Subscribe via e-mail: 
Don’t deploy IE7 this year!
By Michael Pietroforte | 15 Comments | Permalink | Trackback | Previous | NextThe final of IE7 is available for download now. Some days ago I already recommended disabling the IE7 installation with Windows Update. Today, I installed the final and now I am even more convinced of not deploying IE7 this year.
It is quite obvious that its setup changes a lot in the whole system. On my one year old PC it took about 15 minutes to install IE7. Afterwards the setup asked me three times to reboot my PC. I then got the message that some applications might not work correctly since I am so stubborn and didn’t accept to reboot immediately.
It is also quite revealing that there are different versions for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003. Bye the way, you need the latest services packs on your machines if you really want to deploy IE7.
I then surfed a while with it and found right away some pages which didn’t display correctly (including 4sysops). Maybe these pages where not valid, though (which is quite probable for 4sysops).
I think the risk to deploy IE7 now is too high. We will wait several months to see how problematic this update is.
Update: Check out the lifely discussion on the IEblog.
I’m surfing this site from IE7 right now (given, I’m running Vista) and the site looks fine to me.
I don’t see any compelling reason in this post to not deploy IE7.
What will slow me down is th fact that SalesForce.com isn’t ready for IE7 yet. They say their winter release will be IE7 ready.
At the community college I work I’m recommending against installing until the spring semester begins. The instructors in the dept have to essentially vote on it though so I’m hoping that next week I’ll know. They’re aware that there might be compatibility issues although I hear that there is a compatibility mode.
Either way I installed it on two systems today manually with one being just over a year old and the install went reasonably quick on both. Both are performing fine at the moment but have not tested them too much just yet. A fellow support person sitting in front of me though had a problem with the initial screen that asks for a couple config settings to be entered before use. He couldn’t do it for most of the day and then by the end of the work day it finally worked.
Initial impressions weren’t anything to brag about(especially the user interface) but I hope to test it further tomorrow and next week.
IE7 releases with vulnerability (and fun with res…
Open IT Blogwatch in a new tab and read how Microsoft released Internet Explorer 7, but all is not well. Not to mention how to reply to lame resume writers……
Gordon, the question is if you use IE7 just yourself or if you are going to deploy it on hundreds or thousands of machines. I am sure there will be many compatibility problems. For example I had problems with Keiro firewall and IE7. If you compare the way the banner of this site is displayed in IE6 and IE7, you’ll see an obvious difference. Jim, I think it is difficult to foresee compatibility issues in this case. Do you know which web sites your users will access?
Michael, no there is no way to predict which sites will be used. I oversee about 300 pc’s with about 250 of them used by students which really translates to many, many more than 250 users. The other 50 are staff and faculty in my area.
For the staff and faculty I’m not really concerned but the students are a different manner. By waiting it gives a little time for some sites that might have trouble with IE6 to get things fixed and also if students have trouble along with faculty, it’s easier to be dealt with starting at the beginning of the semester rather than the middle.
Of course. I’m assuming most people on this site are Sys Admins and therefore discussing a widespread rollout in a corp environment.
I agree there will be some compatibility issues, but so far in my testing I’ve come across no showstoppers.
Therefore, I think the title is a bit extreme and off base. I’m fairly sure I will be able to deploy IE7 in my organization this year without issue. But I also agree that some organizations won’t since not all app developers will get their apps ready.
Maybe the title should be “Don’t deploy IE7 wihout testing all of your web apps!”
The question is if you really need the new features of IE7 this year? Why not wait until millions of users updated their systems and found the most serious bugs? Microsoft’s developers are working under a very high pressure at the moment. I am sure there are countless bugs in IE7. And don’t forget that this update obviously changes many Windows components. You always have to find trade-off between the risk to run into compatibility issues and the new features you get with an update.
The tighter security and phishing filter is enough for me.
Let me clarify….the fact that IE7 has been through the entire Security Development Lifecycle is enough of a reason for me. While not perfect, I can trust my users won’t put their AV software to the test as much as they surf websites they probably shouldn’t be (thanks to most of my staff having laptops and taking them home.)
Agreed, the new security features are great. However, Microsoft had to start from scratch with IE7. It is not simply a new version, it is a new browser. Rest assured that there are many security holes, maybe more than in IE6. Just a few hours after IE7 was released, I read this: IE 7 Fails Its First Security Test
Just saw this: Minor issues surface after IE 7 launch. Only minor issues, yes. But if your organisation is affected, a minor issue can turn into a major one.
The fact that it is completely re-written and during that coding phase it went through the SDL leads me to believe that it will probably have fewer flaws than IE6. IE6 continues to be battered and patched at a blinding pace. There may be too many flaws to ever really fix all the holes.
I bet if IE7 is around 5 years from now, we’ll see it had fewer patches than IE6 received.
The fact is, my buddie’s organization runs almost entirely through the web browser. He has lots of testing to do. I doubt he’ll roll out this year. My organization runs one application and visits a select few important websites. My testing will be easy. I won’t be ready by Nov 1, but I’m sure I’ll have it rolled out by the end of Nov (esp since I’m hiring a new employee to handle the help desk stuff….yeah!!!)
Things have been a bit quiet and boring for a while. It’s gonna be cool to have IE7, Vista, and Office 2007 to rollout over the next couple of years. More jobs are on the horizon in our field due to this.
You’re probably right that in the long run IE7 will have fewer flaws. Maybe in your case I would risk it too. I wish you all the luck for your rollout. Let us know how if you ran into any problems.
Make this world a better place and install FireFox 2.0 instead
deploy software remotely