). But look at IE7 today: it's part of the Vista codebase but it works on XP just fine. So are they liars? Not intentionally I'm sure.

(You could use the above quote as evidence that indeed, IE6 SP2 would require XP SP2. But that quote, from May 2003, was made before MS decided to make XPSP2 such a huge upgrade. Maybe the even restricted IE6SP2 to XPSP2 because of the statement? I'm just saying that I can't think of any legitimate technical reasons that they couldn't've made IE6SP2 for 2000 as well. Other than the fact that they'd essentially stopped/disbanded the IE team at that point.)
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
why does IE7 freeze whenever I enter local.live.com? I have no toolbars installed and when I try to run IE7 without add-ons, it still occurs (the freezing.

I've tried almost everything and still it wont fix the problem...it seems to be working fine on IE6 though...which is strange.

can you guys help?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
why does IE7 freeze whenever I enter local.live.com? I have no toolbars installed and when I try to run IE7 without add-ons, it still occurs (the freezing.

I've tried almost everything and still it wont fix the problem...it seems to be working fine on IE6 though...which is strange.

can you guys help?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
why does IE7 freeze whenever I enter local.live.com? I have no toolbars installed and when I try to run IE7 without add-ons, it still occurs (the freezing.

I've tried almost everything and still it wont fix the problem...it seems to be working fine on IE6 though...which is strange.

can you guys help?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
This page does not display properly on IE7 Beta 3 (7.0.5700.6).

The "Experience Windows Vista" text hovers over the top of the first paragraph.

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsvista/
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Okay, javascript, i like it... but...whats the status for vbscript? Are you guys making changes for vbscript?
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Those look funny who blame Microsoft with no support for IE7 in antiquarian operating systems. Starting with senile Windows 2000, they soon will demand IE7 for Windows NT, OS/2, MS-DOS and OS/360...
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
"Windows Update’s Automatic Updates will offer IE7 to everyone by default, but it won’t force you to install it."

May I ask why this is the case? Surely with all the time it took for IE7 to finally get to the stage it's at, it wouldn't be unfair to say that it is by far a better browser than IE6? - Sure, people might have their own opinion on looks - but they're the type of people who shouldn't get a say in the first place - if IE7 is "more secure", then why is it not a mandatory update? Plus - as a Web Developer - I'd personally love to see the majority percentage of IE6 go (insert expletive here) itself.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
Hey guys,

Just another piece of feedback, this time regarding the print preview option, which I've noticed acting just a little strangely (well for me at for me). If you encounter a particularly long document and click on the print preview, it will go into it, but won't display anything (you'll still see that page indicator, but it'll be blank), almost like it's loading the document up. What makes it a little odd, is the fact that you’ll see the page indicator at the bottom of the screen counting up to some seemingly indeterminate number - in many cases at a fairly slow pace - (I’ve had what was a 12 page document count all the way up to 39 pages), before almost resetting itself and counting back up to what I would believe to be the actual page number. All this before finally displaying it up on the screen. It also seems that it is unaffected if you do the whole go out and come back in, it simply repeats the whole process all over again.
I guess my question here is two fold, really: 1) Is there some kind of a specific reason for this that I'm just not seeing and 2) Is there any way/plans to speed this up for the next release, as it can get just a little irritating having to wait for something that I would have expected to have been (and in many other programs is) a pretty instantaneous feature.

Thanks
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
IEbeta3 wasn't completely compatable with the msn explorer. When you would go to delete temp internet files via the toolbar it would generate an error and shut down msn. I hope the final cut doesn't have this .Beta2 was fine. As far as lifecycle goes I hope that they dont program older OSs out of existance.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
So when are we looking to see the full release version of IE7?

I'm loving the RC1 and want to install IE7 on my main system as soon as possible. The RC seems very stable but I'd rather wait until the full release is available.
Anonymous
August 30, 2006
PingBack from http://www.teklow.com/weblog/2006/08/31/msie-lifecycle/
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
There are major compatibility issues in RC1 with Windows Live Mail: the layout is messed up to no end and half the time it says that Windows Live Mail was not able to complete the request and would you like to send a bug report. I'm guessing this might have something to do with the JScript...
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
We can accept that it's too much to expect XP/2003-specific OS enhancements and the IE7 features and security fixes built on them to be ported to Windows 2000, so having a comparable product called "IE7" on Windows 2000 is not realistic.

However, why is no consideration being given to porting to Windows 2000 those enhancements to the rendering engine and UI that don't (or shouldn't) be dependent upon having Windows XP, You need not call it "IE7".
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
Oh come on.

Mike Brown: "why is no consideration being given to porting to Windows 2000 those enhancements to the rendering engine and UI that don't (or shouldn't) be dependent upon having Windows XP, You need not call it "IE7""

Would you expect your car maker to provide your prior year model w/ heated seats because they added them to this years model?

I can almost hear it now: "..but, but, your giving it away for free in this years model and my car supports it!! back port, back port!!"
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
Stop with the computer to car analogies, please.
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
Im still waiting for windows longhorn. soooon
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
Am I reading this right? (second paragraph half way down)

Are you running IE6SP1 on Windows XP SP1? You will continue to get support there until it expires in October.

I assume you mean Windows 98. I hope XP support will continue part 98.
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
Archeious: no, Windows XP SP1 really expires in October. Windows 98 (and all other Win9x variants) have already expired. Windows XP SP2 has been out for 2 years, which is how long the previous SP is supported for. So, if you're not running XP SP2, I encourage you to upgrade around that time if not before.

Thanks,
-Christopher
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
Well I hope my reported bug will be fixed by release time (what bug you ask?) the one involving SharePoint Portal 2003, Office (Outlook2003) 2003, and IE 7 saying you need IE 5.5 or better to open a address book
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
I think the IE 7 Beta Is great with the tabbed browsing. It came with my Windows Vista Beta 2.
The graphics are great. The new programs are neat. It is the next great generation of the Windows operating system.
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
When is IE7 in Vista going to support the photo upload tool on Live spaces?
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
FDuch: I'd open a new bug. We're only looking at active bugs right now. Sorry about the confusion.

Carty01: I believe they fixed this already. I was able to upload pics to my Live space recently using IE7. I think there's even a blog post here about it in the last month or two.

-Christopher
Anonymous
August 31, 2006
@Christopher: Thanks for your answers. About the PNG crash i linked to above, that doesn't crash in IE 6 SP 2, so I assume it was fixed there.
Anonymous
September 01, 2006
Christopher: http://connect.microsoft.com/ie does not work for me. Page Not Found

The content that you requested cannot be found or you do not have permission to view it.

I am logged into my Live account so that's not the problem.
Anonymous
September 01, 2006
Strike my comment about not being able to get to the connect site. I read the non-intuitive instructions for getting access to connect.
Anonymous
September 01, 2006
I've just been recently getting interested in reading about these updates and have to say I'm rather impressed at the changes thus far. Well done.

One thing I've just noticed after reading a couple PNG comments and thought I would bring up (if only for my own curiosity/edification). Note that the IE7 I'm running is the version included in Vista pre-RC1 (7.0.5536.16385) and this may have already been improved.

Anyway, I've noticed that PNGs with alpha transparency seem somewhat jaggy on this IE release. Granted it's great IE7 finally supports the alpha channel and I'm thrilled to hear that, but the appearance is a little strange looking (somewhere between the quality of a transparent GIF and a PNG image overlayed in something like Photoshop, Firefox, etc.). I only noticed this because previously I've visited the Vista site (http://www.windowsvista.com) in IE6 and the quality of the PNGs is better even though it uses Javascript and filters to support the alpha channel.

My question, purely out of curiosity, is was this planned and will later be "fixed," or was the "lower quality" just not noticed. If you don't have IE6 to test this on, looking at IE7 side-by-side with Firefox produces essentially identical results.

Just wanted to bring up that minor tidbit. Otherwise, excellent job.
Anonymous
September 02, 2006
My only complaint was the user interface, Its no more convienant to use IE 7 then it is to use Avant or Firefox will total control over the things I WANT!!! buttons , folders and toolbar icons as well as TAB's how are you going to share TAB space with other icons for TABS" and not have the abilty TO DROP TABS DOWN TO BOTTOM!!! Or to set up icon address bar or any other ICON!!! LIKE FIREFOX eg. AVANT!!!
SAFTEY , SECURITY , OPEN CODES GEEK STUFF I'NT THE WHOLE 9 YARDS
IT HAS TO SUIT THE USER!!! ANF THEY HAVE TO BE COMFORTABLE AND HAS TO CONVIENANT WITH USING IT!!!
Anonymous
September 02, 2006
............And further more ..I only asked if user can use IE-6 on Vista or those that upgrade to Vista will they be commited
to IE-7 ?????????????????????????
Anonymous
September 02, 2006

Anonymous
September 02, 2006
The comment has been removed
Anonymous
September 04, 2006
IE7 freezes whenever I enter local.live.com
I unintalled IE7, In IE6 local.live.com no longer freezes. I reinstalled IE7, whenever I enter local.live.com IE7 freezes.
local.live.com works fine in Firefox.

Windows Live Toolbar: Pressing map button links to local.live.com and crashes IE7.
Anonymous
September 05, 2006
Christopher: Bug reported but seriously if this ships and cuts off images on web pages and there's no way to change the size of those tabs shudder
Anonymous
September 05, 2006
Update: IE7 freezes whenever I enter local.live.com

I used a hosts file to block spyware, adware, ads from: http://www.mvps.org/winhelp2002/hosts.htm

In Firefox, I noticed live.com referenced some of these blocked sites. I removed these sites from hosts file and live.local.com no longer locks up. This could be the solution or Microsoft may have fixed the web page since yesterday.

I continually have had to delete other sites from the hosts file blocking list to get them to display correctly. I am going back to my original (empty) hosts file.
Anonymous
September 09, 2006
After uninstalled B3 and Installing RC1, Live Mail has not worked for me. I can only use the Basic version of Live Mail. Site thinks im not using IE 6 or higher. Uninstall and reinstall didnt help.
Anonymous
September 12, 2006
I just want to advise you to check and double-check the efficiency of MS IE 7 before you release it officially onto the Market. Unlike that numerous flaws of IE 6, flaws in IE 7 will undoubtedly affect the reputation of the new Windows Vista Operating system. Its no use trying to design an easy to use and secure operating system and have a buggy browser open up new vulnerabilities...just like what IE 6 did to Windows XP. Microsoft should check, re-check, and triple-check IE 7...I'm using the release candidate of IE 7, and all I have to say is that it is still a really long way to go before the final release version of IE. The IE development team still has a lot more work it has to do.
Anonymous
September 12, 2006
with regards to the last post, when you open up a new tab in Internet Explorer 7, the browser closes itself unexpectedly. Get to work!!!
Anonymous
September 18, 2006

Summary: Christopher Vaughan mentioned in IEBlog that Microsoft will not terminate the support of...
Anonymous
November 22, 2007
IE7 - it won't be mandatory (but you'd have to be mad not to)
Anonymous
January 04, 2008
PingBack from http://actors.247blogging.info/?p=4424
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June 03, 2008
PingBack from http://aidanwebsite.beyondspeed.com/forceie6touseopenwindow.html
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May 29, 2009
PingBack from http://paidsurveyshub.info/story.php?title=ieblog-ie7-ie6-and-the-windows-lifecycle
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June 09, 2009
PingBack from http://greenteafatburner.info/story.php?id=412
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June 15, 2009
PingBack from http://mydebtconsolidator.info/story.php?id=8167

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