IE 7 - Some Good, but NOT All Good

It's true...IE7 has been released and is being pushed to Windows Desktops worldwide by the ever invasive Windows Update. I swear, every time Windows pushes an update my machine gets slower. It's amazing! It's like an anti-progress engine!

At any rate, you probably didn't realize that something so radical could come from Windows Update. A Browser upgrade? It's really been years since the last time, and it really, really really is about time. IE6 is quite possible one of the longest overdue pieces of software the web has ever known. It has LITERALLY been slowing the development of the internet itself because of the tremendous burdens Microsoft has placed on developers andesigners by issuing such an incomplete, poorly implemented, and all around lousy product. If you don;t know what I'm talking about...just be glad. If you know what I'm talking about, then you know what I'm talking about.

Oh, BTW, in casy you didn't know, you can only get IE7 if you are running Windows XP.  BTW, this is a really bad idea. 

So, IE7 is here. And for eevryone in the webdesign business, you might have been wondering how this is a good thing when in fact all it really means is that there is yet another crappy Microsoft product that will have 85% deployment that we have to support even though it doesn't work correctly.

Well, I just installed the new 14mb IE7, and I am also running Internet Explorer 6, because, for the next couple of months at least, until I stop hearing "IE7? What's that?" I have to assume that I will be designing for 3 browsers now, Firefox, IE7 and IE6.

This is a special slimmed down version of the browser. It doesn't do everything. You can't accept IE6 cookies or anything like that...it's literally just there so you can preview your designs and web coding in IE6 and 7 and Firefox, 'cos you know you love your work, and you want everyone to see it.

1) Install IE7, say bye bye to IE6.
2) Reboot.
3) Make a new folder: C:\Program Files\Internet Explorer 6\
4) Visit Evolt.org: http://browsers.evolt.org/?ie/32bit/standalone
5) Download ie6eolas_nt.zip: http://browsers.evolt.org/download.php?/ie/32bit/standalone/ie6eolas_nt.zip
6) Extract the Zip file you download in #5 into the folder you created in #3.
7) Create a shortcut to the executable you extracted in #6
8) Contain excitement at how much work Microsoft makes us do in order to clean up the mess they have made of the browser.