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Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

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Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#21
post #18
post #13

I bet the people who spent good money on a Windows Vista license are feeling really good about Microsoft right now.

There were few people dumb enough to buy it but plenty who were stuck with it as a default install that didn't want to then shell out $150 for Windows 7 so soon.

MS even wanted about that much for me to upgrade to a version of Vista that supported the 64 bit chip that came with the machine on which they had put Vista. That machine became a dual-boot with Fedora and I was on the road to Linux-land.

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#22
post #14

Why does microsoft still spend money building a web browser? I understood this in the 1990s because it locked people to windows, it was a feature, and hopefully it sold MSN subscriptions. But it's not the 1990s anymore. Let google spend their money on this, or let mozilla spend their money on this. Is there any reason microsoft doesn't bundle firefox with their operating system, and just EOL Internet Explorer? /admit…

Why does any company spend money on building a browser?

Microsoft provides a range of different development tools and programming languages for web development. There is the modern stuff such as ASP.NET, Silverlight, etc, but lets not forget VBScript, ActiveX, etc, the latter not widely supported by other browsers.

Microsoft has more to lose technology wise by dumping its browser than the other companies do.

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#23
post #14

Why does microsoft still spend money building a web browser? I understood this in the 1990s because it locked people to windows, it was a feature, and hopefully it sold MSN subscriptions. But it's not the 1990s anymore. Let google spend their money on this, or let mozilla spend their money on this. Is there any reason microsoft doesn't bundle firefox with their operating system, and just EOL Internet Explorer? /admit…

IE9 on win7 is slick, lightning fast graphics. Look for their fishie demo.

By having a browser on one platform they can use hardware acceleration on the browser making a win for both and keeping their hold on both.

That's the theory anyway. They'll probably screw it up bit that's the theory.

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#24
post #14

Why does microsoft still spend money building a web browser? I understood this in the 1990s because it locked people to windows, it was a feature, and hopefully it sold MSN subscriptions. But it's not the 1990s anymore. Let google spend their money on this, or let mozilla spend their money on this. Is there any reason microsoft doesn't bundle firefox with their operating system, and just EOL Internet Explorer? /admit…

Is there any reason microsoft doesn't bundle firefox with their operating system, and just EOL Internet Explorer?

Despite common belief, MS actually wants the best browser in the world. But they want it to be noticeably the best.

The fear MS would have if FF did their browser is that the FF browser for Windows offered no advantage over the one for Linux or the Mac. Or even worse, the Linux version of FF was substantially better than the Windows version.

Now you can argue that IE isn't as good as Chrome or FF, but at least MS knows that's their decision. They've allocated their resources and made their business case. If FF is providing the browser then MS could end up in a situation where the most visible end user feature is out of their control.

Let me flip the question on you. Do you think Apple ever would/should simply let FF or Chrome be their iOS web browser and stop doing Safari mobile?

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#25
post #2

IE9 not supporting XP at least had some sort of justification, regardless of whether it was a good decision. Vista was a large platform upgrade/rewrite, and they mentioned particular features IE9 was using that they didn't want to bother re-implementing for XP (graphics stack, security). But Win7 is not such a drastic upgrade over Vista (architecturally, anyways). So what's the explanation for this?

What's the justification for Safari 5 not supporting Tiger?

Safari 5 came out 62 months after Tiger.

If we assume that IE10 comes out in 12 months from today then IE10 will come out 65 months after Vista.

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#26
post #2

IE9 not supporting XP at least had some sort of justification, regardless of whether it was a good decision. Vista was a large platform upgrade/rewrite, and they mentioned particular features IE9 was using that they didn't want to bother re-implementing for XP (graphics stack, security). But Win7 is not such a drastic upgrade over Vista (architecturally, anyways). So what's the explanation for this?

What's the justification for Safari 5 not supporting Tiger? Safari 5 came out 62 months after Tiger. If we assume that IE10 comes out in 12 months from today then IE10 will come out 65 months after Vista.

Hmm that's two different browsers, two different operating systems and two different vendors - what's your point?

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the justification for Safari 5 not supporting Tiger? Safari 5 came out 62 months after Tiger. If we assume that IE10 comes out in 12 months from today then IE10 will come out 65 months after Vista.

Hmm that's two different browsers, two different operating systems and two different vendors - what's your point?

If you can't see my point, honestly I don't think I could explain it to you. Imagine I just said, "nothing to see here, move along". Don't spend too much time on it.

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#28
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are still mountains of money available on the web. Since Microsoft controls the OS, they can ship a browser with defaults set to sites under their control, like msn.com and bing. My assumption is that they consider those properties as revenue (or potential revenue) sources.

Hypothetically speaking, they couldn't ship windows OS with firefox preloaded with these same defaults?

I'm not sure. I know Google spends a ton of money paying to be the default search engine in Firefox. No idea what would happen if Microsoft tried to do the same thing on its own with their own defaults.

I'd guess it would be kind of a PR nightmare for them though. Nobody questions those defaults when the browser is owned by Microsoft.

Re: Microsoft confirms IE10 won't run on Vista, millions of IE9 users shrug

#30
post #2

IE9 not supporting XP at least had some sort of justification, regardless of whether it was a good decision. Vista was a large platform upgrade/rewrite, and they mentioned particular features IE9 was using that they didn't want to bother re-implementing for XP (graphics stack, security). But Win7 is not such a drastic upgrade over Vista (architecturally, anyways). So what's the explanation for this?

What's the justification for Safari 5 not supporting Tiger? Safari 5 came out 62 months after Tiger. If we assume that IE10 comes out in 12 months from today then IE10 will come out 65 months after Vista.

While I hate to admit it, this point does have merit if it's true.
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