Now more than ever before in your career as a Windows systems administrator, you may find yourself partially or fully responsible for the availability of your company’s Web applications. “But I’m not a Web admin!” you might exclaim. Like it or not, the migration of applications from the desktop to the Web browser means that we systems admins must take ownership of application uptime, regardless of form factor.

Here are some thought questions for you to consider: Does your organization do business over the Web? If so, how can you verify that your e-commerce engine is functional at any particular point in time? How can you diagnose bottlenecks and latencies in your Web application from the user’s’ perspective?

Many organizations rely upon internal line-of-business (LOB) Web applications. Again, we administrators are often faced with service-level agreements (SLAs) or organizational mandates that guarantee application availability for our users.

SolarWinds offers the free tool Web Transaction Watcher that enables you to run live transaction tests against your Web applications in a completely no-code, graphical environment.

The typical workflow for running Web application transaction tests is to author and run often complicated shell scripts or programming language scripts. By contrast, Web Transaction Watcher includes an intuitive recorder with which we step through a typical Web transaction and store those steps for analysis and future reuse.

Recording a Web transaction

To download Web Transaction Watcher, simply provide SolarWinds with a contact e-mail address. Once you have the software installed (the disk footprint is tiny; the installation .MSI weighs in at under 5 MB), fire up Web Transaction Watcher; the application view defaults to the Recording tab. Next, use the tool’s integrated Web browser to navigate to your desired Web application. The Web Transaction Watcher main interface is shown in the following screen capture.

Web Transaction Watcher main interface

Let’s use the previous screen capture as our reference as we walk you through the process of recording a Web transaction. After you have the integrated browser pointed at the proper page within your Web application, press the Record button (A) and begin your desired transaction. For our purposes, a Web transaction is simply a series of steps that an end-user might take in your app; these could include:

• Adding an item to an online shopping cart
• Completing an online purchase
• Posting a message to an online forum
• Downloading a file

You’ll notice that the Time Line (C) records each step in the transaction process in much the same way the macro recorder traces your steps in Microsoft Office applications. However, what sets Web Transaction Watcher apart from its competition is that you can actually edit and delete any step in your Web transaction during recording.

The process of editing a task sequence is easy; simply right-click the appropriate transaction step and select Edit or Delete from the shortcut menu. This is shown in the following screen capture.

Editing a Web transaction step

When your Web transaction is complete, press the Stop button (B). Make sure to save your recorded transaction for future playback. Web Transaction Watcher recording files use the intuitive .recording file extension.

Analyzing and replaying Web transactions

To analyze your recorded Web transaction, navigate to the Monitoring Console tab in the main interface. Web Transaction Watcher stores the last five runs of your recorded transaction and displays the status of each with a color-coded bubble icon (shown at A in the following screen capture).

Monitoring a Web transaction

In the Steps area of this interface (B in the above screen capture) you can check the status of individual steps in the captured transaction. Again, the feedback is color-coded: errors are shown with a gray callout bubble. Clicking the status indicator bubble calls up a dialog with timing information to help you diagnose and troubleshoot latency.

Examining latency

Do you see the hyperlink that says Try the SEUM evaluation for configurable thresholds? This is a reminder that the SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher is the free “little sibling” to their enterprise product Synthetic End User Monitor (SEUM).

SEUM is cool because it greatly broadens and deepens the Web transaction monitoring functionality contained in the Web Transaction Monitor. For instance, SEUM has robust scheduling capability (Web Transaction Watcher includes limited functionality for automatically replaying your stored Web transaction sequences).

Moreover, SEUM makes it easy to run your Web application tests from multiple hosts. For example, you may want to simulate your Web app user experience from multiple locations around the world using various Internet connection speeds.

Conclusion

You should know that Web Transaction Monitor is only one of over 20 completely free utilities that are offered by SolarWinds. I’ve been a fan of these tools for many years; their Advanced Subnet Calculator has historically been one of my favorite free utilities from any vendor.

Web Transaction Watcher

• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)
• Chromebooks – Eight disadvantages – Part 5: Costs and conclusion (2)

Before we begin, please have a look at the previous articles in this series so you have a firm background of what we are trying to accomplish.

In this blog post we assume that you used the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) and Active Directory Group Policy to deploy a custom build of Internet Explorer 9. Today we will pick up with the questions:

1. How can I maintain an already deployed build of IE9?
2. How can I lock down browser preferences?

Well, let’s get to work at answering those questions.

IEAK Configuration-Only Packages

Recall that the Media Selection screen of the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard enables us to create a configuration-only package. In constrast to the CD-ROM and File options, which give you a full-fledged Windows Installer (.MSI) build of IE9, the configuration-only package option has two chief deliverables: the .INS file that stores your custom build settings; one or more component information (.CIF) files that contain metadata concerning custom IE9 components; and optionally a Microsoft Cabinet (.CAB) file that contains compressed installation files as well as additional build metadata.

Building a configuration-only package in IEAK

Contents of a configuration-only package

What can you do with a configuration-only package? Perhaps the best action is to configure your users for Automatic Browser Configuration and point them to a network share that contains your .INS file. (We will discuss Automatic Browser Configuration in more detail in a moment.)

Editing Existing IEAK Packages

We use the IEAK 9 Profile Manager to modify IEAK packages, regardless of whether you use the CD-ROM, File, or Configuration-Only Package option. Simply start Profile Manager, click File > Open, and browse to the location of the .INS file that you want to modify.

IEAK 9 Profile Manager

The Profile Manager interface is fairly self-explanatory if you already have experience with using the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard. Profile Manager simply gives you access to all the Customization Wizard options in a single, Windows Explorer-ish navigation tree.

When you save your changes, you may see the Save .INS file and .CAB files dialog box. This screen gives you another opportunity to configure Automatic Browser Configuration (Microsoft seems to be pretty insistent that we use it in our networks!).

Saving changes in IEAK Profile Manager

Enabling Automatic Browser Configuration

Alrighty then! Now that we’ve mentioned the mysterious “Automatic Browser Configuration” technology several times, why don’t we at last define what it means and how to set it up.

Basically, Automatic Browser Configuration (ABC) points your users’ IE9 browsers to a central location to fetch their browser settings. Once ABC is enabled, the client IE9 process will periodically check the centrally located .INS file to see if any changes have been made. If so (and regardless of whether the browser preference change has been made by the administrator to the .INS file or the user on his or her own workstation), ABC will re-apply the .INS settings to the user’s system.

Again, best practice is to specify your ABC settings during initial deployment package creation in the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard:

Specifying Automatic Browser Configuration in IEAK

Here we perform three primary actions:

1. Enable Automatic Configuration
2. Set a time interval for the client to check the server for changes
3. Specify a URL that points to your .INS file. The syntax is http://server_name/share_name/insfile. That is, you don’t have to publish the .INS using IIS; storing the file(s) in a shared folder is sufficient

Another place to specify ABC in IEAK is through Profile Manager. As you can see in Figure 3 in this article, you’ll find the ABC option beneath the Wizard Settings heading.

Third, we can specify ABC in a Internet Explorer Maintenance portion of a Group Policy Object. Open your desired GPO and navigate to User Configuration\Policies\Windows Settings\Internet Explorer Maintenance\Connection, and open the Automatic Browser Configuration policy.

Automatic Browser Configuration in Group Policy

I suppose the final way to go about enabling ABC on your users’ systems is to hard-code the ABC options in their IE9 browsers. This certainly isn’t a recommended option, but I suppose it would work okay for small networks.

To do this, open the Internet Options Control Panel, navigation to the Connections tab, and click LAN Settings. Enable the options Automatically detect settings and Use automatic configuration script. For the latter option, type your URL path to the central .INS file.

Specifying Automatic Browser Configuration on the client

Locking Down IE9

Recall that the purpose of IEAK is to deploy IE9 and/or set initial default preferences for your users. There is no “lockdown” inherent in the IEAK schema. If we have IT security policies that require that we disable certain functionality in IE9, then we must turn to Group Policy to accomplish this goal.

Recall, also, that IE9 does not ship with either Windows Server 2008 R2 or Windows 7. Therefore, the question arises as to how we can control IE9-specific features by using Group Policy.

The good news is that Microsoft provides us with the IE9 Group Policy template files upon initial installation of IE9 on our systems—isn’t that convenient? The Group Policy template in particular is named inetres.admx, and is located in the path %WINDIR%\PolicyDefinitions.

In order to make this Group Policy template available in the Group Policy Editor in Windows Server 2008 R2, we must first copy the appropriate files from %WINDIR%\PolicyDefinitions to our Group Policy Central Store. The Central Store is located under %SYSVOL% on your Windows Server 2008 R2 domain controllers. You can see an example of the copy operation in Figure 8.

Adding the IE9 Group Policy templates to the Central Store in AD

Once you’ve transferred the IE9 template files to the Central Store and refreshed Group Policy/propagated Active Directory replication, you can open up your desired Group Policy Object (GPO) and navigate to Computer Configuration\Policies\Administrative Templates\Internet Explorer. You will see plenty of IE9-specify policies.

Controlling IE through Group Policy

Note that while the preference customization scope in IEAK is significant, you will find that you can control far more IE9 features by using Group Policy directly.

Conclusion

If you worked through every entry in this series, then I am entirely confident that you can now deploy and manage Internet Explorer 9 for your organization. Thanks a lot for reading, and I look forward to receiving your feedback in the comments. Take care!

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)
• Chromebooks – Eight disadvantages – Part 5: Costs and conclusion (2)

Thus far in this series about IEAK we have covered the initial configuration and creating custom build of Internet Explorer 9. In this installment we turn to how we can leverage Active Directory software installation in Windows Server 2008 to deploy our newly created IE9 installation package.

Preliminary Steps

In this tutorial I assume that we have the following assets in place:

• An Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) domain
• A file share that stores our IE9 .MSI file(s)

For example, the screenshot below shows the contents of my development server’s Universal Naming Convention (UNC) path \\SERVER01\ie:

IEAK package distribution point

I also configured the User Experience page of the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard to match what is shown in the screenshot below:

Specifying level of interaction between user and IEAK

These options are not trivial. You need to determine in advance the level of interaction you want your users to have with the IE9 installation process, as well as decide how aggressive you need the installer to be in terms of prompting/forcing system restarts.

NOTE: In general, users do not like automated software installations that force restart their computers because doing so offers them no opportunity to save their work prior to the restart’s occurrence.

Assigning the IE9 Software Package

Now let’s turn our attention to creating a Group Policy Object (GPO) with which we can assign the IE9 installation package.

In my experience, the fastest way to open the Group Policy Management Console (GPMC) is to click Start > Run on your Windows Server 2008 domain controller, type gpmc.msc, and click OK.

Once we are inside the GPMC, right-click the Group Policy Objects node and select New from the shortcut menu. In the screenshot below, I right-clicked the domain object to define and link a new GPO in a single step.

Creating and linking a GPO

Give your new GPO a descriptive name with no spaces.

Naming a new GPO

Use the Security Filtering tools in GPMC to scope your IE9 installation GPO for the desired AD user and computer populations.

Filtering the scope of a GPO

Now let’s get down to work! Right-click your new GPO and select Edit from the shortcut menu; this opens the GPO in the Group Policy Management Editor.

Once there, navigate to Computer Configuration\Policies\Software Settings, right-click Software Installation, and select New > Package.

Creating a new software package

This next step is important: Do NOT use the Windows Explorer controls to browse to your Windows Installer (.MSI) package. Instead, type the UNC path to the target file in the File name text box. I have no idea why Microsoft allows us to specify a local path for this dialog box—it is asinine.

Specifying the IEAK package location

In the Deploy Software dialog box, choose whether you will publish or assign your software package. When you publish software in Active Directory, users can choose to install the software at their convenience through the Programs and Features Control Panel item.

Because in this tutorial upgrade to IE9 is not an option, we will assign the software, which forces the installation.

The Advanced option performs a software assignment but also enables administrators to pass additional arguments to the installation routine.

Selecting a package deployment method

The following screenshot shows the completed GPO configuration.

The completed GPO configuration

Before we mosey on over to a domain workstation to test out the IE9 deployment, we should open an administrative command prompt on our domain controller and issue gpupdate/force to mandate a Group Policy refresh throughout the domain.

Forcing a Group Policy update

The Client-Side Experience

The next screenshot shows what the pre-upgrade browser looks like in Windows 7:

The client browser pre-upgrade

Once the client machine processes the new Group Policy, your users will see either all dialog boxes, only progress message boxes, or nothing, depending upon the user interaction setting you specified during the creation of your custom IE9 package.

IE9 installation status

IE9 installation status

The last screenshot shows the client browser environment post upgrade to IE9. Note the special branding in the title bar, the new Favorites bar shortcut, and the home page that defaults to 4Sysops.com.

The client browser post-upgrade

Conclusion

So now we have all our knowledge and skills in place to deploy a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 Web browser to our organization’s user population. You might now be wondering, “That’s well and good, but how do I make changes to my users’ browsers down the road? How can I force the adoption of particular browser preferences?”

Well, I’m glad you asked! In the fourth and final installment of this series, I will show you how to perform post-installation maintenance of IE9 in addition to how we can again leverage Group Policy, this time to lock down browser preferences. Thanks for reading!

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)
• Chromebooks – Eight disadvantages – Part 5: Costs and conclusion (2)

In part 1 of this series we learned that the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) is a free, version-specific software package from Microsoft that enables IT administrators to deploy and maintain the Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser for their users/customers.

It is important for us to remember that IEAK sets initial defaults only in Internet Explorer. In other words, there is no provision in IEAK that would prevent users from changing those initial defaults, post installation.

Therefore, we must use Group Policy Objects (GPOs) to force users to keep our preferred default values. (We will cover Group Policy lockdown of IE in a future installment.)

Now that we have IEAK installed, we will turn our attention to building a custom installation package for deployment on our corporate intranet. To accomplish this goal, we must first have installed IEAK on our administrative workstation by specifying the Internal Distribution via a Corporate Intranet option.

Using the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard

From the Start menu on your administrative workstation, fire up the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard and click Next past the Welcome screen.

NOTE: Because of the enormous number of screens in the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard, I’ve removed screenshots of many of them, instead concentrating on the dialog boxes that contain important decision points for administrators.

IEAK Welcome screen

The File Locations dialog box asks us to specify a file location to house our IE builds. Each IE9 build weighs in at approximately 35 MB, so you won’t need a great deal of disk storage for this build location.

File Locations dialog box

Note in the Platform Selection drop-down that you can create IE9 builds that target both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows systems.

Platform Selection dialog box

The IEAK team has localized the Internet Explorer 9 bits into over 20 world languages.

Language Selection dialog box

If you plan to deploy a custom build of IE 9 on your intranet, then make sure to select the File option in the Media Selection dialog box. We will cover the configuration-only scenario in a future installment of this series.

Media Selection dialog box

In the Feature Selection dialog, we really start to get down to the dirty business of specifying IE 9 preferences. There is much to choose from here; please consult the IEAK documentation for details on each IE 9 feature.

Feature Selection dialog box

The Automatic Version Synchronization screen requires an Internet connection because we need to download the latest IE9 bits from Microsoft.com to your administrative workstation.

Automatic Version Synchronization dialog box

The Custom Components dialog box enables us to include third-party components like toolbars into our custom IE build. We can instruct IEAK to install these components prior to IE installation, immediately post installation, or after a system restart post installation.

Custom Components dialog box

The User Experience page is important because we need to determine (a) how much interaction we want our users to have with the custom IE 9 installation; and (b) how aggressive we want IEAK to be with regard to requesting or forcing system restarts.

User Experience dialog box

Let us summarize the next several Customization Wizard screens for you:

• Browser User Interface: Customize browser title bar text; customize IE toolbar
• Search Providers: Customize IE 9 search provider list
• Important URLs: Specify home page(s) and corporate support page URLs
• Accelerators: Customize the default list of IE 9 Accelerators
• Favorites, Favorites Bar and Feeds: Pre-populate the user’s Favorites and RSS feeds
• First Run Wizard and Welcome Page Options: Allow or deny the Internet Explorer 9 First Run Wizard and the default Welcome page
• Compatibility View: Set either IE9 standards mode or IE7 compatibility mode
• Connection Manager: Attach a Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK) connection profile to IE9 to facilitate user remote access (dial-up or VPN)

The Automatic Configuration dialog box is important if we plan to lock down IE9 post-installation by using Group Policy. Note that we have to not only enable Automatic Configuration but also specify the URL of our IE9 update .INS file.

NOTE: We will work more with IE9 Automatic Configuration in a future installment of this series.

Automatic Configuration dialog box

Here are some more screens, presented in sequence:

• Proxy Settings: Specify a proxy server address for HTTP, HTTPS, and FTP.
• Security and Privacy Settings: Customize security zones, cookie management, and content ratings
• Programs: Associate applications with various Internet-oriented file types (ie Apple QuickTime to play .MOV files)

I see the Additional Settings dialog as a sort of “catch all bucket” for a whole boatload of IE settings. Perhaps the IEAK team wanted to cap the number of additional dialogs they use for the Customization Wizard!

Additional Settings dialog box

Finally! Once we have completed all of the configuration dialog boxes, the Customization Wizard builds the package and stores it in your build directory.

Building your package

Wizard Complete dialog box

For our purposes, that of deploying the custom IE 9 package to our corporate intranet users, we want the \FLAT subdirectory within our IEAK build directory. In particular, we are interested in the Microsoft Installer (.MSI) file.

The FLAT build directory

All of your build settings are stored in the \INS subdirectory within your IEAK build directory. Specifically, the INSTALL.INS file represents our build manifest.

The INS build directory

Conclusion

Now that we have built our custom IE9 installation package, our next step is to use Windows Server 2008 Group Policy to deploy IE9 to our users. We will cover that procedure in the next installment. In the meantime, please feel free to leave comments, questions, and suggestions in the comments portion of this post. Thanks for reading and take care!

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)
• Chromebooks – Eight disadvantages – Part 5: Costs and conclusion (2)

Regardless of whether you love or hate the Internet Explorer Web browser, one thing is for sure: Microsoft sure gives us administrators plenty of flexibility in how we deploy and manage the application. In Windows Server 2008 R2 we have over 1,000 Group Policy settings to customize IE behavior.

NOTE: In Windows Server 2008 R2, the Group Policy paths to the Internet Explorer maintenance settings are Computer Configuration\Administrative Templates\Windows Components\Internet Explorer and User Configuration\Windows Settings\Internet Explorer Maintenance

Some of the representative IE customizations that Windows administrators may want to specify include the following:

• Enforced HTTP proxy settings
• Corporate branding
• Remote access connection profiles
• Enforced security settings

You probably realize that Microsoft releases a new version of Internet Explorer every couple of years. What if your organization’s current implementation is based in Internet Explorer 8 and your team has decided to roll out Internet Explorer 9 to your user base? Should you allow your users to download the bits from Microsoft.com individually and install the software themselves? Uh, I don’t think so.

Alternatively, should you stage IE 9 via Windows Server Update Services (WSUS) and release the “stock” software by using Windows Update? Again, there are better ways to go about this. In this blog post I introduce a tool that is one of Microsoft’s best-kept secrets: the Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK, pronounced “eek”).

It never ceases to amaze me how many of my fellow Windows systems administrators have never heard of IEAK. The goals of this blog post are to introduce you to the tool and show you how initial installation and configuration works. In future installments of this series we will build and deploy a completely tricked-out version of Internet Explorer 9 using various Microsoft technologies. Let’s get to work!

What is IEAK, Anyway?

Stated simply, the IEAK is an Internet Explorer deployment and maintenance tool. With IEAK you can customize IE to match your organization’s security requirements and preferences, and then deploy the browser either as a full installation package, or as a configuration-only .INS file.

Two preliminary points concerning IEAK with which you should be familiar are the following:

• Microsoft releases an IEAK to match every version of Internet Explorer. Thus, you will need to obtain IEAK 9 to deploy and manage IE 9, IEAK 8 to administer IE 8, and so on
• Your administrative workstation must already have the target IE version installed prior to your loading the IEAK toolkit. If, for instance, you try to install IEAK 9 on a Windows box that has Internet Explorer 8 installed, you will see the Installer Information message box that is displayed in Figure 1.

Incorrect Internet Explorer version installed

Installing IEAK in Windows Server 2008 R2

You can read about and download the IEAK software for free by visiting the Microsoft TechNet Web site:

Microsoft TechNet: Internet Explorer Administration Kit (IEAK) Information and Downloads

In this brief article I will not review every IEAK installation screen with you; that is tedious and unnecessary. Instead, we’ll check out only those installation dialogs that require a thoughtful decision on your part.

The Choose License Type dialog box, shown in Figure 2, is the first of these screens. Here we have a choice to install IEAK 9 in one of three licensing modes:

• External Distribution as an ISP: Enables Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to build branded, customized IE browsers for their subscribers
• External Distribution as a Content Provider or Developer: Enables independent software vendors (ISVs) and value-added resellers (VARs) to deploy customized IE browsers to their customers
• Internal Distribution via a Corporate Internet: Enables Windows administrators (that is to say, us) to build and deploy customized IE browsers to our users

Selecting an IEAK license type

Throughout the rest of this series I will assume that we are using the Internal Distribution via a Corporate Intranet option.

The Organization Details dialog box prompts you to associate your Internet Explorer build with your organizational name (this field is required).

Specifying organization details

Post-Installation Details

Once IEAK 9 is installed, open up your Start menu and examine the new entries:

• IEAK Help: IEAK documentation in compiled HTML (.CHM) file format
• IEAK Profile Manager: Tool to edit existing custom IE browser packages and/or perform maintenance on already deployed IE browsers in your organization
• Internet Explorer Customization Wizard 9: Tool to create custom IE browser packages

IEAK Start menu items

Conclusion

At this point we understand the purpose of IEAK and have downloaded and installed the software. In the next installment of this series we will create a custom IE 9 build by using the Internet Explorer Customization Wizard.

Thanks for reading! Please leave any feedback, questions, suggestions, etc. in the comments.

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Applications for Chromebooks not only have an old-fashioned user interface; they are also significantly more expensive than Windows netbooks.

8. Costs

I like Google’s leasing model. I really do! I generally don’t like buying heavy things such as houses, cars, or furniture. So I also like the idea of not owning my computer. I find renting much more convenient and flexible. But one thing is for sure: Renting is usually more expensive than buying. If you have a closer look at Google’s pricing model for Chromebooks, you will realize that this also applies to this “new kind of computer.”

The cheapest Chromebook costs $28 USD per month for enterprises. As with leased PCs, you can just return the machine if the hardware causes trouble. You also don’t have to worry about the software because a Chromebook is only a hardware-based web browser anyway.

Google claims that this hardware + software pricing model is new, which of course is not true. Many PC vendors offer similar services. You can buy or lease a PC that comes with pre-installed Windows plus all the software you need, including Active Directory domain integration. All you have to do is provide an OS image to your vendor and they will bring a network-ready PC to your user’s desk. And if the PC causes problems, they replace it with a new one. No local admin has to be involved. You can also outsource the OS image creation if you want.

Of course, this service costs because technicians who manage computers have to pay their bills regardless of whether they work for your organization or for a service provider. The only questions are whether Google’s technicians earn more or less than the ones in your company, and how much money Google needs to earn to raise their stock prices.

You have to lease a Chromebook for a minimum of three years, which means that a Chromebook costs you at least $1008 USD. That is a lot for a tiny netbook that can only run a web browser. Note that this price is just for the hardware with Linux plus a web browser. Web apps, online storage, and so on cost extra.

The interesting question is, what will happen after those three years? Of course, you can renew the contract. Or, to be more precise, most likely you will be forced to renew the contract if you don’t want your users to be without a web browser. There is no way of skipping an OS version to save costs.

Google claims that many organizations don’t upgrade their Windows XP machines because they fear the expenses. This might be true. However, this is an advantage of Windows, not a disadvantage. Businesses can choose to upgrade or to stick with old software because it does all they need. With Chrome OS, you are always forced to upgrade; this is one reason why Chromebooks are more expensive for many organizations.

The management costs for Chromebooks are unclear because no data exist yet. Google says there is a management console, which shows that Chromebooks also have to be managed by on-premises admins. Even if the web apps run in the cloud, your users need accounts, the web app has to be evaluated, you have to point users to the right applications, you need help desk staff, you need tech staff to contact cloud providers if problems come up, and so on.

It is possible that management costs are lower for Chromebooks than with Windows netbooks because you don’t have to deploy applications. However, as noted above, for this you have to pay cloud providers who offer lease-based pricing models. These leases are usually expensive because you are forced to pay for every update year after year.

But the biggest cost-driving factor of Chromebooks is that you will still need Windows. Even Google admits that you can’t do everything with a Chromebook that you can usually do with a Windows machine. This means that you have to support another machine type, which raises the complexity of your network. Higher complexity always means significantly higher costs.

I think, the best way to understand how expensive a Chromebook really is, is to compare its price with the price of a Windows netbook with the same capabilities. If you really think it is a good idea that your users should not run Windows applications on their netbooks, you can install Chrome on a Windows netbook and make sure that this is the only application they can launch, which is technically no big deal. You can configure Windows to download and install updates in the background without user or admin intervention. And if you think that backups are only torturing users and admins, then just don’t do it.

If you buy a Windows netbook for $250 USD, you can probably use it longer than three years. Even if the netbook has a hardware defect after the warranty expired in a year or two (depending on the country you live in), it will be much cheaper than a Chromebook. For $1008, you can buy four Windows-based Chrome netbooks for every user. If one was infected by a virus, the user can just trash it and take the next netbook from the drawer.

Conclusion

While I watched the Chromebook keynote, I was instantly reminded of something I did quite a long time ago. The proprietary OPACs (Online Public Access Catalog) in the University library I was working for had to be replaced with a web-based OPAC running on Windows NT. A service provider for libraries offered us a somewhat expensive solution that would prevent library users from starting Windows applications or surfing the web on computers that were only intended for ordering books.

While I was watching their demo, I realized that they only offered a modified Internet Explorer. It didn’t take me long to figure out how they did it. With the Internet Explorer Administration Kit, the NT System Policies (predecessor for Group Policy), and a little registry hack, I was able to create a Windows NT machine that started the Internet Explorer right after the computer booted up. There was no way for users to start Windows applications, close the browser, or access any web page other than the web OPAC. Internet Explorer was running in full-screen mode, so users didn’t even notice that they were using a web browser.

Just like Google did in this keynote, this service provider was trying to sell, as the next big thing, this relatively simple software that did nothing other than ensure that only Internet Explorer could be started. Finally, libraries would be able to reduce costs by using cheap PCs instead of proprietary OPAC hardware, except with low management costs because users could not mess with the underlying Windows.

Well, many libraries bought their expensive solution simply because they wanted a hassle-free solution and did not want to think about managing Windows PCs. It is interesting to note that the price model of this software was subscription-based, just like the one for Chromebooks, which added up over the years. Every one of those libraries could have paid quite a few admins with this money.

However, one admin (me) only needed an afternoon to build what you could call an IEbook. This must have been around 1998, the year when Google incorporated. Now I am asking you: Is a Chromebook a new kind of computer?

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There is no doubt about it. The lack of control over automatic updates and no support of data backups are severe disadvantages of Chromebooks for businesses. However, more important for the success of Chromebooks will be their usability and their abilities regarding cloud computing.

6. User interface

Just like Microsoft, Google was obviously caught napping by the success of the iPad. Chrome OS was already in the making, and there was no way to adapt the OS in a reasonable time for tablets. The only difference is that Microsoft is working feverishly to improve Windows’s touch capabilities, whereas Google has no plans for tablet support.

The fact that Google was reluctant at first to offer Android for tablets indicates that the company is quite aware of the fact that the rise of these “other new kind of computers” jeopardizes the success of the Chromebooks. Why should you buy a Chromebook if you can get a cool Android tablet for the same price, with all the features of a Chromebook plus myriad Android apps and a nice touch interface? Steve Ballmer is constantly mocking Google that their strategy with two operating systems is flawed, and he is right.

It would have made much more sense to just dump Chrome OS and offer an enhanced version of Android for netbooks and notebooks. By nature, it will be difficult to adapt Chrome OS for tablets simply because web apps are not made for touch. Thus Chrome OS faces exactly the same problem as Windows: Google’s new kind of computer has a hopelessly outdated user interface. Even if a new version offers support for touch, it will take too long until the whole ecosystem adopts the changes. Since Microsoft has much more control over Windows than Google has over the Open Web, it will be easier for Redmond to convince partners to introduce touch capabilities in their applications.

7. Cloud support

The funny thing is that Google announced “a new kind of computer” a few days ago, whereas Apple has already demonstrated for more than a year how the new kind of computer really looks like. The truth is that web apps stand for an outdated technology that will be replaced by what I would call cloud apps—that is, locally running applications with a rich and modern user interfaces with back ends in the cloud for data storage, collaboration, and other typical server functions.

Many people talking about the cloud mistakenly equate the cloud with web applications and web services. However, cloud technology is not dependent on the web. You can have web apps without cloud technology, and you can use cloud technology without using web technology.

There is really nothing about the web that makes it the preferable platform for the cloud. Modern operating systems such as iOS or Android demonstrate this very well. In most cases, it makes much more sense for a cloud provider to create a special locally running app as a front end for their cloud service than to use an old-fashioned web interface that only works on machines with certain screen sizes. If the underlying operating system provides cloud APIs, you can create much more powerful cloud apps than with an ugly and sluggish web interface.

The best way to understand the difference between web and cloud apps is to compare Google Apps with Office 365. The difference regarding the capabilities between these two cloud-based applications couldn’t be bigger. Just like any other cloud app, Office 365 can be accessed anytime, anywhere. You have powerful collaboration features that are only possible with a rich Windows-based user interface of Office 2010.

There is no doubt that the future belongs to cloud apps. The only question is who will be faster to adopt this new kind of computer technology, and a crucial issue in this race is touch. Google is losing valuable time by focusing on outdated web technology with an old-fashioned user interface instead of positioning Android against the upcoming Windows 8, which will not only offer better support for touch but will also be a better cloud OS than Chrome OS.

In my next and last post of this series, I will compare the costs of Chromebooks for businesses with those of Windows netbooks.

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• Windows 8: The PC is dead, long live the PC (5)

Last week, I outlined why I believe that Chromebooks are no match for Windows netbooks when it comes to accessibility and the ability of their applications. Today, I will address two topics that Google explicitly names as two advantages of Chromebooks—that is, the fact that you need not worry about backups or updates.

4. Backups

That you don’t need to take care of backups if you store all your data in the cloud is a claim often put forward. Of course, this is supposed to also be one of the alleged advantages of Chromebooks. From my point of view, it is one of the major disadvantages.

First of all, you really need a lot of confidence in a cloud provider if you assume that the provider will ensure that none of your data ever gets lost. You’ve probably heard that some data recently disappeared in Amazon’s cloud. Amazon customers who didn’t back up their cloud data have learned their lesson.

Cloud technology is very new and very complex. Even though all big cloud providers have sophisticated backup solutions, this doesn’t guarantee that data won’t get lost simply because cloud admins underestimated the complexity of their systems. The main question is whether you completely want to rely on a third-party organization to secure all your data.

The recent outage of Blogger shows that Google is not immune to cloud crashes. Thus, if you don’t have on-premises backups, not only will you be unable to access your data when the cloud is down or you have no Internet connection, but you might also lose important data.

I really, wonder, how you can back up your Chromebook data if you can’t even install backup software or backup agents. And what about the data that users of your organization store in the cloud, perhaps at different cloud providers? No standard exists that allows you to download all data to your datacenter from different cloud providers. And even if there were such a standard, it would cost a lot of bandwidth and additional workload for your organization’s admins.

However, the main reason why data backups are necessary is not data loss because of technical issues. Most restores in businesses occur because users accidentally deleted data or simply need an older version of their data. If the application itself doesn’t have a rollback feature, you need a backup of third-party backup software.

The lack of professional backup solutions for the cloud is one of the major reasons why businesses should avoid moving important data to the cloud. As long as Google doesn’t offer professional backup software for Chrome OS, businesses should think twice before taking the risk and allowing their employees to use Chromebooks. The fact that Google stresses that the lack of backup software is an advantage of their “new kind of computer” doesn’t sound promising.

5. Automatic updates

Sometimes it appears to me that Google’s engineers are so excited about web technologies that everything you can’t do easily with HTML, CSS, or JavaScript is something that only tortures users and has to be abolished and advertised as an advancement in computer technology. Backups in the cloud are a problem, so it is an advantage that you don’t need it for Chromebooks. A professional patch management solution needs more than a little JavaScript code, so it is an advantage that Chrome OS doesn’t have one.

Of course, Linux and Chrome code contains bugs and security holes just like Windows does , so it has to be patched and updated as any other software. The fact that users and admins have no control over the update process is not a feature; it is a serious disadvantage of Chromebooks.

There is certainly a reason why organizations test software updates before they distribute them in their network. Updates can cause compatibility issues. This is certainly also true for web applications. No responsible admin would deploy a new browser version before testing it thoroughly with all of the organization’s web apps. Imagine Google deploys a new Chrome version overnight without your knowledge to make the web interface of your main business app produce only HTML salad.

A similar problem exists for automatic updates in the cloud. Google tries to sell it as an advantage that users and organizations don’t have to bother about updating their software because the cloud provider takes care of this. Did you ever log on to a web app to quickly get some important work done, only to realize that everything has changed overnight but not really for the better? Now imagine what your inbox looks like if hundreds of your users have this experience Monday morning.

The fact that on-premises solutions allow organizations to decide when and what to update is a major advantage, not a disadvantage as Google claims. If you don’t like a new version of an application, you can simply skip it. If you have to prepare your users first for a new user interface, you can decide when they are ready. And if you first need to ensure that no compatibility issues exist, you can determine the pace of testing and deployment of the new version.

With the “new kind of computer,” Google gave up all these advantages of modern operating systems. To sell the lack of functionality as a feature is what dubious marketers are always trying. I just hope you won’t buy it.

In the next part of this series about Chromebooks, I will talk a little about usability and support for the cloud.

• FREE: SolarWinds VM-to-Cloud Calculator – Compare VM hosting costs (0)
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In the last post in this series about Google’s Chromebooks, I outlined why I believe that “this new kind of computer” won’t improve security in your organization. Today, I want to address two topics that also play an important role in the current discussion about Chromebooks: accessibility and ability.

2. Accessibility

Google touts the anytime and anywhere accessibility of web apps as one of the major advantages of Chromebooks. Honestly, this is simply wrong. Watching the keynote was a nice case in point of the limited accessibility of web apps. I was trying to watch the video in Boracay in the Philippines (by the way, one of the world’s best beaches). Even though Internet speed in the Philippines is definitely above average compared to other locations in Asia, I wasn’t able to watch the video continuously even though I used the lowest available resolution.

I certainly would have preferred a download link so I could watch the video offline, without interruption, anywhere and anytime. You might argue that this doesn’t bother you because you have a high-speed Internet connection anyway. But tell this to a business traveler who really needs access to his data and applications when no internet connection is available. The point is that, with a Windows notebook, you can indeed guarantee that your data is accessible anytime and anywhere at maximum speed, but you certainly cannot guarantee this with a Chromebook.

Yes, there are web apps that also work offline. But offline web apps are an exception, not the rule. Thus Google’s “anytime, anywhere” claim is highly questionable. Also note that this is not just an issue for business travelers. The limited accessibility of web apps will make Chromebooks a non-seller in large emerging markets like China, India, and Brazil, while Windows sales will be growing rapidly in these countries.

3. Ability

At one point in the keynote speech, my head stopped shaking ‘coz I was laughing out loud. That was when Sundar Pichai admitted that, for him, the availability of the game Angry Birds as a web app is the culmination point in Chrome’s history. I never played this game, but the demo instantly reminded me of my Commodore 64 phase about 30 years ago when I was still wasting my time with computer games. For sure, Angry Birds would run without problems on a C64. So is this what you can do now with web apps, which was not possible a year ago? Playing a computer game that would also run on a 30-year-old, 8-bit machine? Come on, there must be more convincing examples of web apps out there.

None of the web apps that were presented at this keynote were really a match for modern Windows applications. This is no surprise, because JavaScript is still only a simple scripting language with capabilities that are ages behind modern programming languages.

HTML5 is certainly a major improvement. However, to be a game changer, web apps have to offer more and not less than Windows applications. There is nothing you can’t do with a Windows application that you can do with a web app. Windows applications can store the data in the cloud and make it accessible anywhere and anytime, just like web apps. Office 2010 plus Office 365 is a good example of this.

However, there are still myriad things that even the smartest JavaScript programmer can’t program but that pose no problem for a newbie Windows application developer. By the way, one of the best cloud apps for businesses—that is, Office 365—won’t be available for Chromebooks.

So why would you want to buy a Chromebook if you can run all available web apps in the Chrome browser on a Windows netbook, along with the infinitely large number of Windows applications? What can a Chromebook offer that a Windows netbook can’t? Will the marketing slogan “a new kind of computer” be sufficient to fool people into buying a simple Linux netbook that cannot even run OpenOffice? I seriously doubt it.

By the way, did you notice that Google used Windows 7 for all the demos at the keynote? Why not use Chrome OS? Are presentations one of those myriad situations where you need a real operating system and not just an HTML viewer?

My next post will cover the discussion about operating system and application updates and data backups.

• FREE: SolarWinds VM-to-Cloud Calculator – Compare VM hosting costs (0)
• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• The evolution of Microsoft certification (2)
• What does the ‘R2′ mean in Windows Server 2008 R2? (1)
• Windows 8: The PC is dead, long live the PC (5)

A few days ago, Google announced Chromebooks, “a new kind of computer,” as the Google Chrome blog was titled. I watched the Day 2 video of the keynote speech for the Google I/O developer conference, and I read several comments on the web. I often found myself shaking my head. This five-part series covers eight of the causes that made my head shake: security, accessibility and ability, updates and backup, usability and cloudability.

I must add a disclaimer before I start. After reading this, you might conclude that this is just another one of my Microsoft fan boy posts. The truth is that I am also a Google fan boy. Not only is the Google search engine much better than Bing, they also have the better web browser. And I couldn’t live without many of Google’s great web applications. Although I had quite a few issues with Android, I believe it is the best mobile OS out there. I want you to keep this in mind when reading the following rant against Chromebooks.

1. Security

My neck still hurts from shaking my head too intensely when Sundar Pichai (senior vice president of Chrome) brought up the security argument against Windows. Frankly, this is plain FUD. It is true that you won’t need antivirus software for Chromebooks. But the only reason for this is that their market share will be even lower than for other Linux netbooks. Thus virus writers have no reason to specifically target the underlying Linux of Chrome OS. They can just rely on the inherently low security of the Open Web. However, if Chromebooks ever reaches a significant market share (which I doubt), then virus writers will target Chrome OS in exactly the same way as they do today with Windows. Rest assured that you will then have to install antivirus software on Chromebooks.

Besides, when it comes to security, conventional viruses only play a minor role nowadays. You don’t have to be a security expert to know that the bad guys have shifted their attention from Windows to the Open Web years ago. Hacking a popular website and infecting it with malware, or creating a new website and then pushing it to the top in Google for popular search terms, is certainly much more effective than writing a Windows virus, considering that Microsoft raised the security level a few bars with Windows Vista and again with Windows 7. Funny thing is that Google Chrome is the most vulnerable application out there. It is no coincidence that almost all of the top 15 most vulnerable applications are related to the web.

Yes, Google invested a lot in Chromium’s security. But if you take a closer look at the security measures, you will notice that Chrome OS faces the same security issues as any other operating system. Google wants us to believe that a Chromebook is a new kind of computer that didn’t inherit the legacy problems of operating systems created decades ago. The truth is that Chrome OS is simply a Linux distribution that can only run one conventional application. This application happens to be the most vulnerable program facing the Open Web, which is the most insecure place in cyberspace.

It is a nightmare for any admin if users can run any kind of application on the Open Web, exposing the whole company network with their Chromebooks. Traditionally, firewalls and other security mechanisms shielded the corporate network from the dangerous Internet. How can you shield Chromebooks? As soon as all your data and applications are in the Open Web, your firewall has become obsolete. This means the bad guys can access your data anytime and from anywhere. Unlike business travelers, hackers around the planet always have high-speed Internet access. So, for them, the “high accessibility” of your organization’s data has a completely different meaning. Moving your complete corporate network to the Open Web increases the attack surface of your organization’s IT to the size of the whole Internet.

And what about the cloud providers? Do you really trust all Google’s employees and those of other cloud providers 100%, considering that you’ve never met even one of their admins in person? Everyone who has physical access to your data and applications has a range of new ways to do bad things to your organization’s most valuable assets.

Of course, these objections against cloud security are not new and are debated heavily on the web. But to tout Chromebooks as more secure, just because their insignificant market share in the foreseeable future makes antivirus software obsolete, is either barefaced or naïve.

In my next post, I will compare the accessibility and the ability of Chrome OS and Windows applications.

• FREE: SolarWinds VM-to-Cloud Calculator – Compare VM hosting costs (0)
• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• The evolution of Microsoft certification (2)
• What does the ‘R2′ mean in Windows Server 2008 R2? (1)
• Windows 8: The PC is dead, long live the PC (5)

When I first read that Group Policy Preferences can’t be used for Internet Explorer 9, I thought that was just a misunderstanding. How could it be that such an important feature is not supported for Microsoft’s latest web browser? Group Policy and Group Policy Preferences are one of the major reasons why many organizations stick with Internet Explorer even though good browser alternatives are now available.

But after installing the latest updates on Windows Server 2008 R2, I see that Group Policy Preferences are still only available for Internet Explorer 6-8. I don’t know what is behind this. Is Microsoft giving up on Group Policy Preferences for Internet Explorer altogether, or will there be an update? A forum entry by MVP Alan Burchill seems to indicate there will be no such update. However, the following workaround allows you to keep working with Group Policy Preferences for Internet Explorer 9.

1. Configure an Internet Explorer 8 setting in Group Policy Preferences. For instance, you can preset IE’s homepage to http://4sysops.com (highly recommended ). Don’t forget to hit F6 after you entered the homepage.
   
2. Navigate to Configuration > Policies > Windows Settings > Scripts (Logon/Logoff) and double-click Logon or Logoff. Next, click "Show Files."
   
3. Navigate up to the User folders.
   
4. Navigate down to the Preferences\InternetSettings folders.
   
5. Edit (right-click) the InternetSettings files.
6. Search for "max=9.0.0.0" in the text and replace it with "max=9.1.0.0". Save the file.
   

Note that this workaround won’t make the "Internet Explorer 9" option appear when you add a new Internet Setting in Group Policy editor. You have to configure Internet Explorer 8 policy settings, which will also be used for Internet Explorer 9. Also note that you have to repeat the procedure described here whenever you create a new Group Policy Object.

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• Troubleshooting Group Policy – Part 5: Active Directory problems (0)
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• Troubleshooting Group Policy – Part 3: Group Policy not applied? (0)
• Troubleshooting Group Policy – Part 2: Test and deploy (1)

Microsoft listens to their customers. Or perhaps I should say they listen to what the media tell their customers. Every week or so, another computer magazine or blog posted a new browser benchmark where Internet Explorer always came off as the slowest browser. The times of browser benchmarks are now history. Since Internet Explorer is now by far the fastest HTML viewer and JavaScript executer, no one needs those benchmarks any more. It is boring if Microsoft wins. They always do. Well, almost always.

As far as my browsing experience is concerned, Chrome is still a lot faster than Internet Explorer 9. When it comes to browsing speed, the performance of the rendering or JavaScript engine is negligible. I have said that many times before, and I won’t get tired of repeating it. For a knowledge worker like me, other features are by far more important to speed up my daily work on the web.

1 Bookmarking

One of the things I do most often with a browser is to bookmark pages. I need to do this as quickly as possible so I won’t lose my focus. With Internet Explorer, I need three clicks; with Chrome, just one. That makes Chrome 10 three times faster than Internet Explorer 9.

2 Bookmark star

Often, before I finish work, I check all open tabs to see if there are any pages that I might need the next day. Sometimes I don’t remember if I already bookmarked a page or not. This also happens if I again stumble across a useful page. In Chrome, the star icon beside the address bar tells me immediately if I already bookmarked the page; a click on the star shows me which folder the bookmark is in. In Internet Explorer, I have to browse through my hundreds of bookmarks first for this purpose. This makes Internet Explorer a hundred times slower than Chrome.

3 Search in bookmarks

Again, the bookmarks. Well, they are important for a knowledge worker. Now, tell me, am I just blind or did the IE developers really forget the search function in the Favorites sidebar? I don’t have to tell you how much time it can take to browse through all favorites until finally finding the important one I bookmarked last month, deep down in a folder where it doesn’t really belong. How many times slower is Internet Explorer here? I don’t know. Maybe indefinitely, if I don’t find the bookmark at all.

4 Title bar

Okay, this is a minor issue. But it still bothers me. To place the tabs bar at the top of the browser was a very smart idea of the Google developers. Why was Microsoft too anxious to steal this feature and did just waste this valuable space in the title bar? Yes, it means only little additional space for the web page. However, if you work on laptop or netbook this little extra page can be very valuable, especially if you use web apps often. Scrolling a web page up and down to interact with the web app can get on your nerves and can slow down a browser considerably.

5 Tabs space

The size of the available space for tabs in Internet Explorer is much too small. It usually takes about 20 minutes on a normal work day before I have so many tabs open that I can no longer distinguish them in Internet Explorer simply because the visible part of the HTML title is too small. You can show the tabs on a separate row (right click a tab). However, this takes away even more valuable screen space. Since the default tab bar configuration is no option for a knowledge worker and taking into account the wasted space in the title bar, I have considerably less space available for the web page than with Chrome. These simple layout differences boost Chrome’s performance with many web apps on devices with small screens and this without the need of fancy hardware acceleration.

6 Extensions

Browsers have become platforms. No, I am not talking about web apps. I don’t really like those and you know that by now. I am talking about add-ons or extensions. I think, the number of available extensions is essential for the success of a browser. Microsoft is usually quite good when it comes to creating an ecosystem around a software product. Somehow they have problems with Internet Explorer here. The availability of just one add-on can be a killer feature if you can’t find something comparable for an alternative browser (Internet Explorer). I don’t really know how far ahead Chrome is here. But if I search for SEO add-ons for Chrome, I get about 100 hits. If I do the same for Internet Explorer, I get about 0 hits. There is no doubt that many of these little browsers helpers save me a lot of time which increases browser speed considerably.

7 Superbar

I don’t really find the Windows 7 Superbar so super and in combination with Internet Explorer, it really gets on my nerves. Every time I switch back to the browser window, the Superbar shows me my myriad of open tabs and expects me to find the page by just looking at those super-tiny thumbnails. In most cases, I just want to access the last page viewed anyway. If I can’t find the page in the thumbnails immediately, I just click any tab and then try to find the right tab in IE’s tab bar. So this extra click-click-click game with the Superbar costs me significantly more time than in Chrome and often is the reason that I lose the focus on my work.

Update: This "feature" can be disabled: Internet Options > Tabs: Settings > Show previews for individual tabs in the taskbar*

8 InPrivate browsing vs. Incognito

InPrivate browsing in Internet Explorer and the equivalent Incognito feature in Chrome are useful features. I don’t just use this feature if I want to browse a site without being recognized. Usually, when I log on to security-sensitive sites, I open the web site incognito so none of the many plugins I use gets a chance to snoop my password. What I miss here in Internet Explorer is being able to start InPrivate browsing by right-clicking a bookmark or a link in a web page. Yes, I can copy the URL, open an InPrivate window, and then paste the URL. In Chrome, this procedure can be accomplished with just a click. This is what I call browser performance.

9 Zoom

I read a lot and try not to strain my eyes too much. This is why I zoom almost every web page I open. Chrome definitely has the better and faster zoom function. It takes two "clicks" with the mouse wheel until the web page reaches the ideal size—that is, when it uses all available space of the browser window. With Internet Explorer 9, it usually takes much longer to get the font size I prefer. Again, Internet Explorer 9 came off last in an important browser benchmark discipline.

I am still a Microsoft fan boy. But it is not my fault that the Google guys just understand the web better. So I’ll just wait for Internet Explorer 10 and see if it will be as fast as Chrome 25.

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• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)

In June 2003, a Microsoft product manager told CNET News that “Safari is turning into a better answer for (Apple) customers.” This statement sounded the death knell for the Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) Web browser on Apple Mac OS X systems.

Unfortunately, around the same time Microsoft also killed the Mac version of Media Player. The loss of Windows Media Player doesn’t hurt so much, given the plethora of excellent media players that are native to the Mac (QuickTime, VLC, etc.).

The problem I have with Microsoft’s decision to nuke IE for the Mac is that, as crazy as this sounds in 2011, not all Web sites work with non-Microsoft browsers such as Mozilla Firefox or Apple Safari.

For instance, in my day job I need to access a line-of-business (LOB) application whose user agent detection routine simply roadblocks you from entering the application unless you are using Internet Explorer 7 or later.

In this blog post I will present to you a number of methods that will enable you to run Internet Explorer on a Mac. The first solution is free, but may have variable long-term success for you, depending upon a variety of factors.

I will also give you some IE-on-Mac methods that involve additional cost. After all, sometimes the most reliable solution incurs financial outlay. Let’s get to work!

Free Method: WineBottler

Wine, short for Wine Is Not an Emulator, is a GPL-licensed Mac application that relies upon X11 and allows Microsoft Windows applications to run under non-Microsoft operating systems.

WineBottler is a Mac tool based upon Wine that provides for the easy installation of Windows application on Mac OS X. As of this writing, WineBottler includes built-in “prefixes” (basically virtualized applications) that support local installation of several Windows applications, including Internet Explorer 6, Internet Explorer 7, and Internet Explorer 8.

Here is the high-level procedure to get WineBottler and IE up and running on your Mac OS X system:

1. Download WineBottler and drag both Wine and WineBottler to your Mac’s Applications folder.

2. Open WineBottler and select Install Predefined Prefixes from the left-hand navigation bar. Next, select the desired Internet Explorer version from the list. Finally, click Install to continue.

You will be prompted for an installation location (I suggest the Applications folder), after which then the virtualized IE installation will proceed.

3. After installation completes, you are ready to rock. To run Internet Explorer, navigate to your previously specified installation location and simply launch Internet Explorer.

Judging from the above screenshot, which displays the 4sysops Website rendered in a WineBottled instance of Internet Explorer 7, the user interface is nowhere near as pretty (or as functional) as it is in native Microsoft Windows. But hey: it’s better than nothing, right?

Paid Method #1: Sun VirtualBox

Oracle VM VirtualBox is a free x86 desktop virtualization product that is available for Windows, Linux, and yes indeed, Mac OS X. With VirtualBox we can create guest virtual machines that run practically any operating system under the sun—pun intended—, depending upon your penchant for tweaking.

Following is an abbreviated overview for getting Windows 7 and Internet Explorer running on Mac OS X. For specific instructions on how to install and use VirtualBox on Mac OS X, I suggest that you check out the VirtualBox documentation site.

1. Open VirtualBox and create a virtual machine based upon your desired version of Windows. Note that this step requires that you own a license and installation media for that version of Windows. As of this writing, a single-user license for Windows 7 Home Edition is approximately $115.

In order to access your LAN or the Internet from within the virtual machine, you will need to ensure that the VM’s network settings are configured properly. If you need some assistance with this issues, there exist many wonderful tutorials that are only a mouse click away.

2. To browse IE sites, simply fire up your VM, log into Windows, start Internet Explorer, and off you go! If you need to share resources between the guest OS (the Windows-based virtual machine) and the host OS (your Mac computer), then you’ll want to set up the Shared Folders function in VirtualBox.

Note that the biggest “Achilles Heel” to the VirtualBox approach is that there is a pretty high degree of separation between Internet Explorer and Mac OS X. That is, we are unable to drag-and-drop resources between the host computer and the guest virtual machine.

Paid Method #2: Parallels Desktop

Parallels Desktop for the Mac provides hardware virtualization of Windows for Mac OS X-based computers. What is particularly cool about Parallels is that the application appearance is seamless; Windows apps run transparently within Mac OS X as if the “Wintel” apps were in fact native to the Mac.

By using this method, you are financially on the hook for both the Parallels license ($79.99 as of this writing), as well as the license and installation media for Microsoft Windows.

The basic workflow installing and using Parallels is as follows:

1. Install Parallels Desktop for Mac on your system and start it up.

2. Create a new Windows OS-based virtual machine. Make sure to select the Like a Mac integration method.

You will be prompted for your Windows DVD or disc image. Install Windows as usual (installation troubleshooting tips here.).

3. Once the Windows VM installation completes, you can launch Microsoft Internet Explorer in what the Parallels team calls Coherence mode. As you see in the below screenshot, IE runs completely side-by-side with your native Mac OS X applications.

Other Paid Methods

While in this blog post we covered what I feel are the best methods for running Internet Explorer on Mac OS X, several additional free and cost-based solutions exist. To that end, please consider the following links to learn more:

• Apple Boot Camp
• VMware Fusion
• Codeweavers Crossover

• How to share a folder in Mac OS X for Windows users (1)
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• Active Directory login scripts in Mac OS X – Part 2: Using Open Directory (0)

In the last two posts, I discussed my two favorite reasons why I believe that web apps have no future. However, there are quite a few other reasons. I don’t want to make a book out of this series, so let me just summarize a few more arguments that speak for apps and against web apps (no completeness guaranteed):

• Apps work better in offline mode.
• People prefer to pay for software they can download and run on their own devices.
• Cloud computing eliminates a major advantage of web apps—that is, to access the application from different devices—because different apps on different platforms can now access the app’s data service in the cloud (like the Gmail app for Android and the Outlook app for Windows ).
• Local apps perform better than web apps because they have better access to local hardware resources, which allows for sophisticated user interfaces.
• Apps need fewer local resources than web apps (with comparable rich interfaces) because no web browser has to be running.
• Providers of proprietary platforms can move forward at their own pace and don’t have to wait until a new open standard gets the blessing of the sluggish W3C. This is one of the reasons why proprietary platforms will always be technologically a few steps ahead of platforms that are based on open standards.

For the sake of completeness, here is a summary of my arguments from my previous posts:

• Apps can be adapted easily to different form factors by optimizing the user interface to the size of the device and making use of device-dependent interfaces (for example, vibration and touch screen) and usage habits that are typical for the form factor.
• Platform dependence is in the interest of software vendors because it allows them to specialize in platforms and form factors and re-sell the same application to the same customers.
• Consumers can enjoy the fast progress triggered by a highly competitive market where many different platforms rival with each other.

I don’t think that web apps will completely disappear any time soon. They will still be available for low-end applications. But I do think that web apps have already seen their best times. When did the web app primus Google last add a breathtaking feature to one of their web apps? I don’t remember. Gmail looks just like it did when it was released a few years ago.

But another thing is also certain. The most prominent app engine, Windows, will get some serious competition soon. Chrome OS will be a non-starter, but I’ll bet that we will see quite a few Android-based, netbook-like tablets (with bigger touch screens and attachable keyboard) in 2011.

There is no doubt that Windows has by far the biggest app ecosystem, but other platforms are catching up now. The race is on.

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)

In my last post, I argued that web apps have no future on mobile devices. But what about the PC? Didn’t the adoption of web apps make some good progress in the last few years?

Let me make my point by continuing the Gmail example from that post. Most of my email accounts run on Gmail. However, I rarely use the Gmail web app. Instead, I use the best Gmail app that currently exists on the PC—Outlook 2010. I could now start comparing Outlook to the Gmail web app, but honestly this doesn’t really make sense. Compared to Outlook, the Gmail web app is a child’s toy. I could as well compare a space shuttle to a handcart. Just like the Gmail app for Android is perfectly adapted for mobile phones, is the Gmail app for Windows (Outlook 2010) by far the best choice on the PC.

One of the main reasons why many believed (or hoped) that web apps have a future is because they are platform independent. But as it turns out now, it is their greatest disadvantage. It makes them very inflexible and look Spartan and ugly compared to their feature-rich, well-adapted, platform-dependent app counterparts.

It is interesting to note that the loudest advocates for platform independence have become quite silent lately. Isn’t it strange that the computer industry appears to make the same mistakes again in the phone and tablet market as they did decades ago in the PC market? Why not create one platform for all smartphones? The answer is simple. Nobody really needs platform independence.

Arguing for platform independence was popular mostly for ideological reasons. As long as one company dominated the operating system market, you could get a lot of applause for accusing Microsoft for being too successful (establishing the Windows monopoly with unfair business practices, as they put it). But now, with so many different platforms, the advantages of proprietary platforms become obvious.

The fact that software vendors have to develop their applications for different platforms gives them a big advantage. Sounds like a contradiction? Not really. Let me give you another example. The first mobile phone app I bought was a dictionary. I was running it on a Windows Mobile phone a few years ago. I recently bought the same dictionary again from the same vendor for my Android phone. If we just had one mobile phone platform, I probably wouldn’t have bought an update because the old app already had all the features I needed.

So is platform dependence bad for customers? Not at all! I haven’t used a smartphone for more than a year, mostly because I didn’t have time to decide which one I should buy. But when I got an Android phone recently, I was really surprised how quickly this market has evolved. This fast progress is only possible for one reason: competition.

It is only because quite a few different platforms now compete in a huge market that we can enjoy this amazing progress. For this I am certainly willing to spend a few extra dollars and buy some apps again when I switch the platform.

In my next post, I will summarize a few more arguments why I don’t believe in the future of web apps.

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)

Do you know what the first video was that was shown on MTV? That’s an easy one. “Video killed the radio star.” And what will kill the web app? Not that difficult to guess either: The app!

So why will the company that was supposed to fulfill Netscape’s plans to replace Windows with web apps actually kill the web app? The reason why the radio stars disappeared was because many of them were no good dancers and not pretty enough for video. The same applies to web apps: They are just too stiff and ugly compared to apps.

In a way, it is justified to say that Apple killed the web app because the company made apps popular even though they existed before the iPhone. But, I think, the iPhone demonstrates very well why web apps have no future. Even though the iPhone has a great web browser, it was the apps and not its web capabilities that led to its success.

It is not much different with Android. But the reason why I prefer to say that Google killed the web app is because Android will be the first operating system that will bring the apps to the masses on mobile devices. Considering that iPhone sales are stagnating, Blackberry OS and Symbian are losing market shares, while Android phone sales are boosting, it is obvious that Google will soon dominate the market for smartphone operating systems.

And what about Windows Phone? I think, Microsoft will catch up in the long run. The company has enough resources and staying power to compete with Google for the next decade in the smartphone market. We also should not forget that the smartphone market is still in its infancy. The big battles still have to be fought.

Some might wonder what the heck apps for mobile phones have to do with web apps that run on PCs. Well, you don’t have to be a star analyst with two PhDs to predict that 2011 will be the year of the tablet. And these gadgets have more in common with PCs than with phones. This is why Google and Microsoft were hesitant to adopt their mobile operating system for tablets. But honestly, I think neither company really had a choice here.

Ballmer likes to mock Google for having two operating systems (Android and Chrome OS), while Google representatives usually shoot back reminding Ballmer that Microsoft also has (at least) two. Google wanted to establish Chrome OS first on netbooks and then on desktops. I don’t know if this is what Ballmer meant, but this adoption path is now blocked by the success of Android. Why would anyone want to buy a device that can only run a web browser, if the same kind of machine is available with an operating system that has a web browser plus a few hundred thousand apps?

But why would tablets with Android kill the web app? Let me explain by giving you an example. What is Google’s most popular web app? Right, it is still Gmail. And what do Android users do when they check their Gmail email? Yes, they don’t use the web browser—they use the Gmail app for Android. If you understand the reason for this, you will understand why web apps have no future.

The point is that apps can be adapted to the kind of hardware they are running on, whereas web apps must not only work on different platforms but also on different form factors. This is not just about the screen size; it is about the way different kinds of devices are used. If you have an Android phone, I recommend checking out the E-mail Notifier from mapeapps, which enhances the Gmail app. You will be surprised by how many different ways you can notify a mobile phone user that new email has arrived. I have counted about 30 different settings. For instance, you can let the LED blink for each of your email accounts with different colors and blink patterns, you can use different vibration patterns, you can schedule notification reminders, you can configure quiet hours, and so on.

Most of these settings only make sense on mobile phones and depend on the hardware capabilities of the device. Even if web browsers were able to vibrate devices, it doesn’t make sense for Google to integrate such features in the Gmail web app because nobody needs them on a PC. The fact that different form factors require different kinds of software gives software vendors the chance to specialize in a device type and get the best out of the app for this form factor. And, of course, people will always use the more powerful app that has been optimized for the device instead of the Spartan web app.

But what about PCs? They have no blinking LEDs and they don’t vibrate. Does it make sense to use the Gmail web app on a PC? I will address this topic in my next post.

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)

There are many useful, free online tools for IT pros. In this post, I listed a few tools I like. If you know of other good online tools that are helpful for Windows administrators, please post the link in a comment below. I will then add the tool to the list.

ProcessLibrary.com

Whenever I have a hunch that a PC is infected even though the antivirus tool is silent, I start Task Manager or Process Explorer to see if I notice anything suspicious. Of course, I don’t know all Windows processes, so if a process I’ve never seen before appears in the list, I search in ProcessLibrary.com for the corresponding EXE or DLL file.

VirusTotal

VirusTotal is the online tool I use most often. Since I am often testing free tools from publishers I don’t know, I like to have more than one opinion about whether the tool contains malware or not. VirusTotal has the scan engines of all well-known antivirus vendors and scans uploaded files quickly. I introduced VirusTotal a while back.

Sysinternals online

Microsoft’s Sysinternals tool suite is certainly one of the best free tool collections for IT pros. Sysinternals online allows you to launch these tools via HTTP.

Who.is

Who.is allows you to access the WHOIS database that stores information about Internet resources such as IP addresses, domain names, and their registered users or assignees. I usually use this to see who might be behind a suspicious IP address.

CentralOps free online network utilities

I discussed the CentralOps online nslookup tool some time ago. The site has a few other useful network tools such as an email validator, a graphical traceroute tool, and a utility that shows what kind of information your browser reveals.

My IP address

Sometimes when I test whether a VPN tool works properly, I use the My IP address service. This tool can also be useful if you need to know the IP address of a user’s PC and the user doesn’t know how to look it up. The tool also shows you the name of the service provider and the location of the IP on a map.

Speedtest.net

I travel a lot, and the first thing I do when I am in a new place is check if I have acceptable Internet access. Speedtest.net lets you easily test the speed of your Internet connection. Please check out my review of Speedtest.net

Pingtest.net

Pingtest.net is comparable to Speedtest.net. This tool gives you an idea of how reliable your Internet connection is. It measures the ping response time, jitter, and packet loss.

Exchange Remote Connectivity Analyzer Tool

A tool that helps Exchange admins troubleshoot connectivity issues Exchange.

Online Wake-On-LAN

Turn on a computer from another location over a network connection or Internet.

SuperTool

All of your MX record, DNS, blacklist and SMTP diagnostics in one integrated tool.

Group Policy Search

Group Policy Search allows you to find Group Policy settings easily.

Please post a comment below if you know of other good online tools for IT pros.

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)

A new browser war is going on and I like it! Progress is everything for me. There is no doubt that the web browser is the second most important application on my computer. Since I use it all day, even slight improvements can make a big difference. A big difference for me and probably also for you. I discussed Internet Explorer 9 in detail because I know that it is an interesting topic for many IT pros. However, it appears to me that many people hopelessly overestimate the importance of web browser features for average users. This is why I couldn’t help myself from writing another somewhat ironic post as a counter balance.

The truth is that the vast majority of users don’t really care about what browser they are using. They want to be able to load websites and they also find it quite useful that they can click links. Those who still access sites other than Facebook might like the bookmark feature, but I think this already covers all the relevant features most users expect from a web browser.

The fierce discussion about the coolest and fastest browser is only of interest for IT pros, bloggers, and journalists. This distorts the picture of the importance of browser features because these are the guys who rule the web. Even though almost every adult in the developed world uses a web browser regularly, most don’t really consider browser features as something worth discussing. Try it! Ask any non-geek about important browser features and you will see that he or she will have problems naming a fourth function.

You might object that my analysis doesn’t explain why Internet Explorer lost significant market shares lately. If people don’t care about which browser they are using, why should they waste time downloading and installing a browser other than the one that already comes with Windows?

Well, what about those users in your organization or among your friends who don’t use the pre-installed browser? Wasn’t it you who recommended, or perhaps I should say forced them to use, another browser?

It usually goes like this:

Geek: Huh? You are still using Internet Explorer 6? You can’t be serious. Don’t you know that this browser is absolutely insecure, not open standard compliant, and, and, and… well, it is from Microsoft.

User: Um, Internet Explorer? You mean my web browser?

Geek: Oh, my! Wait, I’ll install Firefox for you.

User: Oh, that is nice of you. I like the logo.

Years later, geek and user meet again.

Geek: Hey, are you still using Firefox? You can’t be serious.

User: The browser, you mean? Sure, you said it is the best.

Geek: Well, that was ages ago. Wait, I’ll install Internet Explorer 9 for you.

User: That is so kind of you, but I liked the other logo better.

Geek: IE9 is lightning fast; you will see.

User: Really? You mean I can now upload pictures faster to Facebook?

Geek: (sighs) No! But didn’t you notice that Facebook loaded much faster?

User: Hmm, no. Can we try again?

Update:@alexverboon tweeted this funny video:  Just proves my point, especially 1:25

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)

So if Internet Explorer 9 64-bit isn’t more reliable, perhaps it scores when it comes to speed? If you’ve been reading 4sysops for some time, you probably know that I don’t miss any opportunity to ridicule the browser speed obsession the IT community enjoys so much. Of course, I am thankful for yet another chance to make some fun of this irrational discussion. If you are one of those IT pros who are so proud to use the fastest and coolest browser, you had better skip the cynical part in this post. I will warn you early enough.

The question whether IE 64-bit performs better than IE 32-bit arises because of the undying myth that 64-bit in general improves speed. But let’s see what others have to say about the speed of IE 9 64-bit.

FavBrowser.com ran some speed benchmarks with the latest version of IE 9 32-bit and 64-bit. The results are quite remarkable. In most of the disciplines, IE 9 64-bit outpaced IE 9 32-bit by far. The same guys ran a comparable test with IE 7 64-bit and 32-bit a while back. The results are similar, although it appears to me the performance difference between 64-bit and 32-bit has become bigger with IE 9.

Inter-browser performance comparisons usually use the 32-bit editions. This is because 64-bit browsing is still quite uncommon and, as far as I know, Firefox is the only alternative browser that is available as a 64-bit edition.

If 64-bit is really so much faster than 32-bit, I am starting to wonder if over all these years where IE has been the tail ender where really justified considering that IE 64-bit is so lightning fast.

Does it make sense to face numerous compatibility problems with IE 9 64-bit in order to run the allegedly fastest and most robust browser? From the introduction of this post, you know my answer already. But let me make my point clearer with yet another analogy.

<Cynical part> I have no doubts that a Ferrari is significantly faster than a Fiat. If you drive your Ferrari on a Formula race track, you have a fair chance of leaving the Fiat in the dust and winning this “benchmark.” And, yes, in normal city traffic, sometimes you might reach the next traffic light a few seconds before your lame rival to your left.

However, 99.9% of the time, when you drive from A to B you will arrive at the same time regardless of whether you take the Ferrari or the Fiat. In the other 0.1% of the time, you might arrive a bit later with the Ferrari because you missed the traffic light turning green while flirting with the girl who pulled up next to you.

Now, many of you tech freaks will reply: “This doesn’t matter at all because I would always go for the Ferrari anyway.” Good that we understand each other because you now know why most male geeks always need the fastest available web browser. What they don’t know is, the girls don’t really care about fast browsers.</Cynical part>

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)

In my last post, I explained why running Internet Explorer 9 64-bit has some severe downsides. Let’s see if better reliability outweighs these disadvantages. People often believe that 64-bit applications are more reliable than 32-bit programs. This might be due to the fact that Microsoft introduced a few features in Windows 64-bit, such as signed drivers and Kernel Patch Protection, that were supposed to make Windows more secure and reliable. Some older fellows might also remember that the move from 16-bit to 32-bit indeed improved reliably.

A topic that is related to reliability is performance (which I will discuss in more detail in my next post) because performance differences are usually only measurable with complex web pages and web apps. So often when a browser crashes it is because not enough resources are available and/or because it can’t handle the complexity.

Rich Menga discussed a similar question recently. His main point is that a 64-bit application is more reliable in handling large amounts of data. To prove this claim, he linked to two nice examples. The first page loads a couple of images, which keeps your browser busy for a while. The second page is even better because it loads a few more images.

According to Rich, the second page will crash IE8 32-bit but IE8 64-bit will have no problems with it. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to verify this claim. In my tests, IE didn’t crash at all. However, after the download of the second page was finished, the page was empty and all the nice email icons disappeared. So, in a way, IE was indeed unable to handle the page. But since there was no difference between IE8 32-bit and IE8 64-bit, I have doubts that there is a real difference between those two browsers when it comes to reliability.

It is interesting to note that IE9 Preview 32-bit had no problems with loading the page. And for the sake of completeness, Chrome 32-bit also loaded this interesting page without complaining. I conclude that the bit-length has no real effect on the reliability in this case.

IE is a very stable browser anyway. I don’t remember when IE last crashed on my computer. Thus I’d say the reliability gains with IE 9 64-bit are negligible. You also have to take into account that the 64-bit edition is used by fewer people and this is why it takes longer to detect bugs.

As to my experience, only two major factors really count when it comes to reliability: how careful the developers have been doing their job and how large the user base is. Thus I doubt that, in general, 64-bit Windows applications are more reliable than their 32-bit counterparts.

In part 4 of this series I will discuss the topic browser speed.

• FREE: SolarWinds Web Transaction Watcher – Record and monitor a Web transaction (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 4: Maintaining Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 3: Deploying a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 2: Creating a custom build of Internet Explorer 9 (0)
• IEAK Boot Camp – Part 1: Whys and Initial Configuration (0)