MS removes IE from Windows7

[Riek]

http://www.pcworld.com/article/16664...es_europe.html

What are all your thoughts or comments?

[Cais]

Yeah, after I read the title of your thread, I immediately thought, "This must have something to do with the antitrust suit." Seems I was right. I wouldn't be offended if Windows didn't come with IE (though, it likely would in the US.)

The article repeats that Microsoft is being "puckish" and that they are "supplying less choice" by removing IE from some versions of Win7; but I totally have to disagree, and say that this is typical lame business practice, and to be expected. It's not Microsoft's responsibility to distribute competitor's software - so, the only reasonable option is to cut programs out of the windows bundle. I'm not really a fan of Microsoft, Windows, or IE, but, I don't think Opera, Google, and Mozilla will be happy until their browsers are distributed with Windows (Which wouldn't bother me, from a user standpoint, but is ridiculous from any other standpoint.)

[Rosuav]

These days, you HAVE to bundle a fair bit with the system. As a computer distributor, I would be quite happy to ship laptops with a selection of free utilities (eg Open Office, VLC, Python, FileZilla as well as browsers eg Firefox, Chrome); it's a service to our customers, giving them a more full-featured system. We sell you a laptop that comes, ready-to-go, with 802.11 support (and that means a wireless card AND the appropriate drivers, and our eternal thanks go to whoever's responsible for the mess surrounding the latter on so many systems); why not also provide it with ready support for some of the networked world's best protocols? Windows comes with basic command-line tools for FTP, Telnet, etc, and ONE nice pretty graphical tool for HTTP (aka IE). Why not be consistent, and provide a nice graphical FTP client (eg FileZilla), and hey, while you're at it, throw RosMud on there as a better-than-Telnet too!

Of course, any tool provided on a system like that will, almost by definition, be out of date by the time it's used. But that applies to IE as much as to everything else, so people will just have to let every program they use go through its updates.

That said, though, what is Windows sans IE going to be like? Will it be just a matter of deleting (or even just renaming) iexplore.exe? I can hardly imagine Microsoft will actually remove Trident from the system. Trident (the layout engine behind IE, like Gecko is to Firefox and WebKit to Chrome) is used by many other programs - browsers (such as Maxthon, and also Firefox's IE View and IE Tab extensions), plus applications that want to render HTML for any purpose (many MANY apps use this facility, rather than write their own HTML renderer), and even some apps that simply want a pretty layout without too much effort, eg for an About box - as an added bonus, dropping a Trident window lets you do hyperlinks with ease. Trident components are also used to render the desktop itself - and not only if you choose "View as Web Page" - making it fundamentally impossible to remove without breaking just about everything. Microsoft could, of course, provide a Trident-free version of the OS, but doing so would break so many applications that their users would be forced to get Trident immediately, defeating the concept (not that MS would mind that, of course). I think it's far more likely that it'll all be left there, especially since MS can claim that removing Trident would unfairly disadvantage alternate browsers such as Maxthon... although that would be more of an excuse than a real reason, of course.

Parenthesis: My guess is that Trident's use in so many desktop applications is why MS is so unwilling to make it properly standards-compliant, and why they're working so hard to keep it bug-for-bug compatible. Any old web sites that use and rely on old-style IE rendering can be caught, and will be pretty few in number, but who's going to notice that Foo Application's "About" box looks disgusting, and that it's really the fault of a Trident change? Of course, this doesn't excuse the problems being there in the first place, but it's too late now...

[Gesslar]

This is dumb. A browser should be a feature that is a part of the OS, especially today. If not a part of the OS, then an optional, pre-installed, uninstallable component.

I can just see some dude having to reformat his PC, have no browser, and then "ok, now what?".

Sure, planning in advance would be cool, but think about the people you know and then think how common it is for people to plan in advance like that. Or even if they don't have an alternative but to put in a new HDD to replace a failed drive.

It's just dumb. I'm not saying that there aren't ways around to get what you want/need (*glares at Rosuav*), but for the lay person, this is just an annoyance. I know that I've been on the receiving end of things going wrong after reinstalling Windows. Like my network cards drivers missing, so i have to dialup and find them online somewhere. What if I had no browser!

[leira]

Do they expect a return to the days where you get Netscape disks in the mail and/or provided by your ISP? That'd be annoying. I'm guessing computer manufacturers will just install a browser of some sort. I'm curious to whether that browser would typically be IE or not. My gut instinct would be to go with Firefox, as the UI is close enough to IE that people wouldn't have much problem with the switch, and Firefox would lead to less support issues, I'd think.

I can see why they are doing it though. Having to provide a competitor's product would be pretty repugnant. I can see why stripping out IE would be a preferable solution from their perspective.

[Maelgrim]

These days, you HAVE to bundle a fair bit with the system. As a computer distributor, I would be quite happy to ship laptops with a selection of free utilities

Whilst I, as the end user of said laptop/netbook, am less than happy having to scour the registry and program listing to find and trash all of these useless, frequently conflicting programs.

Back on topic though, I don't think Microsoft will ever ship Windows sans IE. They might make it unobtrusive, or so integrated into windows explorer that it's neither here nor there (The road they started on with IE6) but I think a few people in this thread have already outlined the problem with not including a browser with basic OS install, especially considering how much content is OEM these days.

Edit: Or make it a post-install 'extra'. Something included on the windows disk but which requires you to deliberately click the "I want Internet Explorer" button.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Maelgrim
Whilst I, as the end user of said laptop/netbook, am less than happy having to scour the registry and program listing to find and trash all of these useless, frequently conflicting programs.

Yes, that's true. And whenever we do a new image, we always end up stripping out all the rubbish that the OEM install dumps there. I personally am in favour of putting useful stuff on the drive, but it's definitely a matter of opinion.

The thing is, though, you are a clued user - you know how to go through and clean things up. Which situation would you prefer a clueless user to find himself in? Losing a bit of disk space to utilities he ignores, or unable to get started on things without getting a geek to set things up for him? This is also why, in spite of the everything, it's still best to ship new computers with Windows rather than Linux.

[Rosuav]

Originally posted by Gesslar
This is dumb. A browser should be a feature that is a part of the OS, especially today. If not a part of the OS, then an optional, pre-installed, uninstallable component.

Definitely doesn't have to be PART of the OS, just made available during OS installation. And every modern OS that I've looked at recently does offer that (granted, that's not many, but it includes Windows, a couple of Linuxes, OS/2, and I believe Mac OS, although I've not actually watched the installer).

It's just dumb. I'm not saying that there aren't ways around to get what you want/need (*glares at Rosuav*), but for the lay person, this is just an annoyance. I know that I've been on the receiving end of things going wrong after reinstalling Windows. Like my network cards drivers missing, so i have to dialup and find them online somewhere. What if I had no browser!

Right. That's why I say you need to bundle stuff with the OS. All it takes is a directory on the OS install disc for third-party software, and a step in the install process where it offers you a list and lets you go tick, tick, tick, I'll have those ones thanks. (With several of them pre-ticked of course.)

Originally posted by leira
Do they expect a return to the days where you get Netscape disks in the mail and/or provided by your ISP?

That is actually one of the options suggested... a CD of IE. But my suspicion is that Windows will be shipped with all the code necessary for IE, and then you just click "Install Internet Explorer" and it creates all the shortcuts and associations.

[Aristotle]

I think the key distinction is this:

1) IE as an integral part of the OS

vs.

2) IE as an add on to the OS.

I think #1 is bad.

I think #2, especially as a default install option, is better.

That way, average joe gets his browser no matter what. It also means Geek Joe can install windows with the browser, use it to download firefox, and then uninstall IE.

Right now, there is basically no way to remove IE, which is lame.

Although frankly, I would not remove it, because every now and then you need it.

Further, Firefox is starting to suck ass, so that is become less of an automatic replacement.

[Riek]

My questions are around where does liability start and end?

MS puts a ballot box into their OS, and now people can install FF or Chrome. Awesome!

Down the track there is a dirty great problem that corrupts the app, or a security vulnerability lets Bob the hacker compromise your box and do something nasty. Which Service Desk will get the calls from the user, and which should?