Windows Update to IE8
I normally let Windows Vista download and install updates by itself as so far they've all been petty little things. Then today Microsoft in their wisdom decided to make IE8 an automatic download.
Oh thanks a 25Mb auto-download of a brand new version of a programme I don't use nor want. I need IE7 as that's still widely used and I need to check out coding against it. I've IE6 on one computer and IE8 on another and I need to keep IE7 on here thank you very much.
It was easy before as it was always an optional update, but nope now it's downloaded it and if I hadn't bothered to check what the updates were (I always do anyway) I'd face trying to undo it.
So while in the Windows Update page I untick the box for IE8; I go back a page and it still wants to install itself; gee great. Turns out you have to untick it, then right-click it and perform an administrator class Hide. Do that and it stops wanting to install it. Yay! If I ever want it back I can simply "Restore Hidden Updates".
Microsoft - you will install what we want you to!
3 comments:
Heh, yeah, well, Windows Update is designed for all the people who are too stupid to know what a “web browser” is and think that Internet Explorer ‘is’ “the Internet”.
It should be noted that IE is more than just a web browser. It's an internal part of the OS. You might not use IE, but it's Tridant rendering engine is hard-wired deeply into Windows. HTML Help uses it, for example. Take away IE and half the OS won't function any more. So if there's a vulnerability in IE, it affects potentially the entire OS!
This is why IE gets upgraded whether you want to or not. Because it's a security risk, even if you don't conciously use it.
Other than that, WI making it hard to refuse an update is another matter entirely…
True story: Microsoft Internet Security and Acceleration (ISA) server, in its default configuration, redirects mozilla.com to the IE7 homepage. Isn't that wonderful? Of course, it's only an “example configuration”. You can easily change it. But it's the default configuration. By default, access to mozilla.com (but not mozilla.org) is blocked, and redirected to the IE homepage.
Imagine my shock as I tried to update my work PC one day. I typed mozilla.com to be greeted by a huge sign saying “Internet Explorer 7: We have heard you!”
Have to admit even I sometimes forget how deeply embedded the IE engine is - use Outlook congrats you're using IE's rendering engine; and don't get me started when they tried to make the entire desktop a web page.
Anyway you've reminded me of the Windows 7 Adverts...
IE's rendering engine is called Tridant.
Like the nuclear missiles they're trying to abolish…
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