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By Michael Pietroforte | 5 Comments | Permalink | Trackback | Previous | NextMicrosoft published the Internet Explorer 7 Deployment Guide, a 67 page Word document, discussing how to plan and carry out IE7 deployment. I just skimmed over the document, but it seems to me that more things have to be considered than what I thought before.
Originally, I planned to deploy IE7 at the beginning of this year in our organization, but then we found out that some of our applications are having problems. Among them is an issue about certificates with Citrix Presentation Server. All these problems are probably solvable, but this costs time.
I still have much respect for this update. The stand I took in the discussion on 4sysops a while ago remains. We will certainly not deploy IE7 on all of our machines at first. In these cases we always let typical users test the new software thoroughly before the major rollout.
Last month I built a custom IE setup using IEAK. I had never used this tool before and was impressed with how easy it was to customize the many settings in IE. I also created a vbs script which does checks on O/S and existing version of IE before launching a silent setup and forcing a reboot. I plan to use this after I have deployed SMS 2003 or through the startup script if demand calls for it in the meantime. I’ve tested with a number of our internal apps, one of which is incompatible with IE7. The group that uses this app will not pay for the patch (maint. contract expired long ago) and I have no way of knowing who uses this so needless to say this is holding me back from deploying ie7.
I think you’re in the same situation like many other admins. The bigger your organisation is the more difficult it is to find out what apps your users access with IE. There could be external apps you never heard of. The safest way probably is to wait some more time.
I have used WSUS (2.0) to install IE7 on 8 workstations as a small test. The installation itself was no problem but on two of the workstations IE7 didn’t work (IE7 closed down as fast as it opened). A manual reinstall solved the problem but it’s not really good on workstations far away…
Have anybody else experienced this?
Curently I am using the IEAK to build and deploy IE7. Have any of you ran into the situation where Windows Genuine Adavntage validation prevents the install of IE7 on workstations that are restricted form the internet? Do you have a solution (A solution that doe snot mean opening them up to the net HTTPS?)
I have not seen this problem myself. Let me ask how you have restricted workstations from the internet. Do you mean configuring a proxy in IE?
Perhaps you could configure a proxy exception for *.microsoft.com?