A way-strange way to solve the Internet Explorer 6 problem ! XP and Service Pack 3 …

IE Blog:

XPSP3 will continue to ship with IE6 and contains a roll-up of the latest security updates for IE6. If you are still running Internet Explorer 6, then XPSP3 will be offered to you via Windows Update as a high priority update. You can safely install XPSP3 and will have an updated version of IE6 with all your personal preferences, such as home pages and favorites, still intact.

If you are currently running IE7 on XPSP2, Windows Update will offer you XPSP3 as a high priority update. If you choose to install XPSP3, Internet Explorer 7 will remain on your system after the install is complete.

 (Windows XP SP3 contains a newer version of the Internet Explorer 6 files. If you have XPSP3 on your system and uninstall IE7, your system would revert to the backed up (older) version of the IE6 files rather than the newer XPSP3 version. You would end up in a mixed file state in Windows where most files would be the upgraded XPSP3, except for the IE6 files restored when uninstalling IE7. This state is not supported and is very bug prone. To ensure a reliable user experience, we prevent this broken state by disabling the ability to uninstall Internet Explorer 7.

If you must uninstall IE7 after you have upgraded to XPSP3, then you have to first uninstall XPSP3, and then uninstall IE7. After this series of uninstalls, you will be reverted back to a XPSP2, and a stable version of IE6, so feel free to upgrade to XPSP3 again.

If you install IE7 after you install XPSP3, then you will be able to uninstall IE7 at any point and be reverted to the newer IE6 version that ships in XPSP3. The restriction on uninstalling only applies to when you install a Windows Service Pack release on top of a standalone IE release.

Keeping this in mind, you might want to uninstall IE7, upgrade to XPSP3 and then install IE7 again so you can uninstall IE7 in the future if need be.

Internet Explorer 8 Beta 1 Users

Installing IE8 Beta1 on Windows XP SP3  is fully supported, so go ahead and upgrade your computers to XPSP3 and then install IE8 Beta 1 to try out our new features. You will be able to uninstall IE8 Beta 1 at any point to revert back to either IE7 or IE6 depending on what you were using before.

However, if you already have IE8 Beta 1 installed on XPSP2, Windows XP SP3 will not be offered to you via Windows Update. This is because after you update your system to XPSP3, you will no longer be able to uninstall IE8 Beta 1 and the Remove option will be grayed out under the Add/Remove programs in Control Panel. The reason is the same as in IE7 case described above. Since people are more likely to uninstall beta software, we strongly recommend uninstalling IE8 Beta 1 prior to upgrading to Windows XP SP3 to eliminate any deployment issues and install IE8 Beta 1 after XPSP3 is on your machine.

Thanks,

Jane Maliouta
Program Manager)

I am a web developer, so I’m confrunted every day with IE6′ s crappy ways. I was hoping that while XP SP3 was pushed trough Windwos Live update it would bring in Internet Explorer 7 as well, because IE6 is such a mess in rendering web pages !

The average Windows XP John Doe computer owner doesn’t bother upgrading the pre-installed browser, and even less installing a decent browser such as Firefox or Opera…

Another kick back at developers. Grrrrrr…. Remember Steve Ballmer ? Have a look :

 

Narrow a saved search with Vista’s Query Composition feature

Date: December 12th, 2007

• Author: Greg Shultz
• Category: Windows Vista
• Tags: Search, Microsoft Windows Vista, Feature, Dialog Box, Microsoft Windows Vista (Longhorn), Microsoft Windows, Operating Systems, Software, Greg Shultz

While writing about scripting Windows Sidebar gadgets for the last two editions of the Windows Vista Report, I spent a lot of time searching with the Windows Vista Search tool. I performed several wide-ranging searches using wildcard characters; for example, to find all of my VBScript scripts, I searched for *.VBS. I then saved this search so that I could quickly return to it in future research expeditions. I created and saved similar searches for the other script files.

Once I had my saved searches, I began using the grouping, filtering, and stacking features to filter through the results to narrow down the results. While this worked great, I still wanted a better filtering mechanism for my particular needs. Fortunately, there is a hidden feature in Vista called Query Composition, which is exactly the type of “search within results” feature I was hoping to find.

In this edition of the Windows Vista Report, I’ll show you how to take advantage of the Query Composition feature.

Creating a saved search

The first thing that you need to do is create a saved search. To do so, launch Search from the Start menu, fill in your search criteria, and wait a few seconds while Vista conducts the search. For example, Figure A shows my Search Folder after searching for all my VBS files.

Figure A

Begin by performing a search operation of the indexed location on your hard disk.

Once the search is complete, click the Save Search button on the toolbar to save the results as a Search Folder. When you see the Save As dialog box, type in a name (Figure B), and click the Save button.

Figure B

Save the search results as a Search Folder.

Your new saved search will appear in the Searches folder (Figure C). Close the saved search folder.

Figure C

You can see your saved search in the Searches folder.

Creating a Query Composition

Once you have a saved search with which you want to perform a more refined search, you’re ready to create a Query Composition. To begin, launch Search from the Start menu and click the Advanced Search button to open the Advanced Search pane (Figure D).

Figure D

Clicking the drop-down arrow opens the Advanced Search pane where you can specify more detailed search criteria.

Select the Location drop-down menu, scroll to the bottom of the list, and select Choose Search Locations. When you see the Choose Search Locations dialog box, open the Search Folders branch and select the check box next to your saved Search. As illustrated in Figure E, I’ve selected the All VBScript Files check box.

Figure E

From the Choose Search Locations dialog box, select your saved searches.

When you click OK, you’ll return to the Search Folder and can use the options in the Advanced pane to specify your refining search criteria. As seen in Figure F, I want to find all the VBScript files that I wrote after January 1, 2005.

Figure F

Once you specify a saved search as the search location, you can then use the options in the Advances Search pane.

By clicking the Search button, I narrowed down my search results from 520 to 68.

Searching multiple saved searches

With the check boxes in the Choose Search Locations dialog box, you can create a Query Composition on multiple saved searches. For example, when I wanted to search through all my VBScript and JScript files, I selected both saved searches in the Choose Search Locations dialog box (Figure G).

Figure G

I’ve selected multiple saved searches in the Choose Search Locations dialog box.

You can see the result of that combined search in Figure H. While my search examples were rather simple, you can begin to see the power of the Query Composition feature. This is especially true when you consider the possibilities of using more detailed combinations of various search criteria for both the saved search and the Query Composition.

Figure H

Combining saved searches and the Query Composition feature provides you with a very powerful way to conduct searches.

What’s your take on the Query Composition feature?

Now that you know how to use the Query Composition feature, how do you think you’ll use take advantage of it? Drop by the Discussion area and let us know how you will use it.