IE8 not forced on Windows 7 users

[SlappY]

The man certainly puts in the effort thats for sure

 

[I am Penguin]

YAAP* from Arthur

*Yet Another Awesome Post

The man certainly puts in the effort thats for sure

Yeah, very sensible man. A breath of fresh MyBB air at last.

 

[porchrat]

You can if you want to! It's your PC!! You can, you can!
BUT YOU need to know how.
Or do you want Microsoft to hold your hand and do it for you? Really, porchrat, really!

Instructions for removing IE: Go to the appropriate folders and delete the appropriate executables, libraries and files. Take control of your PC!
If that fails, format c:/ <enter>. Voila!

Your complaint really arises from a misundertanding of modern desktop operating systems and applications. To bitch that you can't fully uninstall IE is like moaning you can't uninstall networking support, or audio, or even the GUI (and yes, people once moaned about every one of these as well). They were all once separate apps, but they are now much more modularised, abtracted, and componentised, with libraries shared across the system.

Back in the steam-driven-PC days applications were discrete self-contained universes. The operating system provided a C:/> prompt, and even the blinking cursor was a BIOS function call. Users could manipulate the operating system with text instructions like DIR, CLS, and even DEL. Power users knew arcane commands like DELTREE and MKDIR, and could even string these together in BAT files. The most brilliant users of the day knew command line switches and parameters!!! An application developer had to include just about everything in his app: all UI functions, keystroke handling, image rendering, communications, and so forth.

Things developed quite quickly. And have come a long way.

Today, the modern desktop operating system about town includes a rather larger set of functions, services, and capabilities. As basic PC hardware became more capable, it was natural and desirable that more and more capability be moved from individual applications into the operating system and core function libraries, so that these capabilities need only exist once whilst being shared by different applications.

There is an ongoing history of this evolution. (If you blame Microsoft for this fact then you implicitly recognise its leadership in driving the industry to new levels of function. MS never claimed to invent everything, but it sure is the leader in bringing new capability to the user as part of the basic system capabilities.)

Twenty-five years ago, local area networking was an add-on application for PCs, and very expensive. PC operating systems knew nothing about networks. Then in 1984 Microsoft included basic NETBIOS/NETBEUI support in MS-DOS 3.1. Of course the expensive networking apps people complained bitterly. This was encroaching on their business, and they didn't like it one byte. But users and networking and PC hardware people loved it, because MS gave their systems additional capability in the OS that wasn't there before - the ability to do new powerful things with their PCs, like easily and cheaply upgrade from the sneaker-network to a real local area network and quickly share files in new ways.

And so things developed rapidly.

The same thing happened with PC sound. And CD-ROMS. And GUIs. And even PC video.

In the early 90s, the internet was still had a newborn's gurgle. Though the typical PC now had a large hard disk of around 120MB (yes, megabytes), and Windows 3.11 included full LAN and even dial-up support, browsers were still discrete app-universe that needed to be fully installed. And yes, they could be fully and completely uninstalled.

Then the internet happened. Netscape was the Bright New Kid on the block. They charged users and companies for their browser, though the geeks behind the technology, like Marc Andreessen, really wanted the server business, preferring to stay away from the desktop PC, which was still regarded as a bit of toy.

(You know what the main criticism of Microsoft was back then? It wasn't internet-centric enough. It wasn't internet-aware. The new net-geeks mocked Windows as still stuck in the pre-internet world and the main evidence they cited was that it didn't integrate internet capability and thinking. Yes, back then Microsoft's sin was not integrating internet. Talk about heads you win, tails I lose.)

Microsoft quickly licensed technology and brought out Internet Explorer as an add-on for Win95. It wasn't great, but it was a start.

The internet became really really big.

Things developed fast. By the time IE4 was released (which the industry saw as a parity product and less buggy than Netscape 4.0), Microsoft had realised the internet was here to stay as a basic element of desktop computing. (In one of the most deft and amazing turnarounds in modern corporate history, the entire company was reoriented to think internet. I was there as an executive, and saw it all first hand.) Instead of developing libraries and services specific to only the browser, it made eminent sense to develop a much closer integration, optimising shared components, defining new APIs, updating libraries that could be more widely shared, and so on, so that the browser could more efficiently use other shared services also available to other applications.

So, porchrat, to conclude: In Them Old Days you could install and uninstall applications like networking, audio, video, graphics, windowing, etc. These were apps and not basic PC services. Today, these are basic PC services best provided by the operating system, because they are used across a wide range of applications. The same has happened with the browser. Because it uses so many shared libraries, trying to fully uninstall the browser is like trying to uninstall a con-rod in you car's engine. There will always be people who see this as a evidence of a dark and evil Microsoft conspiracy. The more knowledgable and elightened will know this is the natural and desired course of PC evolution, that it is a good thing and not a bad thing, that it makes sense from every possible perspective: rationally, technically, philosophically, commercially. It makes code management easier, application development easier -- and it provides a pretty adequate and reasonable level of function for the user.

At no extra charge.

Anti-Microsofters once mocked Windows for not integrating internet capability. Microsoft listened, and worked super-hard to change that. When it finally did integrate it, the same people complained IE was integrated! Some sued. And some governments fined Microsoft for doing so. Eish, man. Make up your blerry minds what you want. But please stop using governments and lawyers to tell Microsoft what they must do with their product.

One nice thing about Windows is there's a wide choice of stuff - much wider than on any other ten platforms combined. If you don't like MS IE, get another one. If you don't like the MS cosmos, move to another - there are many to choose from (and I go quite often myself). Simple, really. But it's time to stop the silly moans and move on from 1992.

That is a truly inspiring post, but you still haven't explained to me why I shouldn't be able to replace IE, like you can replace browsers in other OSes. Unless I misunderstand how that works in other OSes, which is possible as I don't claim to understand how it works. So far I have gathered a little knowledge from you guys in this thread, but the constant attacks are getting a little annoying.

The reason I used caps was because my first question was ignored, and still is being ignored. I'm not saying don't ship IE with Windows, what I am saying is that, for example, if you use a Debian based Linux system you can remove and replace your browser with another browser using a package manager. Browsers are interchangable. Why is this so hard to do in Windows? In principle one should be allowed to remove a browser if one so desires without having break everything else. Again I mention that I would not remove IE if given the choice because it seems like a pointless exercise, but why should I not be given the choice?

Please don't tell me I am given the choice, because maybe you're given some semblance of a choice under Win7, but under XP if you removed the libraries as you have suggested, there are a lot of things you can't do.

 

[I am Penguin]

That is a truly inspiring post, but you still haven't explained to me why I shouldn't be able to replace IE, like you can replace browsers in other OSes.

As stated already, maybe you missed the point, IE explorer is totally integharted as part and parcel of the operating system. Can be disabled but not uninstalled as then many other things would not work.

There is such an outcry by a few thousand that do not want to see IE???? on a "Windows" based PC but the need of the other millions to have it integrated as is are ignored. Many users can only switch on the computer and use it. They do not even know what IE is! They just use it and effectively too. Why must they now install other explorers? How must they do it. Therefore windows have grown to a one install solution for 80% of computing requirements. The rest depends what the computer are going to be used for. The fact that the competition could not offer the same capability is not the fault of Microsoft but their own doing.

 

[Arthur]

I agree with you Arthur, but the switch "Think Internet" came a little later, let's say a little after when Google started to be more than : "great another search engine, just what we need".

I suppose one can see the reorientation to think internet as an ongoing evolution, and it certainly has intensified. But inside MSFT the sea-change revolution rolled out with the Planning Guidance for FY97, in March 1996. Every 'Softie in every unit, group, and division had to get 'evangelised', and every product development and business plan had to restrategise everything and breathe, eat, drink, & sleep internet as it impacted on their particular areas of expertise, operation, planning and development.

 

[Net Performance]

I suppose one can see the reorientation to think internet as an ongoing evolution, and it certainly has intensified. But inside MSFT the sea-change revolution rolled out with the Planning Guidance for FY97, in March 1996. Every 'Softie in every unit, group, and division had to get 'evangelised', and every product development and business plan had to restrategise everything and breathe, eat, drink, & sleep internet as it impacted on their particular areas of expertise, operation, planning and development.

I remember back in the days, the battle against ICQ, hotmail been purchased, the emergence of MSN as a platform (Messenger, even a browser). I understand what you are saying, but deep inside there was no reel impulse beyond the surface. Microsoft strength is still the same as in 1996: the desktop...

The memo for FY07 was probably : Google, Google, Google, Google...

Ongoing evolution...

 

[Arthur]

I remember back in the days, the battle against ICQ, hotmail been purchased, the emergence of MSN as a platform (Messenger, even a browser). I understand what you are saying, but deep inside there was no reel impulse beyond the surface. Microsoft strength is still the same as in 1996: the desktop...

The memo for FY07 was probably : Google, Google, Google, Google...

Ongoing evolution...

Actually, Google didn't get a mention then. It took a little longer to understand that ...

I 'retired' at the end of '97, but I think that message has gotten through pretty clearly. Why else the loony and ludicrous Yahoo! bid?