Transcript: Internet Explorer, January 13, 2005
Published: February 1, 2005
Chat Date: January 13, 2005
Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity
Introduction
Andy Q (Moderator):
Welcome to today’s chat. Our topic is Internet Explorer Questions, comments, and suggestions are welcome.
Andy Q (Moderator):
We are pleased to welcome our Experts for today’s chat. I will have them introduce themselves now.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Hi. My name is Dave Massy. I'm a Senior Program Manager on the Internet Explorer team. Looking forward to chatting with you this morning about Internet Explorer. We won't be able to answer specific questions about future versions at this time but we do welcome all feedback and suggestions.
Scott_MS (Expert):
Hey, my name is Scott Stearns and I am the test manager for the IE team. Looking forward to a very fun chat today.
Markus_MS (Expert):
Hi, my name is Markus and I am Program Manager for Layout and Printing in IE. Looking forward reading your questions and hopefully have some answers for you.
John_MS (Expert):
I'm a test manager on the IE team. My team handles the rendering of HTML content and the networking components. Glad to be here. Looking forward to some great questions!
Andy Q (Moderator):
I'm Andy Quig, Communities producer and your moderator for today!
Aaron_MS (Expert):
Hi, I’m Aaron, a Program Manager on the Internet Explorer team. Looking forward to chatting with you!
parthp_ms (Expert):
Hi, my name is Parth Pandya and I am a tester on the Internet Explorer team working primarily on the Object Model. I am looking forward to answering your questions today.
Start of Chat
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: What types of IE topics will you be covering today?
A: We have a variety of members from the team here with different areas of knowledge. Feel free to ask anything related to IE although we cannot at this time discuss future features and schedule although we do welcome feedback.
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: In terms of Security options (on the security tab), does running the new MS AntiSpy app impact those IE settings to change anything?
A: They don't change things out of the box. It monitors changes (like home page changes). You can change certain IE settings via the advanced section of the anti-spyware.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Are there any plans to integrate SP2 firewall settings into IE-Tools-Options-Advanced-Browsing/Security options so that users dont have to go Strt-Cntrl/Pnl-Sec. sys?
A: Hi Ray, We see the firewall as being separate from IE in that you want the firewall operational whatever software you are using to protect you.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: The MS Antispyware App contains a tool to stop browser hijacking, will the IE team intergrate some of the features into IE or make it easier for people to get at such items without the MS AS
A: Hi Jaz, We're certainly looking at what we can do in this area. However at this stage we can't talk about future features or schedule.
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: The MS Antispyware App contains a tool to stop browser hijacking, will the IE team intergrate some of the features into IE or make it easier for people to get at such items without the MS AS
A: I like it. It auto scans my machine every day, tells me when stuff is getting changed (like home page changes), etc. I suggest you go download it and try it - http://www.microsoft.com/athome/security/spyware/software/default.mspx
Andy Q (Moderator):
For those new to the chat - Our topic is Internet Explorer. Keep those Internet Explorer questions coming!
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: what are the pros and cons to installing MS Antispyware App?
A: I've had no problems installing it.
Doug_MS (Expert):
Q: Any plans to integrate Anti-spy, SP2 firewall, and IE options as one big kitandkaboodle
A: That is a very interesting scenario that we are thoughtfully considering going forward
parthp_ms (Expert):
Q: Have a lot of people with the firewalls disabled and can not get internet explorer to open any web pages after sp2 download.Have done a repair on it through the add and remove Is there any easy wasy of redownloading ie with going in to the registry
A: I am not sure I clearly understand your question. Can you clarify what you mean by redownloading ie without going into the registry?
John_MS (Expert):
f22: it's part of the windows xp service pack so you are correct
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Can you tell me about the development of Download Manager in IE (like in Longhorn)?
A: Hi Akrus, We can't talk about future features and schedule at this time. The focus of today's chat is currently supported versions of IE. We certainly welcome feedback adn suggestions of what you'd like to see in a future version.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: please tell me were i can find a good free download for a firewall for Windows xp .Not zonealarm
A: XP has a firewall in it - "Windows Firewall" in the control panel in xp sp2.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: can you fix it so that if you accidently type ww.random.com it changes it to www.random.com, oh and make it easier (possibly by taking language type/location) to change the ctrl+enter option rather than reg hacks
A: We're looking at our search and address bar functionality for Longhorn. Final feature set not yet determined.
Doug_MS (Expert):
Q: I do not have Sp2 .Where is a download for a goof free firewall
A: The best bet is to download and install SP2, but an alternative is something like zone alarm (http://www.zonealarm.com)
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: but now IE is very unstable and has no features like Firefox, Opera... are you going to make the "new", updated IE for Longhorn?
A: Hi Akrus, We have said that we are working on a future version of IE but we will not be discussing any feautres or schedule in this chat which is focused on currently supported versions of IE.
twylie_MS (Expert):
Q: I see this error msg at the bottom of the page windows/system32/shdoclc.dll/dnserror comes up when my email tries to open from internet explorer... also when i go to www.zone.msn.com/spades I get a blank page
A: Barring spyware, most likely cause is that your DNS cache has gotten corrupted somehow. Try ipconfig /flushdns
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Any plans to make IE for visually interesting? so many years of the same old - MS skins for IE would be nice
A: Hi Ray, Sorry we aren't goign to discuss our plans here but we do welcome feedback and would likel to understand what you'd liek to see in a future version and why.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: why,after dling MS Antispyware and service pack2 has my computer began freezing,not opening programmes correctly and no enabling me to restore to a previous date?
A: We didn't encounter anything like this in internal testing. Be sure to submit your online crash analysis reports so we can examine the memory dumps.
parthp_ms (Expert):
Q: PARTHP What I want to know is how to reinstall internet explorer. After the repair fails in the add and remove. Is there something we can do after the sp2 install ie will not work yet firefox will.
A: There is no seperate install/uninstall for Internet Explorer in SP2. You'd have to uninstall the service pack and install it again in the event of repair not working for you.
Aaron_MS (Expert):
Q: IE under xp sp2 has 'manage add-ons.' Is there any online MS resource-help page for understanding what you are seeing in the manager report? I know the KBase tries to keep up, but I mean something you may have available from the Manage add-on development?
A: Typically you can find more information on any control in Manage Add-ons by doing a web search for the publisher and name of the control listed. If you would like to see more information about the control in the user interface you can right click the column header in the Manager to drop down a list of other fields you can see for each control.
Andy Q (Moderator):
For those new to the chat - Our topic is Internet Explorer. To have a question addressed by the experts please select the "submit a question" radio button. Thanks!
Doug_MS (Expert):
Q: Is it possible to (into XP) get an application (and app-launched processes) level volume control. This would be useful for IE, incase site launches a flash animation with loud sounds - very nasty if you are playing music loud when browsing web?
A: This is an interesting idea - though you always have system wide control of the volume of any app. Managing this through some kind of managed add on is interesting, though redundant.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Christopher (IE team member) posted info on the blog about why you're using IE32bit as default, could you post a more detailed post as to be honest, i have no idea what you're on about but would like to find out more
A: Hi Jaz, Christopher's blog post was in regards to the 64 bit WIndows operating system. If you are not running a 64bit version of Windows then it's probably not relevant to you. If you are running 64bit Windows then you will note that we actually launch the 32bit version of IE by default and not the 64bit. That's what Crhistopher's post was about.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: I have 3 users on my pc only 1 work the other 2 keep sayin deskadserv.exe(0xc0000142)please help
A: deskadserv.exe is adware, you probably want to remove that from your system.
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: Have questions for the experts and IEenistas:
A: Please use the ask question button.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: There is any possibility to maintain an update copy of classified content sites to download to IE.
A: Alex Trebek says "please use the form of a question"
John_MS (Expert):
Q: PARTHP Thanks for your reply to my last Question. Wonder if you can have this looked into that ie will not run or open web pages after sp2. Yet Firefox opera netscape will .
A: We haven't seen this inhouse. Please make sure you send data reports from nonfunctioning apps.
Aaron_MS (Expert):
Q: am i right in thinking that SP2 supposedly came with address bar non hijacking so that you could type stuff into the address bar without it getting rid of what you wanted and having to retype it, if so why does't it work 100% for me
A: If you have installed a malicious application on your machine it can still control where your address bar query is going and other behavior of the address bar. We did do some work to make it less likely that a page complete notification would overwrite what you were writing in the address bar which is good from a usability standpoint, but was not a security fix. This might be what you are referring to.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Dave i realise that, but i was intrested about what he was on about developers updating "controls" and stuff
A: To work in the 64bit version of IE an extension such as a BHO, toolbar or ActiveX control needs to be compiled for 64bit as well. If there is no 64bit version of the addon available then it cannot be instantiated. Make sense?
Doug_MS (Expert):
Q: Doug:"though you always have system wide control of the volume of any app." Unfortunately as you can guess, the sys-wide control also silences the music playing application - rendering it useless.
A: true enough. there is no way to mute IE only audio today. interesting concept. you always have the ability to navigate away from that site as well.
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: 1) Why does MSFT AS need to shut down all IE windows to do it's thing?
A: Active setup is going to update IE binaries therefore it is closing down the IE binaries to avoid conflicts.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: IE6 has many options relating security. However, these options are not easy to understand for the normal user. Users don't understand the consequences of turning on or off a security related options. Why is there no help included for each option?
A: The browser is secure with the default settings. In addition we have help content available from the Information Bar for most things you will encounter in normal browsing situations. Is there a specific question you have regarding one of the security features?
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Please fix the serious bug when the cache index runs full (save images as bmp only, see http://blogs.msdn.com/jeffdav/archive/2004/10/29/249742.aspx). This has other bad consequences as well, such as losing the search history while searching at amazon.com
A: Hi DaveC, We're certainly looking at this area for the next version.
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: Is there some way to backup IE settings and use WinXP Briefcase in order to restore and sync in a laptop?
A: Not all settings. You could export your favorites to .htm and then put the .htm into briefcase.
Markus_MS (Expert):
Q: MS_WebcheckMonitor Does any body know what it is?
A: It is used for handling our IEOffline favorites
John_MS (Expert):
Q: The "Close this box after download finish" button is annoying, is there anyway to make this local rather than global?
A: Don't really understand this question -- if it was per instance then you would have a click to check the box every time anyway, how is this better than just leaving the checkbox unchecked and clicking every time?
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Why and this is asked all the time has IE failed to progress in functionality--take security off the table--in contrast to Mozilla Firefox and Mozilla's features and innovations in the last 3.6 years and are there plans to confront this deficit?
A: Hi f22, The IE team is working hard here and has been focused primarily on security with Windows XP SP2.
Andy Q (Moderator):
For those new to the chat - Our topic is Internet Explorer. We’re about halfway in, so keep those questions coming!
parthp_ms (Expert):
Q: PARTHP Thanks for your reply to my last Question. Wonder if you can have this looked into that ie will not run or open web pages after sp2. Yet Firefox opera netscape will .
A: I don't think it is possible within the scope of this chat session for me to help you diagnose this problem. I would recommend that you look up at http://support.microsoft.com for any articles that may help you solve this issue. You could also post on the different IE newsgroups for answers to your questions.
Andy Q (Moderator):
We ask that you stay on topic for the duration of the chat. The topic is Internet Explorer, questions on other topics will not be addressed. Thanks!
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Do you have any future plans to extend the functionality of PopUp Blocker, considering most spammers are moving towards a DHTML-display-nasty-DIVs-on-top-of-everything approach? Are these new style of "pop-up" messages going to be addressed in the future?
A: Hi Esteban. We're not going to discuss future features today. However we do welcome the feedback, many of these are actaully addressed with the work we did in Windows XP SP2
John_MS (Expert):
Q: John, well sometimes i accidently click it and don't really realise and then i forget to uncheck it and especially when i'm downloading small files and i want to run the immediately it's annoying. however sometimes on larger files i'd rather have it close
A: Don't know what to say here beyond Tools->Options->Advanced->Browsing "Notify when downloads complete"
twylie_MS (Expert):
about moving IE settings around via the brief case: if you don't mind a broad spectrum approach you could use File and Settings Transfer wizard. or, if you just want IE settings, you could export the critical registry sections into the briefcase
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Can i repeat my question? Is there a list of these sessions times so that plans can be made to be online at the right time. I am in England so it is later in the day for me
A: Hi Ed, You can find a schedule of all expert zone chats along with links to transcripts at http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/expertzone/chats/default.mspx
Aaron_MS (Expert):
Q: Why in a high percentage of IE installs RTM/SP1/SP2 and probably Longhorn is it that if you go on the IE toolbar to Tools>Options>General and say delete TIFs, Cookies or Hx and you hit OK it can crash IE?
A: In some cases Internet Explorer can experience problems when you click OK before the cache is completely deleted. If you have a small cache you should not run into this problem at all, but you might run into it if your cache is large (or you have lightning quick reflexes :)). We are aware of this problem and investigating the issue. You can avoid this by waiting until the cache is completely deleted before clicking OK.
Scott_MS (Expert):
what topics would like to see talked about on the IEBlog?
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Our product uses the editing mode a lot, and the editing mode turns on an off much faster now in SP2. Users noticed that as well. That was a very welcome and unexpected improvement. Kudos to the team for that!
A: Thanks for the feedback. It's always nice to hear we get something right as we often only hear when we get stuff wrong :-)
John_MS (Expert):
Q: Our product uses the editing mode a lot, and the editing mode turns on an off much faster now in SP2. Users noticed that as well. That was a very welcome and unexpected improvement. Kudos to the team for that!
A: Thanks!
John_MS (Expert):
Q: Framing other sites rejects cookies unless they have a P3P policy set up... is this considered a success? Have any sites put P3P policies in place as a result?
A: The first part is by design. An example of the second question is doubleclick.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: I didn't see this answered so I'll try again--Is there any way of redownloading IE that comes with XPSP2 other than redownloading SP2--Mark L. raised the point it will prevent a future uninstall of SP2?? It fixed SFC for me however and I didn't know any other way since SFC would not run.
A: The updates to IE in SP2 are only available as part of SP2.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: I study in the UK (UK citizen) and have to do year long internship, can i intern at the IE team?
A:http://www.microsoft.com/College/default.mspx has more information about our internship program
Markus_MS (Expert):
Q: Will there a new book about programming IE come out at MSPress? Scott Robert's "Programming IE" is a bit outdated. In order to get more developers doing IE add-ons, this would be helpful.
A: That is an excellent idea. What topics would you love to see covered?
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Does the "Discuss" icon on the toolbar actually see a lot of use? Or is it wasted space?
A: Hi Maurits. The Discuss icon is added by office and is not part of IE. I'd have to ask the office team how many use the discussion servers if they see much use.
Doug_MS (Expert):
Q: RSS is going through some growing pains - browsers seem not to "do the right thing" when an RSS link is advertised. Would a new rss:// protocol (and rsss:// protocol for https) be a good idea?
A: Fundamentally this is still xml - a standard formatted xml document and not a protocol. the browsers need to smartly detect and do the right thing
twylie_MS (Expert):
Q: To John_MS: I know of many users who think they can make IE even more secure by customizing the Internet zone and turning off/on aditional settings. But they don't know the consequences of each particular change. Help for each setting is missing here.
A: Active help links would be useful, yes, but requires enough changes to the Internet Control Panel that it becomes out of scope for a service pack or other interim release. Users worried about navigating to a domain for the first time should consider proactively adding it to their Restricted Sites zone at first.
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: How many IE users have the default MSN home page? Does this give MSN an unfair advantage over other search engines?
A: We don't track what people's home pages are, so I don't know off the top of my head. There are lots of different home pages. I like about:blank.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: I wrote an Active Directory login script that calls: "start http://intranet/signin/" and it works in all browsers EXCEPT IE - IE works sometimes, and times out sometimes. What gives? This works:l "C:\Program Files ...\IExplore.exe" http://intranet/signin
A: Without a repro it's impossible to guess what might be happening here.
Doug_MS (Expert):
Q: I'd love to see a built-in spellchecker for > textarea < elements. Is this feasible? Is it localizable? Should it be a plugin?
A: Nice plugin idea and there are a number of them out there like http://iespell.com
Aaron_MS (Expert):
Q: If I *don't* want to install Flash, say, is there a way to prevent the "d'ya wanna install Flash now? How about now? Now, maybe?" dialog that appears on *every page* of a site that uses Flash?
A: Certainly (In XP SP2). On the ActiveX install dialog you can select the 'more options' dropdown and use our new "Never install software from: " option. This way you will not get the prompt for this control again (or other controls from that publisher). If you want to disable ActiveX altogether you can do that in Internet Options on the security tab under 'Customize...'. Also, in XP SP2 you can disable any specific ActiveX control in Manage Add-ons if you accidentally install it (Tools->Manage Add-ons) which will ensure you do not get prompted for that control.
Markus_MS (Expert):
Q: Is there a way I can tell, using javascript, whether a particular page is being rendered in standards mode or quirks mode?
A: I am not aware that you can. Why would this be useful to you?
John_MS (Expert):
Q: If I serve a page as text/plain, but it looks like HTML, IE treats it as HTML. How can I insist that IE consider it text/plain?
A: tools -> options -> security -> [pick your zone] -> open based on content, not file extension
Markus_MS (Expert):
Q: How hard is it to keep Print Preview in mind when developing new features? Do you wish it would just go away?
A: PrintPreview is an often used feature. Of course we have not forgotten it :)
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: I noticed that the Microsoft site lists Avant Browser as a solution to some of the failings of IE - Tabbed browsing, etc. Is IE going to improve in this respect.?
A: We think browsers such as Avant and Maxthon are very interesting and show how powerful it can be to build on the basis of IE. We're certainly looking at all feedback we receive as we work on a future version.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: Often I know the name of a site only can IE show me all of these whether they are .com. Co.uk or net
A: just enter in the address bar will try .com by default. for further investigation you probably want something like internic.net There isn't anything like a service that tracks every domain
Scott_MS (Expert):
Q: Regarding SP2 and DEP support, will IE have related configuration options built-in (in further editions, Longhorn, x64) instead of through My Comp-Sys.info-Advanced?
A: Interesting thought. We are not talking about the future, but thanks for the feedback.
twylie_MS (Expert):
Q: Thanks twylie_MS, I thought in File&Settings Transfer Wizard, but it doesn't remind the last selected actions. I 'd like to know if there is an article where I can read those critical registry sections of IE in order to export them (time zones,,,)
A: This information appears to be scattered around msdn.microsoft.com, but not gathered into one summary article. Sorry.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Last four minutes guys. Then we'll have to go. Any more questions?
John_MS (Expert):
Q: as to installing into Windows XP
A: this is not an IE question, but, there is an XP compatibility mode you can set for exes.
Doug_MS (Expert):
Q: How do you uninstall sp2?
A: This is made quite simple in SP2- go to add remove programs in the control panel and make sure show updates is checked. At the near bottom of the list you with find service pack 2. It will place you back in your previous configuration as SP2 backs up your previous config prior to install.
twylie_MS (Expert):
About the "If I serve a page as text/plain, but it looks like HTML..." question, our ability to enforce your desired behavior by default is proportional to the number of admins that manage their servers properly. We considered this default in XPSP2 but it would just cause too many "site compat" issues at the moment.
Markus_MS (Expert):
Q: To what extent is the IE dev team involved in future standards development (CSS3, say?)
A: We are engaged with the standard bodies.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: Does the integration of Internet Explorer and Windows Explorer make things easier or harder for the devs?
A: Because IE is part of Windows it means that developers can rely on the functionality to build powerful solutions without having to deliver their own browsing code.
John_MS (Expert):
Q: re: text/plain - I can add a Content-Disposition header as a hack but that forces a download...
A: why not just wrap content in a pre tag
Andy Q (Moderator):
We have about 2 minutes left in today's chat!
Dave_MS (Expert):
Q: (asked previously, got no answer, will try again) aside from the chat schedule, which had no relevant links, do any of you know of an upcoming chat related to SP2 and DEP? Some 64-bit cpu users are having troubles - which I guess, could include IE - lol
A: Hi Ray, I'll pass on teh request but I don't know of a chat that will cover this. You may want to try the newsgroups
Aaron_MS (Expert):
Q: Is there some way to add (personalize) new buttons tool bars with other menu in IE? For example it'd be helpful to see the Tools menu as buttons.
A: You can right click on the toolbars (ensure they are unlocked), and select 'Customize...'. From there you can see a list of items you can add to the toolbar from the user interface.
Through code you can add new buttons to the toolbar. If you are interested in adding context menu items to your right click menu you can do that without binary code through the registry (and have your own context menu item run script for instance).
John_MS (Expert):
Q: is the sp2 uninstall also in the newer versions of XP that have it prebuilt in it?
A: two things here: if your machine came installed with xpsp2 it may not be removable. otherwise you might need to check the checkbox to show updates in add/remove programs
John_MS (Expert):
katnap: MS-ITS:C:\WINDOWS\Help\misc.chm::/compatibility_tab_and_wizard.htm
Andy Q (Moderator):
Thank you guys! It's time for us to go now!
Markus_MS (Expert):
Thanks for your questions. Was fun chatting with you all. See you next time
Scott_MS (Expert):
Thanks for the good chat today. It was fun.
Dave_MS (Expert):
Thanks guys for the fun chat. We have to go now as we have lots of work to do. See you next time.
Andy Q (Moderator):
We had some great questions and I really appreciate all the participation
John_MS (Expert):
thanks, bye
Andy Q (Moderator):
I'd like to also thank all of our experts for their answers today!
twylie_MS (Expert):
thanks for the questions, bye
parthp_ms (Expert):
Q: Still would like to know why ie will not work after sp2 but other browsers do there has to be some glitch in ie for this to happen to so many people that come to this room
A: I think you should you look at http://support.microsoft.com to solve this issue. Searching through the different Knowledge Base articles might help you
Andy Q (Moderator):
please watch for upcoming chats http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/expertzone/chats/default.mspx
Andy Q (Moderator):
Bye!
parthp_ms (Expert):
Thanks for all the questions, it was fun chatting with you all
Aaron_MS (Expert):
Q: This is not an important question but…. For as long as I can remember (at leas 5 years ago), the toolbar on the IE has a “Back” and “Forward” buttons. If you notice, the “Back” button shows a label “Back” but the Forward button does not show the label. Is
A: The toolbar default is to show selective text, but if you would like to see the forward label you can select 'Show Text Labels' from the toolbar customization dialog.
For further information on this topic please visit the following:
Newsgroups: Windows XP General Discussion
Transcripts: Read the archive of past Windows XP Expert Zone chats.
