Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

wired.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

211–220 of 221 posts

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#211

Post by LeifCarrotson »

whizzter wrote: post #177
LeifCarrotson wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a device builder creating those machines (well, industrial CNCs, but similar idea) I don't have many options when trying to build something with a useful life of 20+ years. I just received an order for another machine in a lineup that started with some using Heidenhain controls from the early 90s, we ripped out those controllers and replaced them with models running a custom black box RTOS based on Motorola DSP 56…

Any reason communication with these kinds of machines hasn't been built on top of something like CAN or Ethernet?

It is, we're now installing CiA 402 or "CAN in Automation CANopen Drives and Motion" servos (which didn't exist at the time the first ones were built) running on an EtherCAT real-time protocol stack. That will hopefully make replacing servos in the future relatively seamless.

Unfortunately, though, just using a CAN or Ethernet physical layer doesn't solve the problem of the https://xkcd.com/927/ standards proliferation of industrial protocols: Some customers require CIP motion over Ethernet/IP (a dog-slow Rockwell proprietary protocol), there's old MACRO fiber optic rings, Sercos III (and prior serial protocols), a dozen high-speed serial standards for communicating with absolute encoders, and, of course, good old-fashioned hardwired digital I/O - which might be either analog velocity/torque or step and direction, RS422 differential or single-ended, etc. etc. etc.

You'd hope that you could just plug something that spoke CAN or Ethernet into something else that has the same physical interface, and the two would work together. Sometimes, you get lucky and that works out. But the ever-forward march of industry leaves behind a graveyard of yesteryear's abandoned products and protocols.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#212

Post by 908B64B197 »

midoridensha wrote: post #199
908B64B197 wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about the ABI?

What about it?

I don't think kernel ABI is compatible between versions.

So unless the vendor distributes the source for the driver interfacing with the machine, it shouldn't run on modern releases.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#213

Post by stcroixx »

nimbius wrote: post #45
PreInternet01 wrote: post #5

More correct albeit less clickbaity headline: recent builds of Microsoft Edge will uninstall any remnants of Internet Explorer from your PC and replace them with compatibility shims, so most legacy apps should continue to work as-is. On Windows Server platforms, where IE11 is still inexplicably the default experience even in the most recent 2022 editions, you can still enjoy its full functionality, until you explicit…

>and replace them with compatibility shims christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust…

Here, here.

To top it all off, the next generation of techies think the company that did this is one of the good ones and voluntarily use their software(VSCode?).

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#214

Post by stcroixx »

dilippkumar wrote: post #63
nimbius wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>and replace them with compatibility shims christ can you imagine the raw hubris in 1995 to roll this out and inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS such that any attempt to sidestep or evade it would be met with ruination? Its so bombastic the US Justice department hauls your pepsi sipping CEO in for a round of slouching, hand-waving antitrust…

> …you now need a team of H1B's to start writing shims… This was uncalled for. You could’ve just said engineers. For those of us in an unending battle with a broken immigration system every day of our lives for over a decade, this really rubs the wrong way.

MS chooses H1B's specifically because they can abuse and exploit them, forcing long hours with the threat of deportation upon termination. Turning a blind eye to that kind of abuse of power only allows it to continue.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#216

Post by dilippkumar »

midoridensha wrote: post #196
dilippkumar wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> …you now need a team of H1B's to start writing shims… This was uncalled for. You could’ve just said engineers. For those of us in an unending battle with a broken immigration system every day of our lives for over a decade, this really rubs the wrong way.

The US's immigration system is not "broken". It's working exactly as designed. If you don't like the way that country is treating you, then why are you so eager to go there and endure that abuse?

> It's working exactly as designed.

I am fairly confident that you have no idea what you are talking about.

None other than Adolf Hitler himself admired how "The American Union categorically refuses the immigration of physically unhealthy elements, and simply excludes the immigration of certain races..” [0].

If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 months to clear, and others of a specific national origin in a different line that takes decades to clear, with all other factors being exactly equal, and still believe that the system is working exactly as designed, we have a problem.

[0]. https://www.timesofisrael.com/american-laws-against-coloreds...

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#217

Post by midoridensha »

dilippkumar wrote: post #216
midoridensha wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US's immigration system is not "broken". It's working exactly as designed. If you don't like the way that country is treating you, then why are you so eager to go there and endure that abuse?

> It's working exactly as designed. I am fairly confident that you have no idea what you are talking about. None other than Adolf Hitler himself admired how "The American Union categorically refuses the immigration of physically unhealthy elements, and simply excludes the immigration of certain races..” [0]. If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 month…

>If you are aware of how to immigration system specifically puts some people in a short line that takes 3 months to clear, and others of a specific national origin in a different line that takes decades to clear, with all other factors being exactly equal, and still believe that the system is working exactly as designed, we have a problem.

Then I guess we have a problem. The system is working exactly as it's designed. Maybe you don't like it, maybe you think it's racist or unfair or whatever, but you need to take it up with the people who designed the system. It's working just the way they want it to.

The only big problem I see here is that you seem to think that everyone (including national leaders and wealthy interests who pay them) wants the same kind of immigration system as you do.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#218

Post by midoridensha »

908B64B197 wrote: post #212
midoridensha wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about it?

I don't think kernel ABI is compatible between versions. So unless the vendor distributes the source for the driver interfacing with the machine, it shouldn't run on modern releases.

We're not talking about drivers, we're talking about applications. You can take an application compiled back in 2005 and run it on a modern Linux machine, as long as the machine architecture is the same.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#219

Post by tangjurine »

asdff wrote: post #102
horsawlarway wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a very strange comment. Personally... I absolutely understand exactly how they ended up in this situation. There are actually several good reasons to embed the browser into the OS, the top two easily understood ones are... --- 1. They've put a lot of work into the browser, and they've shared many components of it with other tooling. EX: Internet EXPLORER and EXPLORER the file system browser don't share their…

Microsoft only cares about legacy support if it means the vast majority of customers. I will give you an example: go to a top tier research institution for biology, and sort your cells with the fluorescence-activated cell sorter (FACS). You might have to now burn that data onto a cd rom, because the software running the six figure instrument was written in 2002 for windows XP, and for reasons only known to microsoft,…

My friend was working at Microsoft on JavaScript engine bugs for Internet explorer last year. He was telling me they had a contract with a large insurance company to support ie, and that because he found out about the contract his job feel a little less useless.

So it seems like to me they do care about legacy support.

Maybe you just need to pay for it

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#220

Post by 908B64B197 »

midoridensha wrote: post #218
908B64B197 wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think kernel ABI is compatible between versions. So unless the vendor distributes the source for the driver interfacing with the machine, it shouldn't run on modern releases.

We're not talking about drivers, we're talking about applications. You can take an application compiled back in 2005 and run it on a modern Linux machine, as long as the machine architecture is the same.

I assumed the machine would require a custom driver. Else it's extremely unlikely the app was broken as early as 2006 (so on Windows Vista) without their research group having some sort of support contract. Software would have been barely 4 years old at that point.
Post reply on HN