Internet Explorer 7 final released

Microsoft finally made it happen and released the final version of Internet Explorer 7 to the public. You can download it from the official internet explorer website at microsoft.com. The download works without problems for everyone, the installation checks for WGA (windows genuine advantage) which means you can’t install it if you have no legit key. Please note that Internet Explorer 7 is currently only available for Windows XP and Windows Server 2003.

If you run into troubles you should check out the release notes contains a big list of information about common troubles you could run into. They also address problems with third party tools on this page, really helpful. Would I recommend to switch to IE 7 ? Yes I would. Even though I’am not using it a lot of third party tools rely heavily on some IE core modules. It is better to have everything up to date because of this.

To move the menu bar on top do the following: (thanks to index1489 from digg)

1. Click Start, Run, and then enter regedit into the runbox
2. Press ENTER or click OK
3. Browse to the following key:
HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerToolbarWebBrowser

4. Click the Edit menu in regedit
5. Select New and then DWORD value
6. The name should be highlighted in the right column. Just type over this to name it:
ITBar7Position
7. Double click your new entry in the right column.
8. Change the value to 1.
9. Close regedit and open IE7 to see the change.

For those registry gurus… here’s the process in one swoop:
[HKEY_CURRENT_USERSoftwareMicrosoftInternet ExplorerToolbarWebBrowser]
“ITBar7Position”=dword:00000001

You might want to disable your antivirus software prior to installing Internet Explorer, read below for a full explanation:

A few people have asked why we recommend temporarily disabling anti-virus or anti-spyware applications (which I’ll refer to together as anti-malware) prior to installing IE7, so here’s a little insight to the situation.

Along with copying IE7 files to your system, IE7’s setup writes a large number of registry keys. A common way anti-malware applications protect your computer is by preventing writes to certain registry keys used by IE. Any registry key write that fails during setup will cause setup to fail and rollback changes. We work around the problem in most instances by checking permissions at the beginning of setup, but many anti-malware programs monitor the key rather than change permissions. Therefore, setup thinks it has access when it starts, but then fails when it later attempts to write the key.

The majority of users likely haven’t seen any such problems even with anti-malware enabled because we work with third-party vendors to identify IE7 setup as ‘safe’ based on something like digital signatures or file hashes. While this could lead us to remove the recommendation to disable anti-malware apps, we’ve decided to leave it in setup because a number of factors may still cause some customers to have this problem. Specifically:

[*]With all the anti-malware apps available, we don’t want to assume all of them work just because we haven’t heard of a problem yet.
[*]Even anti-malware apps we’ve tested sometimes require the latest definition updates. If a user doesn’t have the latest definitions, he or she may still hit a problem even though we consider the issue resolved.
[*]Failed installation is an awful user experience so we take every step to reduce the chances of setup failing.
I hope this helps answer some of your questions.

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Author: Martin Brinkmann, Thursday October 19, 2006 -
Tags:ie7, internet explorer 7, microsoft

Responses so far:

1. Webbie says:

   October 19, 2006 at 5:07 pm

   Just read a news item about the first security bug just discovered !

   I for one will not be using the new IE.
   Firefox man now.
   I know Micro$oft will force the upgrade on me via the automatic updates, but I will not agree to install.

   I am a designer and I have to test a site in all browsers and about 80% still use IE6 and it will take a few years before everybody upgrades, so I need to keep IE6 running.

   Reply
2. dr.happy says:

   October 19, 2006 at 6:04 pm

   One of the most interesting aspects of the IE vs. Firefox battle is the development of the ecosystem of extensions or add-ons. Right now firefox had a great advantage in this space but you can see microsoft trying to catch up.

   Microsoft has a interesting partner in Trailfire, a recommended download for IE7. See link:
   http://www.ieaddons.com/SearchResults.aspx?keywords=trailfire

   But this extension is also available for firefox. See link:
   https://addons.mozilla.org/firefox/3524/

   This is not about bugs. I think the ecosystem for firefox and IE will decide who wins this battle. What do you think?

   Reply
3. Johny says:

   October 21, 2006 at 1:55 pm

   And here is the IE7 security Hole Already here:

   http://news.google.co.in/news/url?sa=t&ct=in/0-0&fp=453aadd035c3fd16&ei=jRg6RYSCDYWuoQLFqIS_AQ&url=http%3A//www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm%3Fnewsid%3D7141%26pagtype%3Dall&cid=1110508121

   Johny
   http://FreewarePlaza.com

   Reply
4. Subhajit Maji says:

   October 31, 2006 at 4:38 am

   With the latest version of Mozilla Firefox(ver 2) ready I’m happy with it rather than trying IE7.

   Reply