Internet Explorer Administration Kit 10 available

Microsoft has released the Internet Explorer 10 Preview for Windows 7 and windows Server 2008 R2 yesterday. The browser is identical to the version for Microsoft's latest operating system Windows 8, with the exception that the Windows 7 version of IE10 does not include a native Adobe Flash Player integration.

The Internet Explorer Administration Kit 10 is now also available for download. The program helps companies and organizations to create, manage and deploy custom Internet Explorer 10 versions. It basically enables system administrators to create a custom version of the browser that falls into line with company policies and guidelines.

Note that you can use the IE Administration Kit 10 currently only to create custom Internet Explorer versions for 32-bit or 64-bit editions of Windows 8. This will change once Internet Explorer 10 final gets released for Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2. You can however create a custom package on Windows 7. This currently means that you need to download the latest version of IE10 from the Internet, as the preview version of IE10 for Windows 7 cannot be used for the purpose.

Customization options

The customization options are quite extensive:

• Setup customization - Internet Explorer Setup can be customized by adding custom components, selecting the components to install, specifying download site information, and by customizing the Setup title bar and bitmaps
• Internal Install - Selecting to install the latest updates and run Malicious Software Remove Tool and setting Internet Explorer as the default browser are available through the Corporate Install Features.
• Connection Manager - Connection Manager Profiles can be generated via the Connection Manager Administration Kit (CMAK). You can import a profile generated by CMAK in the custom package.
• Browser User Interface - The title bar, toolbar buttons and the look and feel of the browser can be customized through this feature.
• Search Providers - You can add, remove and specify default search providers in Internet Explorer.
• Important urls -  You can specify multiple home pages that open in different tabs in Internet Explorer. The default welcome page and online support page can also be customized.
• Accelerators - Accelerators are contextual services that provide quick access to external services from any webpage. Accelerators typically involve looking up information related to data in the current webpage and sending content from the current webpage to another application.
• Favorites, Favorites bar and Feeds - You can specify custom favorites, Web slices and feeds to be installed with your package. the order of these favorites, Web slices and feeds and associated icons can also be specified, if applicable.
• Browsing Options - You can customize options for managing items under Favorites, Favorites Bar and Feeds. You can also decide whether or not to include Microsoft defaults for Favorites, Web Slices, Links, Feeds and Accelerators.
• Compatibility View - Compatibility View controls how the Internet Explorer user agent string is used to identify itself to a Web server and determine whether content is rendered in Internet Explorer 7 mode or IE10 standards mode. You may also append a custom string to the end of the user agent string.
• Connections Customization - Connections customization allows you to deploy custom connections as we ll as set their associated per-connection information, such as proxy settings.
• Security Zones and Content Ratings - Security Zones and Content Ratings allow you to control what information the user can view and what is downloaded to their desktop.
• Programs - Program customization allows you to specify the default program Windows should automatically use as a HTML editor, email, Newsgroup, Internet call, Calendar and Contact list.
• Additional Settings - Additional Settings give you the ability to preset, and in some cases lock down the users machine for certain functionality.

The Kit makes available many customization options. You can for instance configure the Internet Explorer 10 installation to be completely silent so that users do not see any dialog boxes, or select a different route so that users can make certain decisions on their own. It certainly takes a while to go through all the menus and settings the wizard displays to you during configuration, but the overall process itself is comfortable and not difficult at all.

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