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Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

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Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#141

Post by Apple-Guy »

commandar wrote: post #120
veidr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big corporate is such a weird space. On one hand, you're right: big corporate will block this, and that will limit the impact, and thus I think a lot of the hallelujah in this thread is over-optimistic. But MS would never force such consequential upgrades on those customers; that's part of why MS owned and still owns the "enterprise" market (decreasingly lucrative though it may be). On the other hand, I doubt that co…

>One of the things that really blew my mind this year was a large ($40MM) software development project I became familiar with (a worldwide internal system for a multinational corporation) that concluded -- in 2011 -- and required MSIE 6. MSIE 6! Doesn't even run on MSIE 7, much less any modern browser. This happens all the time at the hospital I work at. I'm constantly flummoxed by how behind the times software vendo…

Probably why so many hospitals are choosing iPad over PCs.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#142

Post by MartinCron »

mdc wrote: post #128
veidr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big corporate is such a weird space. On one hand, you're right: big corporate will block this, and that will limit the impact, and thus I think a lot of the hallelujah in this thread is over-optimistic. But MS would never force such consequential upgrades on those customers; that's part of why MS owned and still owns the "enterprise" market (decreasingly lucrative though it may be). On the other hand, I doubt that co…

>why don't you just code a native app? It sounds like that's exactly what they did, They just hosted most of the code on a server. It's kind of like the "native" iOS apps that just use a webview component to display a web app. Sticking with IE6 just means you have all the hassle of a native app (like needing to make sure IE6 gets installed and stays installed on every machine) with none of the benefits.

Well, almost all of the hassle, anyway. They probably don't need to maintain and distribute an installer for this particular enterprise app.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#143

Post by willholley »

commandar wrote: post #120
veidr wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Big corporate is such a weird space. On one hand, you're right: big corporate will block this, and that will limit the impact, and thus I think a lot of the hallelujah in this thread is over-optimistic. But MS would never force such consequential upgrades on those customers; that's part of why MS owned and still owns the "enterprise" market (decreasingly lucrative though it may be). On the other hand, I doubt that co…

>One of the things that really blew my mind this year was a large ($40MM) software development project I became familiar with (a worldwide internal system for a multinational corporation) that concluded -- in 2011 -- and required MSIE 6. MSIE 6! Doesn't even run on MSIE 7, much less any modern browser. This happens all the time at the hospital I work at. I'm constantly flummoxed by how behind the times software vendo…

One problem is that as a vendor, we have to work to the lowest common denominator. It's still generally a requirement that you support IE6, despite the department of health encouraging hospitals to upgrade, because they have legacy apps where the vendor has disappeared or the upgrade is too expensive / painful for the hospital to bear.

We actually ship customers a custom build of Chromium which can only access our application (hospital policy generally dictates they must use IE to access the internet for "security" reasons) - we would love them to just use modern browsers so we can ditch our custom client but it doesn't look like it's going to happen any time soon :-(

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#144

Post by alastairpat »

kmfrk wrote: post #85
necolas wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Furthermore, apparently "future versions of IE will provide an option in the product for consumers to opt out of automatic upgrading". Source: http://windowsteamblog.com/ie/b/ie/archive/2011/12/15/ie-to-...

Sounds reasonable and as something only power users would be aware of. Updating using Windows Update is the biggest pain in the ass, and it's great to see a much more convenient solution.

The update will still be delivered via Windows Update, it just won't prompt you like it previously did.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#145

Post by jjcm »

RyanMcGreal wrote: post #117
antinitro wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I honestly can't see the reasoning behind this.

They want people to buy a newer version of Windows.

Or more accurately, it's not financially viable for a company to support a 10 year old OS.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#146

Post by tdoggette »

gldalmaso wrote: post #28
hendrik-xdest wrote: post #5

And here I thought that all non-updated IE versions were installed in environments where Sysadmins blocked the updates (and will in the future). It would be interesting to see a number of how many installations this change could really target. Like, how many IE 6 to 8 are actually in the wild. Can't be that much, imho.

>> Sysadmins blocked the updates There's something about this that really bothers me, maybe someone can better clarify. Why are admins enforcing a policy that leaves the company target to just about every possible security hole that has been fixed in the past 20 years? Is there a valid reason for this that I'm unaware of?

I work for a local-government IT department in the DC area. We're on IE7, but we have automatic updates turned off.

At first, a few years ago, it was because there was one specific update that broke our Oracle software, so everything got turned off. Now, we keep them off because of inertia. We started pushing out selected security updates in the last few months because the security folks insisted.

Oddly, it's our policy to install the full set of updates (except IE8) to all machines that have issues. We also update our images with all the latest stuff from Microsoft Updates.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#147

Post by yuhong »

dhkl wrote: post #74

Perhaps one of the reason why people are still capable of getting an acceptable Internet experience from IE 6 and 7 is because Flash 10 (and 11 for IE 7) supports them. Thank goodness that there is a strong traction behind HTML5 stack, and the industry as a whole is less reliant on Flash to deliver good UX. Without Flash, the capability of these older browsers will be reduced, and I'm sure they will get abandoned at…

Indeed, Flash became popular especially during the IE6 stagnation.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#148

Post by olliesaunders »

veidr wrote: post #112
ArbitraryLimits wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just curious, what makes you think the "enterprise" market is less lucrative than it used to be?

Well, it's still pretty lucrative, but for Microsoft, it doesn't go anywhere anymore. I am persuaded by some of the recent arguments (John Siracusa's maybe?) that both the innovation and the money in general-purpose computing industry have moved over to the consumer side of the equation, and that this change has put MS in a worse position than they've traditionally been in. Dominating corporate computing (for soooo f…

You say that the enterprise is “lucrative” and then you say that “megacorps want cheap” software.

I don’t dispute either of these statements. I share the observation that price is the number one concern of those who don’t understand technology and that there’s a lot of money to be made in that space. But what to you think enables both of those statements to be true?

Is it that developers are able to con technophobes into contracts and processes that appear cheap but ultimately end up costing them more? Or, perhaps technophobes actively demand things that lead to that situation e.g. waterfall. Or some other possibility?

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#149

Post by mehwoot »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #23

I'm not a fan, and I don't understand the gushing. As developers, I suppose folks are glad to reduce their support matrix? But as users, creators of highly customized workstations and rabid fans of particular development environments, doesn't it bother anybody but me, that the browser choice has been hijacked? Sure, its just stupid Windows users, they don't care. Is that it? Every IE UI is different, and they seem to…

Pushing updates is on par for chrome and firefox as well. What specific ways is IE's usability "spiralling down"? I quite like the improvements made from 6 up to 9.

Re: Microsoft decides to automatically update Internet Explorer for everyone

#150

Post by bradwestness »

markkanof wrote: post #65
ramblerman wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I partake in my fair share of Microsoft bashing but am I understanding your point here. You're criticizing MS for not pushing updates to pirated versions of their software?

That seems like a fair criticism. Those pirated copies of XP will now never be updated again. This will both contribute to the persistence of IE 6 as well as allow security flaws in XP and IE 6 to go unpatched which will increase the potential for these machines to become part of a bot not or spread viruses. At the same time Microsoft's actions didn't prevent any of these pirated copies from continuing to be used, so…

Then they'll get viruses and have to reformat, or call Microsoft support and find out that it's pirated (if they didn't already know) and eventually end up upgrading. If nothing else, the fact that hardware vendors no longer make Windows XP drivers is about to kill off IE 6 once and for all anyway.
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