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I think everyone knows that an urgent security issue has arisen in IE this week and Microsoft has taken the (wise) decision to publish a fix outside the normal 2nd Tuesday release cycle. Some have said switch browser because of this issue, but not only can that be complex, but most browsers suffer security issues so once again the only real protection is to wrap in cotton wool and hide. Or, use the built in features of Vista and IE7/8 which means protected mode and NOT running as admin. You might ask why a Christmas present? Well, if this continued un-patched then your information is seriously at risk and that would make for a very bad Christmas if your credit card information was stolen!! Either way, if you have IE on your systems then you will need to update your systems urgently. Of course, my Hyper-V server (or Windows Core for that matter) don’t have IE, so no updates for them!!! Just for completeness, here is the information from the Technet newsletter Internet Explorer Security Update I wanted to update you on the Advance Notification of security update MS08-078 which will address a new vulnerability allowing remote code execution in all affected versions of Internet Explorer products. We plan to release this update on December 17th, around 10 a.m. Pacific Time (6pm UK time) through Automatic Updates and Microsoft Update. We encourage you to test and deploy this update as soon as possible. Our investigations of the known attacks have verified that they are not successful against customers who have applied the security update. You may be interested to know, that in response to the threat we mobilized security engineering teams worldwide right away to develop, test and deliver a security update of appropriate quality for worldwide distribution in the unprecedented time of eight days. We also published the Microsoft Security Advisory 961051 . Microsoft's teams worked constantly to identify more options for customers and updated this advisory 5 times in six days. We remain committed to building secure...

We all new that the super standards mode was coming, but look at all the announcements today, including the downloads : IE8 and CSS 2.1 Testing Since I joined the IE team at the beginning of 2007, it has become clear to me how important it is for web developers to predict how a given browser will work. I’ve certainly heard and read how very important it is to web developers to minimize the cost IE8 and JScript As Dean mentioned yesterday in his post announcing the availability of the Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for developers , better script performance is of particular interest to the developer community. In conjunction with Dean’s announcement, the JScript Activities and WebSlices in Internet Explorer 8 If you’re like me, you’ve found that it’s pretty hard to keep track of all the new services and sites out there, let alone the ones we use every day. I bookmark my favorite sites and services, but still spend a lot of time trying to find them. A couple IE8 and IP Licensing Some of the first things users may notice in the Beta 1 release of Internet Explorer 8 are new features such as Activities and WebSlice. We recognize that the technology behind Activities and Webslice relies on innovations that have come out of the community, Why Isn't IE8 Passing Acid2? Although we said that IE8 Beta 1 passes the ACID2 test , some of you may be seeing results like the image above; we thought we should explain what’s going on. IE8 passes the official ACID2 test hosted on http://www.webstandards.org/files/acid2/test.html IE8 Beta Feedback It’s exciting when we have a new beta to release! The launch of IE8 developer beta is a huge milestone, and we have set up various mechanisms to collect feedback. Before I list out all of our feedback channels for IE8 betas, I want to explain what we Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers Now Available This morning at the MIX conference in Las Vegas, the IE team made eight announcements about IE8. The most interesting for many people is that a developer beta is now available. Download it...

OK, so the title is mine, but you can see here how the defacto standard that was IE4/5/6 meant that people thought IE7 would live by the same rules. If you care about "standards based websites" then the IE team blog on compatibility is a must for you. Compatibility and IE8 In Dean’s recent Internet Explorer 8 and Acid2: A Milestone post, he highlighted our responsibility to deliver both interoperability (web pages working well across different browsers) and backwards compatibility (web pages working well across different versions of IE). We need to do both, so that IE8 continues to work with the billions of pages on the web today that already work in IE6 and IE7 but also makes the development of the next billion pages (in an interoperable way) much easier. Continuing Dean’s theme, I’d like to talk about some steps we are taking in IE8 to achieve these goals. I’ve been on the IE team for over a decade, and I’ve seen us apply the “Don’t Break the Web” rule in six different major versions of IE in different ways. In IE 6, we used the DOCTYPE switch to enable different “modes” of behavior to protect compatibility. When we released IE 6 in 2001, very few pages on the web were in “standards mode” (my team ran a report on the top 200 web sites at the time that reported less than 1%) – few people knew what a DOCTYPE was, and few tools generated them. We used the DOCTYPE switch in IE6 to change the box model to comply with the standards and enable developers to opt-in to the new behavior. We’d already seen so much content written to IE5.x’s non-standard interpretation of the CSS2 spec that we couldn’t change it without causing a slew of problems. In IE7 we made a lot more changes to improve IE’s standards compliance , particularly with CSS. We limited these behavior changes to IE’s “standards mode” only, and we expected that this would help limit compatibility problems as it had in the past. Unfortunately, and somewhat surprisingly to us, this wasn’t true; many of those changes made IE incompatible with content that...

Just a quick one for those of you on XP SP2 with the latest security updates. There is a risk of seeing IE start crashing following this update. You have two choices: Don't install the security update - always a bad idea Install the update and deploy a registry fix to solve the problem. The IE team have documented it at Post Install Issues with MS07-069 (IE6 on XPSP2) After downloading the Internet Explorer Cumulative Security Update for December 2007, some customers using IE6 on Windows XP Service Pack 2 have experienced an unexpected crash or hang upon launching Internet Explorer. This might occur while navigating to a website hosting considerable media content (for example: http://msn.com ) resulting in Internet Explorer displaying a dialog that states “Internet Explorer has experienced a problem and needs to close”. If you experience this issue, implement the applicable workaround provided in the following knowledge base article: Microsoft Knowledge Base article 946627 For your security, we strongly recommend that you deploy the Internet Explorer Cumulative Security Update for December 2007 . Terry McCoy Program Manager Internet Explorer Security The KB article has the following information in it ( Internet Explorer 6 crashes after you install security update 942615 on a computer that is running Windows XP Service Pack 2 ) Internet Explorer 6 crashes after you install security update 942615 on a computer that is running Windows XP Service Pack 2 Warning Serious problems might occur if you modify the registry incorrectly by using Registry Editor or by using another method. These problems might require that you reinstall the operating system. Microsoft cannot guarantee that these problems can be solved. Modify the registry at your own risk. To work around this problem, follow these steps: Click Start , click Run , type regedit, and then click OK . Locate and then click the following registry subkey: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main\FeatureControl\ On the Edit menu, point to New ,...

If you use volume licensing with Windows Vista then you need to be aware of the tools to manage them - it is not as simple as it used to be as you now need a management tool inside the business. VAMT answers this as does Desktop Management. Then we have some webcasts on slow networks, diagnosing crashes in Windows XP (although many of the techniques work for Vista too), backup and restore in Vista, using the ActiveX installer Service and Boot config parameters VAMT 1.0 (x86) The Volume Activation Management Tool enables IT professionals to automate and centrally manage the volume activation process using a Multiple Activation Key (MAK). VAMT v1.0 is only available as a US-EN (x86) release. Best Practices on Managing Windows Vista Desktops Get best practice guidance for managing Windows Vista desktop operations. Windows Vista Service Life-Cycle Management (WVSLM) provides concise guidance to help minimise the total cost of ownership of desktop infrastructure. Process guidance and document templates help make service management concepts from the IT Infrastructure Library and the Microsoft Operations Framework tangible and easily implementable by focusing on a single and common IT service. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7137227 TechNet Webcast: "The Network is Slow": Identifying the Cause of Slow Network Communications (Level 200) The Offline Crash Diagnostic tool for Windows XP is available - http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=923800 TechNet Magazine: The ActiveX Installer Service in Windows Vista How do you secure the desktop against malicious ActiveX controls without limiting application compatibility? We'll take you on a tour of the ActiveX Installer Service (AxIS) in Windows Vista that addresses this issue with a new way to manage ActiveX controls. http://go.microsoft.com/?linkid=7137204 Discover How to Modify Boot Configuration Parameters In the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) Editor FAQ, find out what the BCD store is, why it was created, where it's located in the registry, how to modify it and...

The Video I have delivered a number of Vista and Office demos over my time, so I decided to record a number of them for others to borrow, use, learn from or anything else they choose. This video covers the following subjects in enough detail for people to hopefully understand what they need to know on how to use these features in Windows Vista and understand how to be a little safer online: Phishing protection in Internet Explorer ActiveX blocking in Internet Explorer Windows Defender in Windows Vista To see the video played using Silverlight (just try it) click here *. I am hoping that in the near future that the WMV file will be available at new bCentral - the UK Small Business Center on MS.com. At the moment it is not available there, but a copy can be found here * it will take a few moments to open if you have Silverlight installed and require you to download Silverlight if you don't, but it is a 1MB download How I made it I simply ran through part of my normal demo talking as I went. When presenting to an audience it is easy to correct anything you do without anyone caring, however I tried to fix up the videos so this was not a problem. This has one drawback which is that the sound is not that good (one of those things I want to fix, but have not yet got round to) due to editing & cutting of the videos. I find it really hard to talk and move the mouse to the right place at the same time without a fluff in either my words or my mouse movements. Having captured the video is was simple to turn them into "Silverlight" Videos that were hosted on the Silverlight Streaming site for your pleasure - if you like them I can do more. Feel free to re-record the audio and play for your customers of make as a download for them. I have cut 10 videos to date and will release them over the next 2 weeks. The videos cover: For Vista - How to copy files to a DVD / CD, Use the recycle bin, Use previous versions for files and Use the built in Vista backup to check for Updates in Windows Vista use the new Security...

I've talked about this before, but thought it was worth pointing people to this Installing a Self-Signed Certificate as a Trusted Root CA in Windows Vista [Today's post comes to us courtesy of Wayne McIntyre] In order for RPC over Http to work you must have a Trusted CA Root Certificate installed and configured. In a situation where you are using a self-signed cert you will need to install the certificate into the Trusted Root Certification Authorities store. 1. Connect to your OWA site by going to https://host.domainname.com/exchange FOR THE REST OF THE INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE FOLLOW THE LINK TO THE SOURCE BELOW Source: The Official SBS Blog : Installing a Self-Signed Certificate as a Trusted Root CA in Windows Vista ttfn David Technorati Tags: Vista , Certificate , SBS

I love IE7, but it is by no means the perfect browser. Along with every other browser out there it can be heavily customised. Here are the ones I use myself. There are loads at http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/category.aspx?bcatid=834&tabid=1 ieSpell (this is also the spell checker used on the blog site when you are adding something - perhaps into the forums) IESpell is a free Internet Explorer browser extension that spell-checks text-input boxes on a Web page. It should come in particularly handy for users who do a lot of Web-based text entry (Web mail, forums, blogs, diaries). Even if your Web application already includes spell-checking functionality, this utility is faster than a server-side solution. Plus, you get to store and use your personal word list across all your applications instead of having to maintain separate ones on each application. Version 2.5.1 build 106 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes. InlineSearch Inline Search v 1.4.3 (cf. ChangeLog ) is an extremely useful free add-on for Internet Explorer that mimics Firefox's search behavior. It turns searching in a web page into a non modal research experience coupled with a find as you type facility. It integrates flawlessly into IE (version 5.5 or above), giving it that little extra that makes you a lot more efficient when you are looking for a specific piece of information. IE7pro IE7pro is an must have add-on for Internet Explorer 7, which adds lots of features and extras that make your IE easier, more useful, more secure and more customizable. Some features: Support Double click to close tab; Support mouse gesture; Support view page info and save flash/video; Support session crash recovery; Support block ADs; Support refresh Tab; Support save whole page to image; Support quick switch proxy; Support custom User Agent.Version 0.9.10 adds Web Pages Autoscroll, Enhances tabs management Emulate "Open in New Tab" in context menu when Drag & Drop url; Supports new Tab from search bar; Supports new Tab when left-click in...

This is an interesting one - I have IE 7 installed on all my machines except my SBS 2003 server and the reason for it not being on there is because I like to have an IE6 hanging around for those sites where I have no other option - and browsing on the server (sorry Susan) is something I really, really try to avoid, so the site must be important enough to me, trusted and not need any java etc before I will consider using it. Anyway, that means that 7 PCs in the house (counting the 2 work laptops) are IE 7. I have not found a site that does not work yet, although some like the Live Spaces photo uploading tool is a bit of a pain in the bum to get working (you need to run as admin in Vista). IE 7 reaches 100 million users Web browser now second only to IE 6 in terms of usage in the U.S., Microsoft announces. More than 100 million people have installed Internet Explorer 7, making it the second most used browser in the U.S., trailing only its predecessor--IE 6, the software maker said Friday. "I'm pleased to report that on January 8, we had the 100 millionth IE7 installation," Microsoft Group Program Manager Tony Chor said on the IE blog . "However, even more important than installations is usage. According to WebSideStory (the company we use to measure browser usage), as of this week, over 25 percent of all visitors to Web sites in the U.S. were using IE7, making IE7 the second most used browser after IE6." Microsoft said it expects IE 7 usage to grow as the company completes more localized versions, offers it up to more Windows XP users through Automatic Update and releases Vista to consumers at the end of the month. The final version of the new browser has been available for download by XP users since October and is also built into Vista. Source: IE 7 reaches 100 million users | CNET News.com

I saw this and because IE is coming soon, thought you might like to read this! IE7 Installation and Anti-Malware Applications 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. John Hrvatin Program Manager Source: IEBlog : IE7 Installation and Anti-Malware Applications

I have had a few people say they don't have the resources to load and explore Vista, but wanted to see more. Well now you can explore all the following subjects without leaving your desk or loading a DVD. The Vista lab covers the following areas: Microsoft Virtual Lab Express: Exploring New Functionality in Internet Explorer 7 Using System Image Manager to Automate Windows Vista Installations Windows Vista: Image Engineering Configuring Windows Firewall with Advanced Security Exploring New Group Policy Settings in Windows Vista Exploring User Account Control in Windows Vista Migrating User State from Windows XP to Windows Vista Managing Windows Vista and Windows Server Longhorn Network Bandwidth with Policy-based Quality of Service Managing Windows Vista Using New Management Technologies Source: Microsoft Virtual Lab: Windows Vista Enjoy them! ttfn David

I am working on the train on my way to the Nottingham Ignite Tour and while on the way say this in an old Microsoft Download Notification mail . Some websites check what make and version of web browser you are using before deciding what to send you in the way of HTML etc. This is all very good and often leads to a great user experience with the website, unless the website does not know how to deal with IE7 and then throws a bit of a wobbler. If you meet a website like this, then this utility is for you: User Agent String Utility Version 2 This utility opens an Internet Explorer 7.0 window that is configured to report its identity to Web sites as being Internet Explorer 6.0 for sites not yet configured to recognize version 7.0. ttfn David

I have often debated the quality of IE over firefox and I'm not about to stop now, however this is just a simple note (as I am still a 4 fingered typist at the moment) to say that the latest build of IE is out there. To get more info on what this build has, go have a look at " What's new in RC1 " however they key paragraph for those not after the toolkit etc is: improvements in performance, stability, security, and application compatibility. With this build, Microsoft has also made enhancements to the fit and finish of the user interface, completed CSS platform changes, added language support, and included an auto-uninstall feature in Setup, which automatically uninstalls prior betas of Internet Explorer 7, making installing the new build even easier ttfn David

I read about this internally yesterday and then on the blog posts today - IE7 will become part of the core OS when it is released. What does this mean - simple, unless you load a " blocking tool " similar to the XP SP2 blocking tool, then IE7 will ship down to your PC as a security update. Why - well IE7 does make the browsing experience much more secure using the including ActiveX Opt-in , the Phishing Filter and Fix My Settings features. ttfn David