How is everyone else doing IE7 testing?

[Dave Anderson]

This blocker toolkit you speak of. That stops you being
forced to get the IE7 update? I have Virtual Machines
setup with IE4, 5, 5.5, 6 and I don't want any of them to
receive IE7. They range from 98 to XPsp2.

Do you have a link? I realize it might be earlier in this
thread but yours is the only message I see in this thread.

Internet Explorer 7 Automatic Updates distribution process:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/ie/ie7/automaticupdates/default.mspx

Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7:
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?FamilyId=4516A6F7-5D44-482B-9DBD-869B4A90159C

 

[Frank Saunders, MS-MVP OE/WM]

This blocker toolkit you speak of. That stops you being
forced to get the IE7 update? I have Virtual Machines
setup with IE4, 5, 5.5, 6 and I don't want any of them to
receive IE7. They range from 98 to XPsp2.

Do you have a link? I realize it might be earlier in this
thread but yours is the only message I see in this thread.

~dd

"To help our customers become more secure and up-to-date,
Microsoft will distribute Internet Explorer 7 as a high-
priority update via Automatic Updates soon after the final
version of the browser is released for Windows XP later
this year.[1]"

Furthermore, Microsoft advised companies to deploy the Blocker Toolkit
before November 2006, so this update could be imminent. Lastly, Windows
Vista users will not have IE6. I expect IE7 adoption will be much faster
than IE6. But that's just my opinion.

There is no forced update to IE7. The user is given an opportunity to say
No or to say Ask again later.

 

[Dave Anderson]

There is no forced update to IE7. The user is given an
opportunity to say No or to say Ask again later.

I don't think I said anyone would be forced to update, though it's a moot
point for anyone who gets a new PC with Vista installed.

I *do* intend to imply that many users, faced with an update labeled "hig
priority", will affirm, given how weary we all have gotten fighting with
exploits to security vulnerabilities. Do you really think a large segment of
the public differentiates between high priority updates and security
patches? There is certainly no point in explaining it to my mother -- I long
ago told her to apply everything offered by Windows Update, if only because
I didn't need a call about it every Tuesday.

 

[Nathan Sokalski]

Nobody is "forced" to update to IE7, but because many people have Automatic
Updates set to install high priority updates automatically in the
background, there will be many people who end up coming home one day to
unexpectedly find a new browser on their computer. Some people don't even
know they have Automatic Updates set to this setting, because it all happens
while they are at work, in bed, or just away from their computer. Some
people just say "Well, I guess my computer had a little glitch or
something". I know that if I hadn't installed the blocker on my parents'
computers, I would have gotten a call from them the very next day.
Guaranteed.

 

[Joe Fawcett]

As we all know, IE7 is now available. However, it also cannot be installed
side by side with IE6. This makes it very hard to test pages on both
versions using the same machine. I am guessing that most businesses simply
have multiple machines, some with IE6 and some with IE7. However, being a
home developer who develops as both a personal hobby and potential career,
I need a way to test both versions from home with the same machine. The
only suggestion given to me from the microsoft.public newsgroups so far
has been to use VirtualPC, but that would be a lot of extra effort and not
be very efficient anyway. I am surprised that Microsoft has not created
anything for developers/designers that allows them to have IE6 and IE7
installed. If they are willing to create utilities that prevent
AutomaticUpdates from installing it, I would think they would at least
create a utility to run them side by side if they want more people to
start using IE7 (I know of several universities that removed IE7 from the
AutomaticUpdates at the network level, so anybody not in a
technology-related field might not even know it exists for a while, and
many businesses won't be installing it on their machines for a while as
well). I have been looking forward to IE7 and following the blogs ever
since I learned about them, but I'm not going to give up having IE6 on my
machine until people are no longer using it. What are all of you doing as
far as testing IE7 when limited to one machine? Thanks.

I don't see why Virtual PC is difficult or inefficient. It's a relatively
easy install, free, and requires a decent amount of disk-space and RAM.
Oncce you have a couple of OSs set up you'll wonder how you did without it.
I have different environments that can be trashed and re-cretaed, e.g. a
Visual Studio 2003 and SQL Server 2000 that I use for maintaining some of
our older code, different versions of IE are easy this way.
Alternatively we also use www.browsercam.com but that is more effort and
only used when a project is near completion rather than min ute by minute
changes.

 

[Leythos]

As we all know, IE7 is now available. However, it also cannot be installed
side by side with IE6. This makes it very hard to test pages on both
versions using the same machine. I am guessing that most businesses simply
have multiple machines, some with IE6 and some with IE7. However, being a
home developer who develops as both a personal hobby and potential career, I
need a way to test both versions from home with the same machine.

You need to learn to setup multiple drives, not one computer with
multiple drives installed, but one computer with multiple drives where
only one is used at a time.

Another option is to purchase a cheap PC, even a P3 will run XP and IE7,
and set that up for testing IE7.

If you are using the same machine to program and test you are using a
flawed method, you need to develop applications on one machine and test
on a virgin machine that doesn't have the development package installed.

For the price of a hot-swap drive assy you can purchase another cheap
Dell or some other vendors computer and use it as your test machine.

 

[dotNuttah]

<snip>

But, as far as MS is concerned, IE6 will be old and dead shortly and
the track record for MS isn't very promising as far as supporting
older products that have an update out. Maybe it will be different
for IE7 but don't count on it.

Old and dead except for the people who still use Win2000. Old and dead
except for the people who uninstalled IE7 because it doesn't work or
otherwise broke their system. In a (non-technical) forum where I post a lot
there are rather a few people giving that last action as their policy
regarding IE7. It was a step backward for them and they're glad to get rid
of it.