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Retiring Internet Explorer

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Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#61

Post by filoleg »

derefr wrote: post #57
filoleg wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It would get them moving, but not necessarily in the direction MSFT would like. If they are forced to change OS, they might think twice about moving to yet another OS made by a company that just did the forcing in such a ruthless way. Mind you, I would totally agree with such a decision, if MSFT decided to enforce it, but I dont think it will necessarily play out in a way that is advantageous to MSFT, hence why they…

Keep in mind, Microsoft already aren’t making any money from them. They aren’t quite “Microsoft customers” in any real sense, if they’re running WinXP and Office2007.

Those running WinXP/Office2007 are, in fact, pretty legit customers (assuming they run official registered versions of Windows and require security patches/support). MSFT even has a special payment plan for entities that refuse to update, so they charge them a hefty sum for custom security patches and support, with costs going up significantly every subsequent year.

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#62

Post by sjwright »

derefr wrote: post #33
logifail wrote: post #11

If Microsoft really believes no-one needs IE, why is it still shipping it as part of Windows 10? Specifically, why is it still shipping IE as the only browser as part of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, including LTSC 2019? Yes, that is the version of Windows 10 with an "extended support end date of 9 January 2029"* * https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifec...

Same reason they're still shipping Notepad, or the non-Powershell command interpreter: backwards compatibility with old enterprise software that hooks directly into those specific things (e.g. by targeting the mouse at specific pixels.) Basically, think of it like: LTSC ships without a browser. If you want a browser, go install one from the App Store. What it does ship with is an ActiveX-enabled-Intranet client.

What you describe is a valid reason for Windows to continue shipping with MSHTML.dll — not a valid reason to continue shipping the actual iexplore.exe GUI executable.

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#63

Post by cesarb »

criddell wrote: post #55
wvenable wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Microsoft really believes no-one needs IE, why is it still shipping it as part of Windows 10? We have multi-million dollar software that relies on IE to run -- that's why. What good is an OS that can't run our software? Since Windows 10 we've setup an icon to just launch this application in IE and set the default browser for end-users to Chrome. Eventually that software will be replaced and we can end our use of…

IE doesn't have to ship with Windows 10, does it? Is there any reason it couldn't be a separate install? I don't use it so I'd rather not have it on my machine.

From what I recall, iexplore.exe is actually only a small wrapper around mshtml.dll. A lot of software depend on mshtml.dll and related DLLs. So you might think you're not using IE, but other non-browser software you use might be using IE under the covers. If Microsoft doesn't install IE by default, these programs would not work correctly (which is why Wine also implements these DLLs).

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#64

Post by sjwright »

cesarb wrote: post #63
criddell wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

IE doesn't have to ship with Windows 10, does it? Is there any reason it couldn't be a separate install? I don't use it so I'd rather not have it on my machine.

From what I recall, iexplore.exe is actually only a small wrapper around mshtml.dll. A lot of software depend on mshtml.dll and related DLLs. So you might think you're not using IE, but other non-browser software you use might be using IE under the covers. If Microsoft doesn't install IE by default, these programs would not work correctly (which is why Wine also implements these DLLs).

Correct, iexplore.exe is itself a small wrapper. But that doesn't stop Microsoft from not shipping that small wrapper. Software that embeds mshtml.dll does not require the existence of the exe file.

(Or alternatively, Microsoft could put some hack into Windows so that attempts to run iexplore.exe are passed to Edge unless the administrator has twiddled with some arbitrary registry key or group policy.)

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#65

Post by felipelemos »

wvenable wrote: post #39
logifail wrote: post #11

If Microsoft really believes no-one needs IE, why is it still shipping it as part of Windows 10? Specifically, why is it still shipping IE as the only browser as part of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, including LTSC 2019? Yes, that is the version of Windows 10 with an "extended support end date of 9 January 2029"* * https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifec...

> If Microsoft really believes no-one needs IE, why is it still shipping it as part of Windows 10? We have multi-million dollar software that relies on IE to run -- that's why. What good is an OS that can't run our software? Since Windows 10 we've setup an icon to just launch this application in IE and set the default browser for end-users to Chrome. Eventually that software will be replaced and we can end our use of…

You have to install Chrome anyway, why not also install IE?

I'm sure this would not be a big deal for a multi-million dollar company.

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#66

Post by sjwright »

reaperducer wrote: post #43
gummydog wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many Enterprises run critical legacy apps that depend on IE and it's ability to emulate lower versions. Many large orgs would require $100's of millions to rewrite all of them. No one will fund exercise that until the proverbial gun is point at them. 2029 sounds about right.

Many large orgs would require $100's of millions to rewrite all of them. My org loaded Chrome on all of the machines for our internal web sites, but according to my logs, almost nobody uses it. They're just too used to clicking on the (e), I guess.

Your org should replace the (e) with a shortcut to Chrome—but with the name and icon changed to match Internet Explorer. Much easier than retraining all the monkeys.

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#67

Post by zamadatix »

kbumsik wrote: post #53
Ajedi32 wrote: post #26

> A fascinating set of circumstances led to Internet Explorer’s dominance in Asian markets. First, early browsers had poor support for Unicode and East Asian character sets, forcing website developers to build their own text rendering atop native code plugins (ActiveX). South Korea mandated use of a locally-developed cipher (SEED) for banking transactions, and this cipher was not implemented by browser developers… Ac…

I'm Korean so I glad to see someone speaks out this. Actually it was rather inevitable, partially because of the U.S. gov that time. The Korean gov wanted to grow e-commerce/e-banking in 1999 but the American gov did not allow to export cipher higher than 40 bits. As a result the Korean gov had to develop its own 128 bits cipher (SEED). It was even before AES/SSL/TLS were introduced so the whole crypto stack was impl…

SSL had been available in IE since version 2 with Windows 95 it was just the high encryption pack that was export blocked and needed for higher bit ciphers until 5.5 released in 2000. I'm just guessing it was easier to do everything through ActiveX than trying to add the cipher to Windows/IE as a 3rd party.

That's amazing it's still used per policy, I never would have imagined.

Edit: clarification on which parts were blocked and internationally available.

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#68

Post by kbumsik »

zamadatix wrote: post #67
kbumsik wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm Korean so I glad to see someone speaks out this. Actually it was rather inevitable, partially because of the U.S. gov that time. The Korean gov wanted to grow e-commerce/e-banking in 1999 but the American gov did not allow to export cipher higher than 40 bits. As a result the Korean gov had to develop its own 128 bits cipher (SEED). It was even before AES/SSL/TLS were introduced so the whole crypto stack was impl…

SSL had been available in IE since version 2 with Windows 95 it was just the high encryption pack that was export blocked and needed for higher bit ciphers until 5.5 released in 2000. I'm just guessing it was easier to do everything through ActiveX than trying to add the cipher to Windows/IE as a 3rd party. That's amazing it's still used per policy, I never would have imagined. Edit: clarification on which parts were…

> higher bit ciphers required the high encryption pack until 5.5 released in 2000

That thing exactly was export-restricted and was available only in U.S. and Canada: https://jeffpar.github.io/kbarchive/kb/159/Q159709/

But it was true that SSL was introduced before 1999. Thanks for the correction.

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#69

Post by wvenable »

sjwright wrote: post #64
cesarb wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From what I recall, iexplore.exe is actually only a small wrapper around mshtml.dll. A lot of software depend on mshtml.dll and related DLLs. So you might think you're not using IE, but other non-browser software you use might be using IE under the covers. If Microsoft doesn't install IE by default, these programs would not work correctly (which is why Wine also implements these DLLs).

Correct, iexplore.exe is itself a small wrapper. But that doesn't stop Microsoft from not shipping that small wrapper. Software that embeds mshtml.dll does not require the existence of the exe file. (Or alternatively, Microsoft could put some hack into Windows so that attempts to run iexplore.exe are passed to Edge unless the administrator has twiddled with some arbitrary registry key or group policy.)

> But that doesn't stop Microsoft from not shipping that small wrapper.

They could but that goes back to reply about it existing software still requiring IE.

IE will be around for as long as very critical apps still require it. In some form, it might be around forever.

Re: Retiring Internet Explorer

#70

Post by Forge36 »

logifail wrote: post #11

If Microsoft really believes no-one needs IE, why is it still shipping it as part of Windows 10? Specifically, why is it still shipping IE as the only browser as part of Windows 10 Enterprise LTSC, including LTSC 2019? Yes, that is the version of Windows 10 with an "extended support end date of 9 January 2029"* * https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/13853/windows-lifec...

Committed support until 2029 for VB6 and other .Net functionality still require it
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