LAN-ACES Important Notice About Internet Explorer 7

Important Notice About Internet Explorer 7

This is an FYI that we felt was important enough to make sure our customers become aware. Although we are not anticipating any compatibility issues between our Office-Logic products and Internet Explorer 7, we have become aware of some issues with products that utilize online services. As an example, Internet Explorer 7 will disable Quickbooks Banking and Credit Card services. The error message that Quickbooks gives does not specifically indicate that the problem is related to Internet Explorer 7, which makes troubleshooting the problem very difficult. At the recommendation of Intuit (Quickbooks) technical support, uninstalling Internet Explorer 7 corrected this issue. Additionally, Internet Explorer 7 does not "play well" with programs when other browsers are installed such as Firefox. Internet Explorer 7 will cause you to experience problems anytime IE7 is NOT the default browser.

URGENT SECURITY ALERT
Preparing for the imminent IE7 release

Ready or not, here it comes. Internet Explorer 7 is getting closer and closer. It looks like IE7 is going to be launched in the next few days -- and it's coming to your PC whether you want it or not. If you are concerned about the impact on your systems and haven't finished your research then this page is for you! We show you how to prevent it from automatically installing, including a utility that you can use to block the installation if you would like to automate the process.

While IE7 is probably an improvement over the well-worn IE6 it doesn't appear that it is "cooked" yet. Unless of course you believe the conspiracy theorist and their view that IE7 was designed to break Microsoft competitive products. But we'll leave that discussion for another day..

According to Microsoft, IE7 will automatically download to your computer via Windows Update in the next few days. IE7 might be an upgrade but if it breaks your mission critical software, it won't be a step forward.

If you still want IE7, just sit tight and wait or go to Windows Update. It is already available for installation as an optional update. But that will change soon.

If you use any of the programs that IE7 breaks, like banking, accounting, or something specific for your company, you may want to prevent the software from being automatically deployed. There are (at least) three ways to configure your computer. Each is outlined below. 1) Microsoft's procedure for preventing the automatic update requires several steps, one of which is going through the ridiculous "Is it genuine?" verification process. 2) We have included a link for our free "down-and-dirty" registry modification program that the final outcome is the same as Microsoft's but is a lot less hassle. 3) You can manually edit your registry to prevent the download. Use which ever one fits your needs.

If later you decide to update, you can always back to Windows Update and tell it to explicitly install the new Internet Explorer.

Microsoft's procedure
The "Toolkit to Disable Automatic Delivery of Internet Explorer 7" is available from Microsoft at http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?linkid=65788.

Using whatever version of Internet Explorer (YES, it must be MSIE) you have installed on your computer, it will prompt for you to install Microsoft's Genuine Validation plug-in. Then follow the instructions. Be advised you are going to be using some manually created directories, running command prompts, etc. After the smoke clears the registry will be modified to add a setting shown further down this page.

Office-Logic "down-and-dirty" registry modification program

This link will download our little utility that makes the same registry setting change as the above procedure (and the one below). The change places a setting in your Windows registry, as you can see in the below figure.

The utility is provided as a courtesy based on request from our customers and is provided as-is with no warranty expressed or implied. In other words, if your computer breaks in to two pieces, you own both halves. However, with that understanding, the program only adds a registry setting so it should go ok assuming you have rights to modify the registry on your machine. If you have questions, contact your administrator:

download/DisableIE7.exe

All that happens the registry entry is put in place.

The picture above is from the Windows RegEdit. You can manually add the setting if you would rather but it will require a trip to each workstation. Just be aware that manually editing the registry is a good way to mess your Windows installation up in ways only Bill Gates can appreciate.

Manually edit the registry

The registry key that disables the download is shown below: DoNotAllowIE70.

My Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Setup\7.0

New DWORD value of "DoNotAllowIE70" and set it to "1".

If you need any help, please give us a call and we will advise as appropriate!