Tag: IE8

Fix Available for IE7 Memory Leaks on XP SP3

September 13, 2008 by Jason

Even with Internet Explorer 8 in the oven, and Beta 2 available for download since the end of August 2008, Microsoft is not losing focus of IE7. As of September 10, the Redmond company started offering a fix for a memory leak affecting Internet Explorer 7 while running on Windows XP, including Service Pack2 and SP3, and Windows Server 2003. The hotfix delivered is available exclusively for the precursors of Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 and not for the latest versions of the Windows Client and Server operating system. At the same time, Microsoft is providing the resolve only for IE7, and there is nothing yet for IE8.

“Assume that on a computer that is running Windows XP or Windows Server 2003, you have Windows Internet Explorer 7 installed. After you run Internet Explorer 7 for a long time, you notice that system performance gradually decreases. Additionally, Internet Explorer becomes unstable or crashes. If you use Performance Monitor (Perfmon.exe) to monitor Internet Explorer, you see that the Internet Explorer process consumes many virtual bytes,” the company revealed. Read More»

Vista and IE8 Application Compatibility Toolkit

September 09, 2008 by Jason

From the perspective of a platform developer, Microsoft has to maintain an equilibrium between the innovation it introduces with its software products and support for legacy applications. Both Windows Vista and Internet Explore 8 offer an ample example of the Redmond giant struggling to achieve such a balance. This is why the company is lending a helping hand to customers migrating to its latest products. In this regard, the Microsoft Application Compatibility Toolkit 5.0 is designed to sniff out and permit the mitigation of incompatibility issues. The collection of tools, as well as the adjacent documentation included in the toolkit, are tailored to Windows Vista releases via Windows Update and Internet Explorer.

“ACT helps customers lower their costs for application compatibility testing, prioritize their applications, and deploy Windows Vista more quickly. You can use the ACT features to: verify an application’s compatibility with a new version of the Windows operating system, or a Windows Update, including determining your risk assessment; become involved in the ACT Community, including sharing your risk assessment with other ACT users; and test your Web applications and Web sites for compatibility with new releases and security updates to the Windows Internet Explorer Internet browser,” reads an excerpt from the toolkit’s description. Read More»

12 Reasons to Test Drive Internet Explorer 8

September 01, 2008 by Jason

While rival browser makers Mozilla and Opera have launched the latest iterations of their products, Firefox 3.0 and respectively Opera 9.5, as early as June 2008, Microsoft is still in the development phase of Internet Explorer 8, the successor of IE7. August 27 marked the delivery of IE8 Beta 2, a deadline absurdly safeguarded by Microsoft, with the company only managing to confirm a release by the end of this month, and taking its due time when it came down to making available the bits for the browser second development milestone. Internet Explorer 8 is still far from the finish line, reportedly planned for November 2008, but Beta 2 feels more like a browser version ready for wrap-up than Beta 1.

The reason for this is the fact that, in comparison with the March 2008 release of IE8, the second Beta is packed with features and functionality aimed at the home and business users, on top of what has already been available to IT professionals and web content developers and designers. In this regard, IE8 Beta 1 was more of a skeleton on which Microsoft built Beta 2. Now, although Microsoft is not touting IE8 Beta 2 as a feature-complete version, it is clear that the Redmond company will move further only with the process of fine-tuning the browser got with Release to Web (RTW). Read More»

Microsoft Applauds IE8 Beta 2 Performance Boost

August 29, 2008 by Jason

Internet Explorer 8 is not the fastest browser in the universe. This, according to IE Program Manager, Christian Stockwell, working on the performance of the browser. However, this is not to say that the Redmond company has not poured a consistent amount of efforts into boosting the performance of IE7’s successor. In fact, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2, planned for release by the end of this month, will offer palpable proof of the new horsepower under the browser’s hood.

“When we took a hard look at our goals and considered what we could do to build the best browser, we were presented with a quandary. On the one hand, we could focus very narrowly on scripting performance, trusting that our investment would noticeably improve our users’ browsing experience. Alternatively, we could invest more broadly in realistic scenarios, measuring heavily-used subsystems and investing our optimization effort accordingly. We opted for the latter approach,” Stockwell noted.

Even as early as March 2008, IE GM Dean Hachamovitch indicated that JavaScript performance was up 2.5 times, the Gmail inbox was loading 34% faster, the task of opening a new conversation took 45% less time, while that of opening a thread 25% less. With IE8 Beta 2, Microsoft has tweaked the execution time for the browser, but it has also managed to speed up navigation and user interaction. Read More»

Slipstream IE8 into Vista SP1 Images, but Not into XP SP3

June 23, 2008 by Jason

In the first half of June 2008, when they gave a taste of the new features cooking for Internet Explorer 8 which are planned for integration starting with Beta 2, Jane Maliouta – IE Program Manager and James Pratt – IE Product Manager pointed out that IE8 would come with slipstream support by default. This is valid as early as the Beta 1 Build of Internet Explorer 8, but only with Windows Vista RTM, Vista SP1 and Windows Server 2008. Microsoft has left Windows XP SP3 out of the IE8 slipstream equation, this is nothing new for XP, as slipstreaming was also not supported even with Internet Explorer 7.

“With IE8 and Windows Vista, you are able to integrate IE8 into the image file of the original operating system in about 15 minutes. No more booting the OS image, manually installing IE and re-capturing the image. The slipstreaming support also extends to IE8 cumulative updates and language packages. Slipstreaming IE8 into an OS image will only be supported on Vista and Windows Server 2008 platforms. Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 do not currently offer a solution for slipstreaming Windows components, which are built using update.exe,” Maliouta revealed. Read More»

How to speed up Internet Explorer 8 by increasing the connections limit

April 25, 2008 by Jason

When a web browser (IE 8 or Firefox for example) connects to a website it establishes connections. Each connection downloads one thing whether it is the html of the page, an image, or ad. Connections are used as a throttle that’s being held back to keep web servers and the internet from getting overloaded.

By default IE 8 only establishes two simultaneous connections at a time to download a web page. The two simultaneous connections limit is specified in the HTTP standard. The two connections limit can be changed on your computer through a registry edit.

Increasing the maximum allowed simultaneous connects from 2 to 16 can increase the speed of some web sites because the sites are downloaded in larger chunks at a time. Keep in mind that this won’t work on all web sites because the number of connections limit can be controlled by the web server. Read More»

Download Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 FAQ

March 31, 2008 by Jason

At the beginning of this month, specifically on March 5, Dean Hachamovitch, General Manager Internet Explorer, launched the first public beta of Internet Explorer 8 at the MIX08 conference in Las Vegas. Hachamovitch emphasized from the get-go that the build was addressed not so much at the general public as at web content developers by marking a consistent leap in terms of standards support. But undoubtedly there are a variety of questions revolving around the subject of Microsoft’s next iteration of the IE browser. For some of them the Redmond company already has answers in place. Moreover, Microsoft is also offering for download a document in which it has compiled the IE8 Beta 1 Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ).

“In Windows Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers, the browser architecture has been reengineered to address interoperability with other browsers and will offer additional support for popular standards. Most notably, it will include improved support for the Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) 2.1 specification and it renders the ACID2 test correctly. In addition, Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 for Developers will offer enhancements to DOM L2 & HTML support. Our goal for the final release is complete CSS 2.1 support,” Microsoft revealed. Read More»

Uninstalling Internet Explorer 8

March 11, 2008 by Jason

After over a year since the release of Internet Explorer 7 for Windows XP SP2 and Windows Server 2003 in October 2006, and then along with Windows Vista in November 2006 and January 2007, Microsoft has delivered the first beta of its next iteration of Internet Explorer. IE8 Beta 1 is a release aimed at web content developers, but the company has provided full access to the bits, with the promise that Internet Explorer 8 Beta 2 will be more user-centric.

IE8 Beta 1 integrates seamlessly with Windows Vista Gold and SP1 RTM, but also with Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2003 SP2, Windows XP SP2 and SP3. With the exception of Windows XP SP3, IE8 Beta 1 will support both the 32-bit and the 64-bit versions of the operating systems enumerated above. Of course, XP SP3 only comes in x86 and not in a x64 variant. At this time, Microsoft offers XP SP3 RC2, with IE8 Beta 1 installing on the beta of the third and final service pack for XP even though it fails to do the same with pre-release versions of Windows Vista SP1. Read More»

IE8 Beta 1 Is Live

February 27, 2008 by Jason

Welcome to Windows Internet Explorer 8. This is the message displayed initially by the installer for the next iteration of Microsoft’s proprietary browser, as you can very well see from the screenshot accompanying this article. Just an anodyne proof that Internet Explorer Beta 1 is now live. At the end of the past week, Microsoft began sending out invitations to the first beta build for IE8. Participation in the limited technical beta program for Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 is possible only through explicit invitations from the IE Team. The Redmond company has now confirmed the kick-off of the private IE8 Beta 1 testing.

Here is the link pre-selected IE8 Beta 1 testers have to follow, but if you have not been invited to participate in the Technical Beta, it won’t do you any good. The best that I can do for you, at this point in time, is to deliver the first taste of Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1. Yes, I do agree it isn’t much, but at the same time, it’s better than nothing. Read More»

Microsoft Offers an Insight on Internet Explorer 8 Compatibility

January 23, 2008 by Jason

With the first Beta of Internet Explorer 8 scheduled to drop by mid 2008, and with additional details on the successor of Internet Explorer 7 to be offered at MIX08 this March, Microsoft has started opening up on the browser little by little. First, Dean Hachamovitch, IE General Manager revealed in mid December that IE8 comes with support for a wide range of standards, and now, Chris Wilson, IE Platform Architect, offered an insight into Internet Explorer 8 compatibility. In this context, the promise is that IE8 will not break the web. Read More»