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Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

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Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#41

This is a serious problem for us in my business as our business banking software we are forced to use by our bank in mainland China still only works with IE. I spent an hour last night ultimately inputting shady commands into my registry, to try to force IE to open instead of being hijacked by edge. When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell? Of course I’m pissed the bank hadn’t upgraded bu…

> When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell?

Well, I don’t think they can refuse to upgrade any longer if it doesn’t work, right?

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#42

In 1998, Microsoft asserts that their browser was an inherent component of the operating system and could not be extracted. In 2020, Microsoft miraculously defies the impossible! What can't Microsoft do?

Uhhh, how about the fact that it's taken 20+ years and the development of an entirely new browser to finally begin the extraction of IE from the OS?

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#43

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…

If people have genuine use cases (or even simply have a preferred remembered experience experience for how something complicated works like an elderly person) I see no reason why they "should" upgrade, and why instead we shouldn't at least try to provide those users a mediocre amount of support. For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking

On my grandmother's computer I did the "install this site as an app" function for the sites she uses and they open up in frameless windows. The only browser controls available to her are back and refresh. Highly recommend.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#44

This is a serious problem for us in my business as our business banking software we are forced to use by our bank in mainland China still only works with IE. I spent an hour last night ultimately inputting shady commands into my registry, to try to force IE to open instead of being hijacked by edge. When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell? Of course I’m pissed the bank hadn’t upgraded bu…

We went through this 20 years ago when it was IE6.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#45

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 litigation but somehow you manage to make it out by smirking through interviews and the grace of a nation thats just awakening to the dawn of the internet.

then fast forward 20 years later, your dumpster-fire web browser with all its lock-in and exploits still exists in the OS but the average user sees it as nothing more than a glorified blue icon to immediately download what has become your direct competitors far more competent and meaningful execution of browser software.

So you sunset the horrorshow that was IE in favour of your competitors browser engine to power your new browser but the haggard burro of a thing you call an OS is so inextricably encumbered by your blues-traveler era nineties myopia you now need a team of H1B's to start writing shims and the burger from lunch feels like its starting to come back up...

...now eight years later whatever frankenstein browser you convinced yourself was a good idea to build is still nowhere near as popular as your competitors, and thats after you added built-in gaslighting to your search engine to dissuade anyone from even searching for your competitors browser. you even came up with your own prefix to force links in your daytime infomercial of an OS to open directly in your new pet browser but people still dont want to use it. heck, you routinely reset their default browser and the only thing its managed to do is galvanize what by all indicators is a nearly white-hot detest for your pet chrome that has 45 seconds of unavoidable fullscreen lecture on first load, built in ads and tours, and a weird buy now pay later feature.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#46

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…

If people have genuine use cases (or even simply have a preferred remembered experience experience for how something complicated works like an elderly person) I see no reason why they "should" upgrade, and why instead we shouldn't at least try to provide those users a mediocre amount of support. For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking

> For the average Grandma who just wants to use Hotmail and Facebook, learning Edge is actually a monumental undertaking

I don't know what value of "grandma" is subject to being averaged, but this feels needlessly hyperbolic.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#47

This is a serious problem for us in my business as our business banking software we are forced to use by our bank in mainland China still only works with IE. I spent an hour last night ultimately inputting shady commands into my registry, to try to force IE to open instead of being hijacked by edge. When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell? Of course I’m pissed the bank hadn’t upgraded bu…

We went through this 20 years ago when it was IE6.

shudder

Brings me back to the days of having to support IE6 for a client website when everyone has moved on from IE6. That shit was a dog to support

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#48
post #45

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…

> inexplicably make it not only uninstallable by the user, but a core and critical functionality of your entire OS

Well, it's kind of explicable: It was at about that time Microsoft rolled out HTML Help, so they needed an HTML rendering engine on every PC to be able to read the documentation.

Using a web browser as your native app's rendering engine is what all the cool kids are doing these days, so in a way they were just 15 years ahead of the curve.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#49

This is a serious problem for us in my business as our business banking software we are forced to use by our bank in mainland China still only works with IE. I spent an hour last night ultimately inputting shady commands into my registry, to try to force IE to open instead of being hijacked by edge. When an entire industry in a country refuses to upgrade what the hell? Of course I’m pissed the bank hadn’t upgraded bu…

Korea went deeply down the "custom security" rabbithole too, and many banks there still rely on activeX controls and custom encryption algorithms and other insane bullshit that actively impairs security. It seems to be a regional thing (or at least a developing-country thing).

https://palant.info/2023/01/02/south-koreas-online-security-... HN discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34231364

https://www.forbes.com/sites/elaineramirez/2016/11/30/south-...

This is not unheard-of in the enterprise world in the US either. To name-and-shame, Allscripts Enterprise EHR system still uses active-x controls and is still actively deployed in hospital systems.

The typical deployment will be a sandboxed VDI installation that isn't allowed to directly talk to anything except its EHR server and has to be connected via citrix or similar. It is still insane, of course, but the medical world is another one that moves slow. Probably some stuff in the financial sector too, they like that shit too.

Re: Microsoft is forcibly removing internet explorer from PCs

#50

In 1998, Microsoft asserts that their browser was an inherent component of the operating system and could not be extracted. In 2020, Microsoft miraculously defies the impossible! What can't Microsoft do?

Going forward, Microsoft Edge WebView2 will probably be inherent component of Windows, so they will just replace one browser for another.

For the time being, I assume EdgeHTML is still present, since I assume this is used for the compatibility mode in Edge (and for legacy WebViews).

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