News Microsoft kills off legacy Internet Explorer installs

But the question with regard to Windows 7 isn't so much whether or not you can install IE11, which obviously you can, but if IE11's rendering engine will be used for embedded functionality instead of the IE9 rendering engine shipping with Windows 7.

 

A browser choice doesn't get around having the web browser so tightly integrated into the OS that it can't be removed though, when the web browser can't be uninstalled from the operating system it should (IMO) be supported for the same length of time as the OS.

Every version other than 11 is no longer going to be supported from next year so installing IE9 would still be unsupported.

AFAIK if you installed IE11 it would update Trident to version 7.0, Windows 7 came with version 4.0

 

the EU ruling stopped that , so from December onwards MS were forced to offer the choice , and remove IE8 from win7 if the user wanted. so its not as `tight` as you imply.

hence the EU specific AT LAUNCH of Windows 7 E (although yes it was cancelled and we have the install we see now with the browser choice)

from the court ruling onwards ALL versions of IE were optional , so MS supplied the update its up to the user to apply it ; they also announced this 18 months ago so its not a new thing at all. choosing to ignore the announcement is no defence

 

I think you maybe operating under the assumption that the browser choice EU ruling forced the removal of IE and its associated rendering engine, it didn't, all the browser choice does is remove the shortcut to IE from the desktop and startmenu.

Depending on what your definition of removal is it's either easy to remove IE (delete the shortcuts) or would result in a broken OS.

 

Something that just dawned on me is how this effects Windows server products and if IE11 is going to become an important update (installed by default), if it's not changed to an important update wouldn't that possibly cause future security updates to fail?

If a future security update is expecting a Trident version of 7 and it finds version 4 could it cause problems or leave a security hole, where does that leave Windows servers (excluding Core) that may have mission critical tasks that depend on older version of the Trident engine?

 

I fail to see what the issue is in upgrading to IE11 is. It's more modernly built and the issues that normally need patching, from a security perspective are issues present in previous versions and so are issues with legacy code. More recent versions also have better support for things like more recent innovations built into EMET.

MS are killing off support for old versions which is good because people on older versions of the browsers might actually get a reasonable internet experience on upgrading; as JS performance is shocking in IE8 and HTML 5 support is poor in anything below IE10. The web is moving on and dropping support for older versions of IE too, so those who stick to older IE versions may find that the web just slowly stops working for them.

 

It's not free, you are given windows 10 in exchange for allowing Microsoft to build an advertising profile on you, which they sell. It's essentially asset bartering between MS and their users.

Changing operating systems is not an option in many businesses. Not everyone can flute about with their equipment to the extent the home user can. Well they can, but doing so costs time, money increases business risk and adds little or no value to the current setup, of Windows 7 or even XP.

 

While I understand reasoning behind it and it's not end of the world it's pain sometimes. For private use nobody really cares, business applications may vary. There is still many websites which are not compatible with IE11 (I talking branch software I have to deal at work). I don't know if creators noticed that 10-15 years passed since IE 6/7/8 was the 'next big thing by MS'. There is slow trend of abolishing support for IE8 and below, but only IE8. Granted neither of these sites is like Google or BBC with like 2 billion hits each day but still require authorization which is potentially dangerous.

 

That's all well and good if you actually use Internet Explorer for browsing the web but what if you're running a server that doesn't get used in such a manner, what if installing IE11 breaks something on your server.

To force their customers in to upgrading a core part of an operating system is a risky move at best, and plain stupid at worst, for all their bluster of wanting to keep customers secure stopping support for such an integral part of an OS will probably leave people more vulnerable, not less.

 

Confirmation of what some people suspected.

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Time for ne'er-do-well to start reverse engineering all those security vulnerabilities to target systems that can't upgrade.