April, 2006

I posted previously that in IE7, the user is in control of search, and that changing the default search provider (as well as modifying the list of search engines in IE7’s list) is easy. In this post I’ll describe some of the specifics and recap feedback we’ve gotten from users. The short version: the search box in IE7 is not Microsoft’s. It belongs to the user. Our guiding principle for the search box in IE7 is that the user is in control. Read on for details. The Default . The typical default...

Hi all, I just wanted to point out that we have also included an entry called 'Give Beta Feedback' under the Tools menu in the command bar that directs you to a webpage with the list of all the ways mentioned in Al’s feedback post of getting information back to us about Beta 2. Check it out!! - Uche

Hi, I’m Tina Duff one of the IE Program Managers focused on improving the customer experience around IE - including the IE add-on web site. It sounds simple, but this means ensuring that wherever IE is talked about on Microsoft.com, it’s technically correct, easy to navigate, and provides the information customers want. We quickly realized that we should do a better job making all the great add-ons to IE that developers have created easier to find and download. Thus the new IE add-on site was born...

Hi, this is Al and I wanted to talk about feedback and support for Beta 2 of IE7 now that it is available. There are two main avenues for feedback for Beta 2, which are newsgroups and the Internet Explorer Feedback site. Internet Explorer Feedback As I posted about on March 24 , we have a site live to collect bug reports and product suggestions for future versions of IE. I'll have a blog post soon about how that is going and top issues but the site is especially important for Beta 2. The...

This evening we released IE7 Beta 2 at http://www.microsoft.com/ie . This release is not the preview or the update to the preview, but the real Beta 2 of IE7 for Windows XP SP2, Windows Server 2003 SP1, and Windows XP 64-bit Edition. Simply: please try it. We acted on a lot of the feedback and bug reports from the previous public releases. In particular, I feel good about changes we made based on reports from web developers around some CSS behaviors, application compatibility feedback, reliability...

Back in October, we blogged about some of the HTTPS improvements we’re making to IE7. At the time, we mentioned that we have encountered some HTTPS servers which claim to support TLS, but violate the RFC and “hang up” when extensions are received during the HTTPS handshake process. On Wednesday, Windows Networking GPM Billy Anders posted to the Windows Networking team blog , explaining why buggy TLS servers will result in connection failures when Windows Vista clients send TLS extensions. The...

The transcript from yesterday's IE chat is now available online . The chat was a lot of fun and donuts kept us going as we answered more than 120 questions in the hour available. In the photograph you can see from left to right Peter Gurevich, Amy P (hiding behind Peter), Chris Wilson, Max Stevens, Uche Enuha and Cyra Richardson with donuts in the center of the table as they all type answers to questions at a furious pace. There's also a news article covering some of the answers in the...

Just a notice that the April Security Update for IE also contains a non-security change to the handling of ActiveX controls, as we’ve previously mentioned . Again, due to the nature of this topic, we are not taking comments on this post. - Tony Chor

The IE April 2006 security update is now available! This security update is now available via Windows Update . Alternatively, you can receive this and all other Microsoft updates available via the new Microsoft Update . I would encourage you to upgrade to Microsoft Update if you haven’t already. This update addresses 10 security issues: 8 remote code execution vulnerabilities, one information disclosure vulnerability and one spoofing vulnerability. For more information on the contents of this...

Hey everyone, Christopher here with another in a string of Windows Lifecycle reminders . Windows 98, Windows 98 Second Edition, and Windows Millennium are due to expire after July 11 th of this year. Please read this posted article , which contains all the details about the timing and implications of the change. All Windows 98/SE/ME users are encouraged to upgrade to a supported version of Windows (such as Windows XP SP2). Thanks, - Christopher Vaughan

Members of the IE team will be online for an Expert Zone chat this coming Thursday April 13 th at 10:00AM PST. These chats are a great opportunity to have your questions answered and hear from members of the IE product team. A transcript will be published after the chat and transcripts of other recent chats are available. These chats are a lot of fun as we all type furiously to keep pace with the questions being asked. Please join us for the chat if you can. Thanks, - Dave

Hello again. This is Peter Gurevich, Program Manager for all things rendering and display related on IE. How are all of you enjoying the IE7 Beta 2 preview refresh? I have been thinking a lot lately about the nature of Time. Now before we launch off into some big Physics discussion (which would be fun) I mean HTML +Time. I want to use this blog post as an opportunity for all of you to discuss and provide feedback on how you use it in your sites. How do you currently use HTML + TIME? Have you...

Hey there, Peter here. I am really excited to tell you about the new horizontal scrolling feature in the Beta2 preview refresh as well as other enhancements we are working on for Page Zoom. We have received a lot of great comments and feedback from our customers about Page zoom and number of great suggestions. Thanks, we really appreciate it. We are working on how we can improve the Zooming of background images as well as how to stay centered when zooming on a centered page. The biggest feedback...