Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows XP Service Pack 2 (SP2)
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and Windows Server 2003 x64 Edition
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 SP1
Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 for Windows Server 2003 ia64 Edition (Windows Server 2003 for Itanium-based systems)
Notes
- OS Updates--Do not reinstall any version of Microsoft Windows in any way after you install Internet Explorer 7. Do not upgrade in place or upgrade to a new edition. The workaround is to remove Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2, install operating system updates, and then reinstall Internet Explorer.
- IE7 Beta 2 Sometimes Does Not Load ActiveX Controls on 64-bit Machines - The Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 desktop icon starts the 64-bit version of IE7 by default on 64-bit machines. When running the 64-bit version, you will be unable to load 32-bit ActiveX controls. (There are no 64-bit ActiveX controls.) As a result, some web pages may display differently than the way 32-bit IE displays them. To work around this problem, start IE using the Start Menu or Quick Launch Toolbar on the taskbar and use that icon to get to the 32-bit Internet Explorer.
- Navigating Between Open Tabs Hangs IE7 Beta 2 - Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 sometimes hangs when navigating between open tabs, such as gmail and Yahoo mail. To work around this problem, use the Phishing Filter option under the Tools menu to disable the phishing filter. Only use this workaround when you encounter sites that are hanging; reenable the phishing filter as soon as you return to browsing sites that do not hang.
- Spoofing User Agent String Values to IE6 - Some web pages, which have hard coded values for the User Agent String, will work if you temporarily spoof them, using the User Agent script to make it appear as appear as though they are running on IE6. After you use this tool to successfully access a web site be sure you return the User Agent String to the default value for IE7 Beta 2 before continuing to browse the system.
- RSS feed detection button--Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 uses a link in the html of a web page to enable the feed discovery button located on the Command Bar. If a page does not have that link element, Internet Explorer 7 does not detect the feed. See the IE Blog entry for details.
- Feed Reading in Right-to-Left- Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 does not properly display contents in right-to-left text direction. This will be fixed in the final release of Internet Explorer 7.
- Images in Feeds--When viewing certain feeds, images may not appear correctly or may move around on the page. Resize the window to get the feed page to lay out correctly. This issue will be addressed in an upcoming release of IE7.
- Application Compatibility Toolkit (ACT)--Version 4.0 of the ACT does not support Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 compatibility logging. ACT 5.0, which will be available in May 2006, will support Internet Explorer 7 logging.
- FTP Authentication--The user is not prompted for credentials when visiting an authenticated FTP site in Internet Explorer 7. This is a known issue, and the workaround is to enter the credentials directly into the FTP URL; for example, ftp://username:password@example.com
- Sharepoint--Microsoft Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) cannot import spreadsheets when Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 is running.
- MSN 1.02 Toolbar--The MSN 1.02 toolbar crashes Internet Explorer 7. The workaround is to disable the toolbar, using manage add-ons, or uninstall it.
- Developer Toolbar and Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 - The latest version of the Microsoft Developer Toolbar runs correctly with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. You can download it from the Internet Explorer Download Page. Previous versions of the Developer Toolbar do not display correctly on systems running Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 and sometimes cause Internet Explorer to hang.
- Microsoft Phishing Filter - When you manually check a web site for phishing by clicking on the Tools Menu option, Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 does not open an error page if it detects a phishing site. IE7 simply changes the color of the address bar to red and marks the site as phishing next to the address bar.
- Manage Addons Incompatibility - When Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 is running, the "manage addon" window will not appear. The workaround is to close Internet Explorer, manage system addons, and open Internet Explorer when the addon changes are complete.
- MSAA During setup, a checkbox with the MSAA name of "I" is displayed immediately after Windows Genuine Advantage validation has completed. This checkbox is checked by default and reads as follows: "Install the latest updates for Internet Explorer, and download and run the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool (recommended). Installing the latest updates and the Microsoft Windows Malicious Software Removal Tool will help Internet Explorer install successfully by removing existing malicious software and protecting your computer against security threats.
- Multiple Auto Refresh Applications May Hang IE7 -- If you leave open a number of applications that refresh themselves, the system may hang and require a hard reset. This issue is caused by a known problem with memory leaks in IE7 which may cause other applications, such as Microsoft Phishing Filter, to hang. To work around the problem, do not leave Auto Refreshing applications open for long periods of time.
- Free Online Games -- Some of the free online games at www.msn.com will not load with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2.
- Print Preview - Print Preview does not open in landscape view when you use "shrink to fit" printing for some web sites (Nothing appears on the screen and you cannot navigate to another page.) If you change to Landscape mode and select a fixed resolution, the page displays.
- Outlook Web Access (OWA) - OWA may behave differently when you use Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. If the application has previously used OWA on a system, it will be on the preapproved list of extensions and will work as intended. If you have not used OWA, you will be prompted by the Active-X Information Barl to allow OWA to run.
- Visual Studio 2005 Access Violation - Visual Studio 2005 sometimes crashes with an Access Violation when it asks Internet Explorer to process a URLAction() for a URL in the VS Custom Zone. This is caused b y code in the security manager which improperly uses the custom zone as an index into an array. The issue is fixed in the released version of Internet Explorer 7.
- IME Hot Key Language Switch -- Users cannot use the Input Method Editor (IME) hot keys to switch language inputs when entering characters into HTML (for example, forms and text boxes.) To work around this issue:
- Switch the input method using the Language bar icon in the task bar
- Turn off "Advanced Text Services" on the Internet Control Panel - Regional and Language Options - Languages - Details - Advanced).
Note: When you disable Advanced Text Services, you will no longer have a visible Language Bar Icon in the task bar.
- Windows Server 2003 -- The RunOnce page of Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 cannot save settings so the page runs every time IE7 opens. The workaround for this issue is to add the first run web site to the trusted sites zone in the Internet Options file:
- Open Internet Options dialog
- Select Security
- Select Trusted sites and click on Sites
- Add the First Run site to the list of trusted sites
- Google Desktop--Installing the Google desktop crashes Internet Explorer 7 when opening new tabs. The workaround for this issue is to disable web indexing on the Google desktop, or to keep the blank tab splash page in place.
- SAP GUI -- You cannot use the SAP GUI with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. A fix for the issue will be available in patch level 20 of the SAP GUI for Windows 6.40 and patch level 64 for WIndows 6.20, later this summer.
- GE Pathspeed ActiveX Control - An ActiveX control that is used on old versions of Pathspeed from General Electric (GE) prevents users from accessing ActiveX controls and generates the message, "Security certificate has expired." This problem is fixed on newer versoins of the Pathspeed product.
- Turbo Tax Online--There is a problem with the height of the content area of the TurboTax 2005 online tax service when using Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. This is a known issue with the User Agent String. Until a fix is available, you can spoof Internet Explorer 6 by running http://www.fiddlertool.com/useragent.aspx and you will be able to access the Turbo Tax web site. Be sure to return the User Agent String value to Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 when you finish using Turbo Tax Online.
- Freedom Scientific--When using Freedom Scientific’s JAWS® for Windows screen reader with Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2, you might encounter the following Issues with shortcut keys. (Please see the Accessibility section for important information about installing JAWS.)
- JAWS 7 does not display the contents of individual frames when a page contains a frame set. To work around this problem, copy psapi.dll from the \WINDOWS\system32 directory to the directory where JAWS is installed.
- JAWS 6 reads incorrect information for Select Control with Say Line and Say Control Hot Keys, because of the new Internet Explorer 7 Select Control. There is no current workaround for this problem, but Freedom Scientific is working on support for the new Select Control.
- CTRL+F opens the Internet Explorer Find dialog box rather than the JAWS Find dialog box. To work around this, use INSERT+CRTL+F.
- INSERT+A does not move the JAWS cursor to the Address bar. To work around this, use ALT+D to set focus on the Address bar
Web Site Connectivity Issues
- SSL Changes--When navigating to an HTTPS site on Windows Vista, you may encounter a connection failure error page if the server does not correctly support the TLS standard. To work around this problem, uncheck the “Use TLS v1.0” checkbox in the Internet Control Panel’s Advanced tab and notify the web site owner about this problem. (A description of the changes in SSL can be found in the Internet Explorer blog).
- Proxy Connectivity - If you notice slowness or a problem connecting to web sites after upgrading to Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2, it may be due to Proxy Auto Detection problems.
- Launch the Internet Control Panel by clicking "Internet Options" From the Internet Explorer Tools menu.
- Navigate to the Connections tab
- Under Local Area Networks (LAN) settings choose LAN Settings
- Uncheck "Automatically detect settings" in the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog,
- Check "Use a proxy server for your LAN" and specify your proxy server in the Local Area Network (LAN) Settings dialog,
- Click OK, OK
You will now be able to navigate to internet sites.
- Internet Connection Settings--If you notice a problem connecting to web sites, it may be because the upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 changed your Internet Explorer 6 Internet Connection settings. To work around the problem:
- Launch the Internet Control Panel by clicking "Internet Options" from the Internet Explorer Tools menu.
- Navigate to the Connections tab
- For each connection in the "Dialup and Virtual Private Networks" list, click the "Settings" button
- Verify that "Automatically detect settings" is checked. If not check it
- Click the "Lan Settings" button in the Connections tab, and repeat step 4 6. Click OK on the Connections tab.
- Close IE and restart it.
Functionality REMOVED in IE 7 Beta 2
Offline Favorites - Offline Favorites and Scheduled Offline Favorites have been removed from Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer supports RSS feeds which provides scheduled updates to web content and offline reading of this content. For more information on feed reading experience, read RSS Blog.
Scriptlets—Internet Explorer 7 disables Dynamic HTML (DHTML) scriptlets, by default. (Scriptlets were deprecated in Internet Explorer 5). They can be reenabled by system administrators, changing URLActions with the Internet Control Panel (INetCPl.) The INetCPL text should read "Allow Scriptlets." If your programs rely on scriptlets, we recommend that you use DHTML behaviors, which are more efficient. Disabling scriptlets is part of our continued work to ensure that unsupported technology is deemphasized in Internet Explorer.
ActiveX controls--ActiveX controls are disabled by default in Internet Explorer Version 7. The ActiveX control for XEnroll certificate enrollment was removed from Windows Vista and replaced with a new control.
File Select Control - Input TYPE=FILE control no longer submits a fully qualified path; it now submits only a filename.
Channel Definition Format (CDF)--All CDF support was removed from Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2 and replaced with the RSS feed reading experience. Feeds that the user is subscribed to are available to other applications through the RSS Platform. Read more for details on the RSS Platform.
DirectAnimation--All DLLs to support the Internet Explorer DirectAnimation component were removed in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2.
XBM--Support for XBM, an imaging format designed for X-based systems, was deleted.
SSL--Support for weak SSL ciphers was removed from Windows Vista and support for SSLv2 was disabled for Internet Explorer 7 on all platforms
Windowed Select--The Windowed Select Element was replaced by Windowless Select in Internet Explorer 7. This results in some cosmetic changes.
BASE Element--Internet Explorer 7 strictly enforces the BASE element rule, as documented in the HTML 4.01 standard. We no longer allow BASE tags outside of the HEAD of the document. The standard specifies that the base element must appear within the head of the document, before any elements that refer to an external source.
window.opener and window.close--Internet Explorer 7 no longer allows the window.opener trick to bypass the window.close prompt. Browser windows cannot close themselves unless the windows were created in script. This security enhancement no longer allows browsing to a random site when the main browser window closes unexpectedly.
WWW-Auth--Internet Explorer 7 changes the precedence rules for WWW-Auth. Previous releases of Internet Explorer used the first header encountered. Internet Explorer 7 uses the first header except when the header is Basic. IE7 uses Basic authentication if no other authentication mechanism is present.
HTTPOnly Cookies--HTTPOnly cookies can no longer be overwritten from scripts.
_SEARCH--The _SEARCH sidebar is disabled by default in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2. It is now a setting in the advanced InetCPL and can be turned on, using a URLAction.
View Source--The view-source protocol no longer works in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2.
Gopher Protocol--Support for the Gopher protocol was removed at the WinINET level. (Gopher support was turned off by default in Internet Explorer 6.)
windowexternalImportExportFavorites()--windowexternalImportExportFavorites() has been removed in Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2.
Telnet--The telnet protocol handler is no longer supported in Internet Explorer.
SysImage URL Scheme--The SysImage URL Scheme has been removed from Internet Explorer.
Status Bar Scripting--Script will no longer be able to set the status bar text through the window.status and window.defaultStatus methods by default in the Internet and Restricted Zones. This small step helps prevent attackers from leveraging those methods to spoof the status bar. To revert to previous behavior and allow Script to set the status bar through window.status and window.defaultStatus:
- Select the “Security” tab from “Internet Options” in the Internet Explorer Tools Menu.
- Select “Custom level…” for the Internet (or Restricted sites) zone.
- Find “Allow status bar updates via script in the Scripting section of the menu”
- Change the setting to “Enable”.
Internet Explorer Maintenance--The max length for character support in the Proxy Exception List has been increased to 2064 Chars, instead of the previous max length of 256 chars.
Beta 2 Preview Update - The Microsoft Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar
Provides a variety of tools for quickly creating, understanding, and troubleshooting Web pages. This version is a preview release and behavior may change in the final release
http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=e59c3964-672d-4511-bb3e-2d5e1db91038&displaylang=en
The Internet Explorer Developer Toolbar provides several features for exploring and understanding Web pages. These features enable you to:
-- Explore and modify the document object model (DOM) of a Web page.
-- Locate and select specific elements on a Web page through a variety of techniques.
-- Selectively disable Internet Explorer settings.
-- View HTML object class names, ID's, and details such as link paths, tab index values, and access keys.
-- Outline tables, table cells, images, or selected tags.
-- Validate HTML, CSS, WAI, and RSS Web feed links.
-- Display image dimensions, file sizes, path information, and alternate (ALT) text.
-- Immediately resize the browser window to a new resolution.
-- Selectively clear the browser cache and saved cookies. Choose from all objects or those associated with a given domain.
-- Choose direct links to W3C specification references, the Internet Explorer team weblog (blog), and other resources.
-- Display a fully featured design ruler to help accurately align and measure objects on your pages.
The Developer Toolbar can be pinned to the Internet Explorer browser window or floated separately.
This Beta 2 version of the toolbar contains functionality and stability enhancements over previous versions and includes the following improvements.
-- You can now selectively enable and disable CSS parsing.
-- The Misc menu contains a color picker.
-- Several link reports are available.
-- When you select an element in the DOM element tree list, the selected element scrolls into view if it is not already visible in the browser window.