IE 7 Beta 2 released (IE 7)

Topic

New Reply

See Internet Explorer 7: Home for information on downloading and installing. NOTE: if you have any prior IE 7 version installed you must uninstall it. The current version will not upgrade any IE 7 version.

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

Replies

I’ve read a few mixed reviews of the Beta 2 release. Best to wait until it’s out of Beta?

Reply | Quote

Dennis.
Wait. That’s what I HAVE to do, since my bank refuses to get ahead of the curve and be compatible with the new version UNTIL it’s out of Beta. ( this after I donated my only abacus to them for one of the tellers to use )

Reply | Quote

Don’t get me going on banks! Three weeks ago, I used my bank’s ATM to withdraw cash and was shorted $105. Still waiting for the adjustment although I’ve been assurred again and again I have nothing to worry about. I think the ATM is still using Abacus 2 beta programming.

Reply | Quote

MS has let out a reg edit program that supposedly “spoof” the fact that IE7beta is only IE6.
I haven’t tried it but here it is.
Create a file called SpoofIE6SP2.reg
copy this to it and run it.
There is also an UNspoof,reg to revert everything back to the original settings
———————————————————————————————
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 6.0”
“Platform”=”Windows NT 5.1”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsUser AgentPost Platform]
“SV1″=””

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftInternet ExplorerVersion Vector]
“IE”=”6.0000”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 6.0”
“Platform”=”Windows NT 5.1”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsUser AgentPost Platform]
“SV1″=””

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerVersion Vector]
“IE”=”6.0000”
————————————————————————

I’ll include the UNspoof version in a following post.

Reply | Quote

The UNspoof:
call this unspoofIE7.reg
—————————————————————
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 7.0”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsUser AgentPost Platform]
“SV1″=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftInternet ExplorerVersion Vector]
“IE”=”7.0000”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 7.0”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsUser AgentPost Platform]
“SV1″=-

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerVersion Vector]
“IE”=”7.0000”
———————————————————————–

Reply | Quote

As ever, Loungers unfamiliar with editing the Registry – even those audacious enough to use Beta Software – should be aware that Registry Patches – even from Microsoft – are capable of seriously damaging Operating System performance.

If you have any doubts, set a restore point and/or back up your Registry before applying the patch.

A patch that reverts to the previous situation may be affected by something you have applied to the Operating System in the meantime.

Reply | Quote

unkamunka,
——————————————-
If you have any doubts, set a restore point and/or back up your Registry before applying the patch.

——————————————

That’s good advice for any major change.

Reply | Quote

unkamunka:

Restore points are really quick. They (seemingly) can’t be backing up too much, even the registry, in such a short time.

What the *heck* are they doing?

Regards,
Chuck Billow

Chuck Billow

Reply | Quote

Chuck,
They are not backing up things, per se. They are creating a snapshot of your OS only, not any of your installed apps. They DO copy quite a lot of things.

For a more detailed discussion on SR, go to: SYSTEM RESTORE

Reply | Quote

Bob:

Thanks… that sheds light on it…

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

Reply | Quote

Chuck, you’re right. They are a form of back-up – of the System, rather than your data. As you can see – if you wade through the article far enough – the key files are actually very few in number. Windows actually retains a spare copy of items in any event. What a System Restore does is hive off an extra copy at the Restore “Point in time” (to mix expressions). The “back up your registry” suggestion I was making earlier was in case anyone had some blind spot about using Restore Points. HTH

Reply | Quote

unkamunka:

I could (EASILY) be missing something, but it seems that Restore points, just like registry backups, are really makeshift. They all seem to miss pieces that, if you happen to be performing an operation that crosses the lines of same, will in many ways invalidate any rescue op.

It’s strange to me that MS has never come right out in favor of, and in description of partition imaging as a tool, even to build it right into Win-Xp…

Oh well…

Chuck

Chuck Billow

Reply | Quote

As Restore Points preserve neither data nor applications, I am unclear what “operation that crosses line of same” you have in mind. In some ways, they RPs are rather narrow. Because of that, I am pressed to find an example that jibes with your concept.

Backup – in terms of M$’s in-built NTBackup program – seems to come a ways down the priority list for M$:

• Shadow Copying – which allows live copying of in use files (such as system files) – is fairly new.
• for a long time, a year or so ago, Shadow Copying of system files was completely busted under XP due to a conflict with a Security Patch
• the feature set of NTBackup is getting – so we understand – a very long overdue full rewrite in Vista (whenever that finally makes it to market).
• if folks image their drives, then they are less likely to need to reactivate with M$ over the phone after yet another reinstall. Whether feedback from the reactivation phonebank has prioritised the NTBackup rewrite, I do not know
• Imaging is AFAIK definitely not in the “feature set” for Vista. I suspect that if M$ wanted to incorporate the technology, they would have to buy it in – either by licensing or by taking over an existing player.[/list]FWIW I fully encourage both partitioning and imaging. OTOH I am innately sceptical of products with what used to be called “Madison Avenue” buzzwords (such as, for example: “Magic” or “True”) in their titles – sceptical enough to study their feature sets and then establish whether a competitor offers the same feature set on similar terms.

  HTH

Reply | Quote

unkamunka:

I think I at times am a bit long-winded, losing thread…

What I was trying to say is that to the non-tech, or less-systems-features-converrsant, the different ways of backing up ALL can be seen as adequate, depending on whom you listen to at any one point.

But backig up the registry doesn’t save your start menu, desktop, etc; restore points save little of same, imaging is both space and time intensive…

And yest, different people recommend different ways… but usually just one of the many, which will not be enough in the case of (several) various that might hit…

I just went and (again) walked through MS’s backup utility… it cannot even backup up to a CD, so in today’s world of larger files, it becomes next to pointless…

I know… there ARE methods. Some of these I have found, and they HAVE saved my butt a few times…. they generally integrate a couple (or more) types of backup into a “process”

My point it that I found these myself (aided by others we won’t mention), NOT in some MS instruction manual or User Guide for the Intermediate or overly adventurous… The link you sent me to has all the breakdown of THAT methodoly… without stating the “here’s what you’re NOT backing up, so here’s what ELSE you need to do…”

It becomes a seriously time-intensive function to find any type of consistent solution.

That’s whay the everyday neophyte finds it confusing at best, and heartbreaking at worst when “the one thing they couldn’t afford to lose” gets lost…

Maybe someday…

Regards,
Chuck

Chuck Billow

Reply | Quote

Chuck

We have been backing up our Windows/Exchange 2003 server to DDS tapes for about 18 months now using NTBackup, recently scheduled and augmented by an excellent program called BackupAssist (from Australia!). It’s not often I am enthusiastic about a piece of software (as longtime Loungers will know!) but BackupAssist is Jolly Good Software!

John

PS Hasn’t this thread wandered a bit from IE 7 beta 2 ?!

Reply | Quote

I think that the book you’re looking for – although it’s now slightly out of date – is The Book That Should Have Come with Your Computer.

If you’re looking for suggestions, these are on the basis that you’re basically a “one man band”. They’re based on a “low hassle”, “keep it simple” policy. Many you may already have in place.

• Keep your data on a separate partition. This means moving both your “My Documents” folder and the entire [username]Application Data folder tree. (The latter move will capture Outlook Express files – among many other things.), You can do likewise for almost all Documents and Settings: Start Menu, Desktop, etc – if you wish.
• Additionally, move your Outlook PST to the data partition.
• Get yourself an external hard drive (“EHD”).
• Move anything you haven’t looked at at all in the last 12 months to the EHD – unless it is absolutely “mission critical”.
• Back up all your Data folders, the Outlook PST and the Application Data folder to the EHD every 24 hours. (NTBackup – or any other backup program – will do this for you automatically.)
• As a “one man band”, you are unlikely to need more than the most recent backup. If something is “mission critical”, make duplicate copies during each phase of development and let those get backed up.
• Reserve using partition images to capture the OS partition after you’ve set it up – with most/all your necessary programs etc freshly installed & tweaked. Like anyone else, you’re bound to end up installing stuff that you later don’t want/do not use. Backing such stuff up with imaging can be a Waste Of Time. In other words, 1 image is probably enough. That also belongs on the EHD. Updating it is almost certainly not worth the effort.
• If you get a malware infestation, do an extra run of your Data backup – to a different location – to allow for rescuing any undamaged data from amongst the damaged data. Then restore your OS from the image. Trying to “clean up” will almost certainly cost you more time than tweaking the image back to your current setup. For me, this would be the one instance where you could update the image – for “keeper” adjustments only.
• If you’re worried about the impact of M$ updates, don’t install them straight away Unless you can image overnight, imaging just for the sake of avoiding “early patch fallout” is likely to be more trouble than it’s worth. Remember any image still has to be tweaked back to what you had before. Allowing for that – as well as having to pick up your threads several times over – can mean (at least) half a day’s work.
• After all, computers are supposed to save time – not give us large opportunities to waste it! [/list]
  If you’re a compulsive downloader visiting all sorts of unfamiliar sites , you need a more intensive routine. In that case, I would suggest keeping Data backups for each day of the week. The other recommendations remain the same.

  HTH

Reply | Quote

Bob,

What exactly does this spoof do? Do you mean by spoof that IE7 will tell web sites that it is really IE6, but it won’t remove any of the IE7 features and functionality? Or does it change IE7 in other ways? If the former, that could be useful since some sites won’t load in IE7. The new Yahoo! won’t load in IE7.

Reply | Quote

Andrew,
This is a copy of the reg file to spoof IE7 into looking like IE6.
The UNspoof.reg just reverses what it changed.
————————————————————-
Windows Registry Editor Version 5.00

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 6.0”
“Platform”=”Windows NT 5.1”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsUser AgentPost Platform]
“SV1″=””

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREWow6432NodeMicrosoftInternet ExplorerVersion Vector]
“IE”=”6.0000”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet Settings5.0User Agent]
“Version”=”MSIE 6.0”
“Platform”=”Windows NT 5.1”

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftWindowsCurrentVersionInternet SettingsUser AgentPost Platform]
“SV1″=””

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESOFTWAREMicrosoftInternet ExplorerVersion Vector]
“IE”=”6.0000”
———————————————————-
Looks like it just makes IE7 LOOK like IE6 to other sites.

Reply | Quote

OK, I’ll give it a try and report back.

Reply | Quote

I just applied the Spoof and tried to get to my banking site with IE 7 and it worked like a charm.

I “temporarily deleted the post number”

Reply | Quote

Hi Bob,

May I ask what you were point to when you linked to “571”? I ended up at post post 360?

Also, with this new release of IE, I also was having trouble accessing certain websites and I thought maybe it was my installation of IE so I uninstalled it? Are you saying that if I edit my registry and put what you have in your post 575,025, that it should make it work okay?

Reply | Quote

Skitterbug,
I don’t know if the spoof will work for all sites but it DID do the trick to allow my bank to “recognize” IE7.

Now the second thing……
With IE 7 now I can’t click on 1 click tag panel or smilies OR even manually create a clickable link to a post in the Lounge. I also just noticed that I can’t enter a post number in the “view post number” block at the top of the control panel page.

The 571 was the result of trying to refer to my prior post # 571,360. It cut off the rest of the post number?
I’ll go to the test area and try a few things to see if I can clear the latest IE 7 problem.

Reply | Quote

Bob,

You can insert a link to a post as [post#=571360] (no comma in the post number) or as [post: 571,360] (as in the header of the post). Mixing the two forms doesn’t work, as you found.

Reply | Quote

Hans,
I just tried that in the test area BUT the post wasn’t clickable?

post 571,360

Reply | Quote

Hans,

See post 575102

Installed the new Java 6.0 and now 1 click tag and smilies working again.

Reply | Quote

Ditto,
Help and “view post number”.

Reply | Quote

Hi Bob,

I think I will reinstall it again and give it a go. I bet with your registry tweaks and if I install Java 6, I’ll have better luck with it. I automatically assumed that I had goof up the install someway instead of considering I needed to do something more to it! I should have asked first. I really do like the new look of IE but I will probably keep on using FF for the majority of my surfing!

Reply | Quote

Bob,

Have you tried reversing it with your “unspoof” Registry edits? Did that work? I’m curious about the HKLMSoftware subkey “Wow6423Node”. That’s new, as I don’t have one currently. The “unspoof” edit leaves an entry there; what effect does that have?

You mentioned in a later post that you can’t click on 1 click tag panel or smilies. When I do that they open in new tabs; That’s handy as you can keep them open and just flip to the appropriate tab when you want to use one. They still work from a separate tab.

Reply | Quote

Andrew,
Yes, I did run the unspoof reg and it did revert me back to where I could not access my bank site with IE 7 still installed. Running the spoof again allowed access.
I have no idea what that “wow6432Node” entry does but all is working fine as of now with IE 7.

I CAN now use 1 click tag and smilies directly. This after installing the latest Java 6 update ( beta ). Don’t know if that was the fix or not but I’m not about to revert back just to see if it did!

Reply | Quote

I forgot to ask, did you run the spoof and try to access that Yahoo site again?

Reply | Quote

I installed the IE 7.0 beta a few weeks ago w/no problems or bugs – a big improvement but still think Firefox does the tabs better (they can be re-arranged) & the “Organize Favorites” dialog is still less than useful. One interesting side-effect I’ve noticed is that (on my machine anyway) — Windows Explorer is suddenly far more responsive than before installing the beta. This machine is an installation of Win XP (SP-2) w/appx 3 years of accumulated gunk. Before installing the beta, when opening Windows Explorer (in Explorer view) & navigating to My Documents or clicking on folders like Program Files or the Windows folder, the machine would spin its wheels for what seemed a year & a day before finally expanding the folder tree hierarchy on left, & displaying files on right. Now when open Explorer, files & folders are displayed instantly, without delay, no matter how convoluted the folder/subfolder hierarchy or how many files they contain. The difference is not subtle — it is like nite & day. Installing the IE beta is only configuration change made during this time frame. Wonder if anyone else has observed this phenomenon or am I imagining things.

Reply | Quote

My story is slightly different. I installed IE7 Beta and was having a search problem so I uninstalled it. Afterwards I thought that even my IE 6 was responding MUCH faster but i thought to myself, “How could that be ?” But now that I have seen your expierence, I feel much less crazy. As you said, the difference is not slight or a maybe … it is obvious !!!!!

Reply | Quote

Joe:

I just (last night) installed v7, but I went back to 6.

I had some “problems” with the new dialog concerning security in the Options. There were (it appears) a number of settings put in place that were causing me problems.

Isn’t there any way to install 7 and have it just leave settings like they were in 6?

Regards,
Chuck Billow

Chuck Billow

Reply | Quote

I doubt it. IE7 is supposed to be much safer out of the box than IE6. What new dialog are you talking about?

Joe

--Joe

Reply | Quote

>>
I doubt it. IE7 is supposed to be much safe
<<

They (MS) sure are amking a show of it. There are several more settings, and the one they think is the one you should pick gets highlighted.

I can't replixate it now, as I'm back to '6'…

It was somthing like firewalls give you about "Allow this…?"

Chuck

Chuck Billow

Reply | Quote

I am using Beta 2, and it works just fine and dandy

Reply | Quote