Windows Internet Explorer 8 Expert Zone Chat (July 17, 2008)

Chat Topic: Windows Internet Explorer 8 Expert Zone Chat
Date: Thursday, July 17, 2008

Please note: Portions of this transcript have been edited for clarity.

Introductions:

Daniel (Moderator):
Hello everyone-- thanks for coming to our Interenet Explorer 8 chat. Let's get started! At this time I'd like to have our Experts introduce themselves...

Allison [MSFT] (Expert):
Hey Everyone, I’m Allison and I work on the Technical Beta Program.

Helen [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi everyone! I'm Helen and I'm a Program Manager on the IE User Experience. I work on Favorites and Tabs.

JohnHrv [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi, I'm John Hrvatin and I'm the program manager for developer tools and platform performance.

Kristen [MSFT] (Expert):
Hello Everyone! I'm Kristen and I work on the IE8 Beta Feedback Team.

Matt H [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi, I'm Matt and I work with the IE Product Management team on Security and Enterprise issues.

Sharon [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi everyone. I'm Sharon a PM on the IE team for about 3 years now. I'm working on search in IE8.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Hi - I'm Chris Wilson, IE Platform Architect.

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi Everyone, I'm Cyra Richardson Lead for Service Integration - Activities, WebSlices, Search and Networking

Harel Williams[MSFT] (Moderator):
Hey guys. Sorry I am late! I am Harel Williams, the IE Rendering PM. Glad to be here!

Start of chat:

Helen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will the icons for the 3 tabs in the favorite bar return?
A: Could you be more specific? What was it you liked/didn't like about the icons?

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When IE 8 Beta 2 will be released?
A: On our Blog http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/06/03/ie8-beta-2-coming-in-august.aspx, Tony Chor announced that we would be releasing Internet Explorer sometime around August 2008. He also identified our target languages.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: We know that IE is very safe and general good performance, but we know that FF is more fast than IE in HTML rendering, also javascript. I'd like to ask, how IE 8 will get all these issues about performance?
A: We've been spending a lot of our time focusing on performance, both in the Javascript engine and in the new layout engine. With Beta1, we hadn't done a lot of the deep performance tuning that we planned for release, so please do take beta 2 for a test drive when it's out.

Harel Williams[MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: I keep trying to update windows and it keeps failing on three updates
A: Hey Jason, if those updates are specific to IE, we can try to help you out. Otherwise, you might want to seek help from the OS team. Can you be more specific?

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: I have a question regarding the "IE8 AJAX Navigation" posted to the IE Blog. Do I understand this correctly that the ability to programmatically modify the behavior of the browser back/forward buttons will now be possible via scripting?
A: Yes, that's correct. It's a feature in HTML 5, already getting picked up by other browsers as well. You can't prevent the user from using the back button, BTW - that's one of the common concerns - you can just add navigation points inside your own app as the user moves around in the app.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: Will Internet Explorer 8 be the last version to work on windows xp?
A: That's an excellent question. I really can't predict - we always look at the current OS market share as well as OS limitations when we plan out what our required platform is. We haven't done that for future versions yet, AFAIK.

JohnHrv [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What are the improvements in IE8 DOM performance.
A: Beta 1 has several improvements in DOM and JScript performance. This whitepaper has more info on them: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=110278.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I m unable to create a new session when using window.open() from the application or adding new tab in IE . Are there any improvements on this issue.
A: When you say "create a new session" what exactly do you mean? What type of "session" are you referring to?

Helen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: (q7) Favorit, feeds and history used to have 3 nice icons but in beta 1 thows icons are missing, forcing me to read :(
A: That's great feedback. Thanks!

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Hello! Yesterday I was looking at IIS7's new FTP service which adds support for virtual hosts (HOST command) and SSL. I'm not sure if the FTP client is part of IE or Windows itself these days, but are there any plans for improvements to the FTP client?
A: Hello Shadow ... the FTP client ships with Windows, and so we don't have info on what goes into future releases.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):Q: Any changes to the IE plugin model?
A: Beta-1 did not include any meaningful changes in the plugin model, although there were some improvements in the Manage Addons experience. What specifically would you like to see? thx!

Sharon [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Question for SHARON
Will there be a native IE8 "Inline Search For Internet Explorer" (http://www.windowsmarketplace.com/details.aspx?view=info&itemid=3012162 ) ?
A: Thanks for the feedback. We've seen many requests for this and are looking into it.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: In reference to A10, are these navigation points like breadcrumbs that can be traced back throiugh an AJAX app's execution?
A: A bit, yes.

Kristen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Can you tell us about IEAK8
A: We posted a bit about "What's coming for IT Pros.." over on the IE Blog here: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/06/11/what-s-coming-in-internet-explorer-8-for-it-professionals.aspx. As the post mentions, IE8 IEAK is coming in Beta 2. At that time we will go into further details around IE8 IEAK.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: We are unable to create a new session when using window.open() or adding new tab from the application. Is there any solution for this issue.
A: When you say "create a new session" what exactly do you mean? What type of "session" are you referring to?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Can you talk a little bit more about this new "Improved Protected Mode" in IE8. What are the differences to IE 7 in this respect?
A: As noted in the blog post (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/02/ie8-security-part-v-comprehensive-protection.aspx) the improvements primarily consist of APIs that make it easier for add-ons and internal applications to interact with Protected Mode instances. There's documentation on MSDN covering the full set of new APIs.

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: If the user doesn't have administrator rights. How do i install add ons or enable the activex components. For ex. ClientPrint Class addon. We are using this component in reporting services.
A: [19] To Jay, one of the new features for IE8 (Vista only) is ability to install ActiveX controls on a per-user basis. Check it out: http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/05/07/ie8-security-part-ii-activex-improvements.aspx

Kristen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Could you make sure the transcripts has numbered questions, it's a little confusing when people refere to the numbers when they have been removed.
A: Well pass this request on to our MS chat manager. Thank you!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: 18: What I mean is, do we just say, for example 'createNavPoint()' and then a new entry shows up in their history that will restore the state of the app at the time the nav point was created?
A: This isn't something that would happen automatically. If you check out the blogs linked from http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/14/ie8-ajax-navigation.aspx, you'll see how you can use the AJAXNav improvement to build a "createNavPoint()" type function that reconstitutes your application's prior state out of the fragment data. Their example shows how to do this with Silverlight + Javascript, but you can of course do this with Javascript alone.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: In developing this AJAX navigation in IE8, are you (Microsoft) working with any outside stanrdard groups to make the API standard or consistent to prevent each browser implementing it in a different way?
A: Ah. No - it's not an automatic "state restore" for the entire web application platform engine (e.g. it doesn't roll back Javascript variables, etc.) - it gives the web app (the HTML page) the ability to put checkpoints into the nav stack, and gives the app a notification when the user wants to go "back" -so the web app still has to do some work to support it.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Using several WebParts of ASP.Net in IE are very slow to move from one zone to another. IE 8 will catch something about that?
A: I'm not sure I understand the question. If the question concerns speed of drag and drop of components at runtime, this probably is something the ASPNET team is in a better position to answer, but if you have a repro URL, we can have a look. IE generally improves web page performance in many ways, but it's not clear to me at the moment where any bottleneck you're seeing is at.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: In developing this AJAX navigation in IE8, are you (Microsoft) working with any outside stanrdard groups to make the API standard or consistent to prevent each browser implementing it in a different way?
A: absolutely - it's already in the HTML 5 spec (http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#history), and other browsers are already implementing.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: Once you have installed Silverlight why does it still say 'Click Here to Install Silverlight'. Can it be so once you have Silverlight the message can go away :)
A: Where are you still seeing "click here to install Silverlight" after you've installed?

JohnHrv [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will the "click to activate this control" issue ever go away around Flash graphics? Or is that here to stay in IE8?A: this behavior has already been changed for all versions of IE and available in IE cumulative updates since December 2007. details are at http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/11/08/ie-automatic-component-activation-changes-to-ie-activex-update.aspx.

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: How about a summary of what IE8 has to offer over IE7?
A: Just did a quick browse through our blog. There are articles about some of the new features we are including in IE8. Here are a few... CSS 2.1 conformance, Activities, Web Slices, Improved Developer Tools support, faster script performance, AJAX Travel log control for semantic navigation (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/14/ie8-ajax-navigation.aspx), Cross Site Scripting Defense (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/02/ie8-security-part-iv-the-xss-filter.aspx), Safer Mashups (using XDR, HTML Sanitization and JSon Sanitization), Improved MIME-type Determination, Address Bar Security Improvements to help thwart social attacks, SmartScreen Filter (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/07/02/ie8-security-part-iii-smartscreen-filter.aspx) and A number of improvements for IT professionals (http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2008/06/11/what-s-coming-in-internet-explorer-8-for-it-professionals.aspx). Of course there are more features that we'll announce... but there has to be some suspence ;>

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I would like to see personalized zones: i.e. I would enable all ActiveX for my private Web sites, for domains in Russia,China (TLD) I would like to disable Scripting and ActiveX. Or I would like to start IE with a set of security settings with an argument.
A: This idea has been suggested on a number of occasions. There's a significant management challenge for this sort of feature though; it quickly becomes fairly unmanageable. Our focus has been on securing the web platform so you need not introduce any restrictions like this manually.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: So, the ability and manner in which you can now interact with thr browser back button is a Microsoft only approach and is not in any way being developed in conjunction with the rest of the web devt community then? That's a shame if true. :(
A: I don't think you're hearing my responses. This is absolutely not a Microsoft only approach - in fact, it was in the HTML5 spec before we started implementing it. See section 5.8 - http://www.w3.org/html/wg/html5/#history.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: sorry. Q(3): When you say "create a new session" what exactly do you mean? What type of "session" are you referring to?. I m actually referring asp.net session object.
A: ASP.NET uses cookies for session management. By design, all versions of IE (and other browsers) share cookies between a document and the popup windows it opens. Hence, session state is shared in this scenario.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: I have another issue using silverlight in our application. In 64 bit machine. It always ask me to install Silverlight plugin. I have installed it. But till now its showing the same error. Any improvements on this?
A: You'd have to ask the Silverlight team about their 64-bit support. Or run 32-bit IE on your 64-bit machine.

Helen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will there be any changes to the address bar? I would like to see the Vista explorer folder view to switch to differnent folders or actions (products/productA and easy switch to products/, MVC Framework)
A: This is an interesting request - I've never received this before. Thanks for the request :)

JohnHrv [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What are the improvements in Javascript engine
A: IE8 Beta 1 includes significant performance improvements (more info: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink?LinkID=110278) and mitigations for circular memory references (more info: http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/ie8whitepapers/Release/ProjectReleases.aspx?ReleaseId=578). for even more detail, check out the jscript team's blog at http://blogs.msdn.com/jscript/.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Another question are bookmarks: I often need to remember a Web site to read later. FF has added a star that you can simple click on (like Gmail star). What about an easier way to add bookmarks? Currently a dialog appears everytime to click on Ok.

Frank Olivier [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is there a way we can run ie8beta parally with ie7
A: You can't install both on the same machine, but you can install ie8 and run ie7 in a virtual pc (or vice versa). We have ie8 and ie7 VPC images available for download on microsoft.com

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Once you have installed Silverlight why does it still say 'Click Here to Install Silverlight'. Can it be so once you have Silverlight the message can go away :)
A: To truespursfan [30], I do know that Beta 1 of Silverlight has been replaced by Beta 2, and they're encouraging users to upgrade to the latest version. If it's asking you to upgrade, then once you do so, you shouldn't see another prompt until either Beta 3 or the RTW version of Silverlight v2.

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are there any improvements about memory leak?
A: One of the significant causes of memory leaks was the use of Javascript closures. This functionality essentially pins an object in memory across the scope of any function. In IE7 we made some improvements in circumventing leaks caused by closures, but we are continuing in this effort in IE8. There are a number of relevant articles about our tools ( http://blogs.msdn.com/ie/archive/2007/11/29/tools-for-detecting-memory-leaks.aspx ) and some information to help developers understand how these problems are caused (http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb250448.aspx).

JohnHrv [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: A minor quibble I have, when someone uses the built-in development tools to switch rendering modes, conditional comments are respected. For example, when you switch to IE6 rendering mode, it still activates all IE8 conditional comments. Is this intended?
A: as you've found, the compatibility mode option in the developer tools only changes the document/rendering mode and not other things that indicate the IE version (user agent sctring and version vector - version vector is what we use when evaluating conditional comments). we're looking into ways to improve this in the future, but for beta 1 the best way is to use the "Emulate IE7" button. pressing that sets the user agent string and version vector to IE7.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When pasting some content in address bar Opera gives paste and go which is easy for use would ms consider something like that also go to url which is available as text in the page when blocked would be cool.
A: "Paste and go" is neat, simple feature. Hitting Enter isn't a huge overhead though. For the "Select plaintext in a webpage and make it a hyperlink" issue, see the trivial "Linkify" plugin: http://www.enhanceie.com/ietoys/ It's ~3 lines of script and does what you'd like.

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Relpy to Q27) In the top left of the Chat Window page (this page). I have Silverlight 2 Beta 2.
A: To truespursfan [30], let me direct you to the Silverlight forums, where you can ask questions to the Silverlight team here: http://silverlight.net/forums/

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: [33] with IE8 beta I still see memory problems when switching from one page to another one. I.e. using no tabs there should be no memory growing. I would expect that when I open "about:blank" after I visited a Web page it is the same memory usage as start.
A: I'm not sure I understand your scenario. You cannot "use no tabs" in IE; there's always at least one open. When you open "about:blank after visiting a web page" is that to say that you navigate the window on the web page to about:blank?

Allison [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are there any plans to add IE feedback or bug reports to Microsoft Connect? I realize it could cause an extremely high number of false bug reports, but right now there doesn't appear to be any way to submit well researched bug reports
A: Currently we have the Internet Explorer 8 Public Beta Program on Microsoft Connect which allows its members to search and vote on bugs submitted from the private Technical Beta Program. If you would like to be able to submit bugs in the private Technical Beta Program, please email IESO@microsoft.com. We are still considering our options for anything beyond IE8.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I have one more question. When, I m trying to access some site using the following url format. http://username:password@domainname/pagename. Its working in all the browser except IE 7.0 and IE 8.0. Is there any specific reason for this issue.
A: Yes, this was a deliberate change. Username:Password syntax is not supported by the standard for HTTP URIs, and for a time it was broadly abused by phishers to create misleading URIs. This syntax was killed in IE6 around the XPSP2 timeframe, and was not supported in IE7 or IE8 by default.

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Resizing frames and the render area (when a yellow notice appear in the top of IE) seems a bit sluggish, is this something you are looking to improve in IE8?
A: Can you be a little more specific - what do you mean by a "Yellow Notice". Are you talking about the address bar turning Yellow? Is there a specific site that you are on when this happens or does it happen more broadly?

Allison [MSFT] (Expert):
No problem ShadowChaser.

Helen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: In IE6, I used to browse with the "favorites pane" always open all of the time, visiting all my favorite sites. In IE7 it was changed to no longer "remember" that the side pane was opened last and pinned - is there any chance this will be fixed in IE8?
A: I can't recall the IE6 behavior, but I will definitely take this feedback and investigate. We didn't change that behavior in IE7, so it should still remember that your Favorites Center was pinned. Thanks for the feedback.

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Re (Q27) I see Install Silverlight... I have Silverlight installed.
A: Hi Colin [44] ... it's possible you have either v1 installed, or v2 Beta 1 ... Silverlight checks to ensure you have a compatible version, and will prompt if the website requires a newer version. If you go here ... http://silverlight.net/ ... you can verify you have the latest version installed.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: [38] more clearer: you open IE (about:blank), opening in one tab http://microsoft.com, then change the url in addressbar to "about:blank". Would you expect no memory loose? What if you go from microsoft.com to microsoft.de to microsoft....
A: Navigating from about:blank to http://microsoft.com to about:blank should release the memory used by the Microsoft.com page. However, that doesn't mean that memory will go back to exactly where it started, because IE will have loaded a number of components that weren't needed to render the initial about:blank (e.g. the networking stack). As you're very likely to need the network stack again momentarily, it wouldn't make much sense to unload it.

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Q[41] No i'm refering to the "popup blocked"/"activeX addon blocked" notice.
A: We're not aware of any performance problem with the "popup blocked" or "ActiveX blocked" goldbar notification comes up. But I'll pass this information onto the performance test team to investigate.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Q[41] No I’m referring to the "popup blocked"/"activeX addon blocked" notice.
A: I think we did actually make a minor tweak the InfoBar animation behavior. Please have a look at Beta-2 when it comes out.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: May I know about the feature Closed-Connect-Database. There is an article http://news.softpedia.com/news/IE-8-0-Will-Have-a-Closed-Connect-Database-51961.shtml. Does it like a technical support to IE 8.0.
A: that's a very old article. We actually have a publicly readable connect database, with a straightforward process to be able to contribute too.

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: One thing I dislike IE is the lack of the option 'Do not remember password FOR THIS SITE', like in FF today. Is there any possibility to change this behavior?
A: Thanks Robson [48] ... that's a good feature request, and we'll take it into consideration!

Helen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: UI: When assessing changes to address bar, menus, shortcut keys, etc.. is any formal usability testing done? Or do you "best guess" and rely on feedback?
A: For all of our UI changes (and our features), we do usability testing. In addition, we have an entire user research team. All throughout Microsoft we have participants help guide our designs and give feedback. If you're interested in participating, check out this website: http://www.microsoft.com/usability/default.mspx. We do appreciate feedback from our users (i.e. from Microsoft Connect or our blog) and try to incorporate this feedback in future versions as well.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When a popup is blocked in IE, accepting them using the information bar causes the page to fully reload which can be extremely frustrating on AJAX sites. Are there plans to improve this behavior so it doesn't reload the page?
A: It's a fine idea. Unfortunately, it won't work. The problem is that most popups these days are triggered by code like var oPopup = window.open(). The problem is when the popup blocker fires, that leaves oPopup=null. If we were to later simply open the popup window, there's no way to go back to the point in the script where the value was set to null, so we cannot ensure that the popup and Javascript on the page is going to work. Hence the need to reload the page when electing to allow popups. Fortunately, most sites are moving away from non-user-initiated popups, so this is becoming less and less of a problem.

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: How do I verify the Silverlight version on http://silverlight.net/?
A: To Colin [52] ... I'm not exactly certain on checking your Silverlight version, but the forums on the Silverlight site may have more information on checking version # (and upgrading). You can check out the forums here: http://silverlight.net/forums/

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: q[47] the issue isn't with the blocked notice, but it forces the render port to resize, and that is rather slow and chopping, especialy on larger sites.
A: In IE7 and previous, this info bar was deliberately animated in, pixel by pixel. This led to choppy behavior, particularly on slower video cards running at high resolutions.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Can you talk a little bit more about this new "Improved Protected Mode" in IE8. What are the differences to IE 7 in this respect?
A: Please see Q20.

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):Q: Re: (Q44) I clicked the link and installed v2 beta 2. I left and reentered the chat. It still says Click Here to Install Silverlight.A: Hi Colin [50] ... the only other assistance I can give is to ensure you close your browser after upgrading Silverlight. Otherwise you'll need to ask the Silverlight team in the forums.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: There is some kind of disjunction between the registry settings (eg security zones) for 32 vs 64 bits versions of IE on x64. Is there a reason to keep this non-intuitive disjunction? or will it be fixed ie IE >= 8 ?
A: Please provide an example? In the cases I'm aware of, the distinction is deliberate. The vast majority of settings are shared.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: when we do a xmlhttp request to server and assign the constant to a frame and do it again to a different web page and repeat these operation, if the memory of ie in task manager is noticed it will be keep on growing every time, any solutions?
A: You must ensure that you're properly clearing the event handlers to prevent closures. There are a number of articles you can find that describe how to do this; search for Reusing XMLHTTPRequest leak for some more info.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: Does IE 8.0 support multithreaded programming using JavaScript.
A: No, not currently.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
>Michael Schwarz: I have no IE8 right here, can anybody test if the "blocked download info" reloads the page if I accept? I would like to directly download the file without a reload

Harel Williams[MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: The missing zoom support (when you choose 150% in IE) with some ActiveX controls, is this is ActiveX or IE problem?
A: Most of the the time the control is not adapting to the size of the container. It is the responsibility of the add-on development to detect zoom changes and adjust accordingly. Please send me examples if you have them!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw: As I said, the site lists for security zones appears to be separate. I could imagine maintaining different security settings for 32/64 bits, but I feel that using the same settings will be a more usual scenario.
A: I haven't ever noticed site lists being split by bitness. I'll take a look. thanks.

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q:: [52] How do I verify the Silverlight version
A:http://www.microsoft.com/silverlight/resources/install.aspx?v=2.0
A: [63] Good to know ... thanks Kabanos!

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is there any improvements on common browser standards. We are currently having lot of browsers.
A: IE8 has improvement in standards conformance - like CSS 2.1.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: can someone help me?...i can use browser by clicking my favorites ...and it takes me there...BUT...when i open internet explore 7 ..and type in an address,,like msnbc..hotmail....google....or any address i type ...it doent open
A: Do you see this problem if you type the full URL, e.g. http://www.msnbc.com ?

Harel Williams[MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: May I know the secret of rendering silverlight content in IE 8.0.
A: I don't think its that secret...there is quite a bit of documentation on silverlight development :) Can you be more specific?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw: FYI, this was on Windows Server 2008 x64, and I have been fiddling a bit with group policy settings. I have not checked what happens with IE 8.
A: Interesting. Did you by chance set the "Use Machine for Security Settings" policy? That might be relevant to this issue.

Harel Williams[MSFT] (Moderator):
Q: are you delving into CSS3 any? or just sticking with 2.1 for now?
A: There are a couple of CSS3 properties we supported in Beta 1, and some additional ones will be added as we release beta 2 and RTW. For more detailed information check out: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc351024(VS.85).aspx

Kristen [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are meat donuts on the cafe lunch menu today? <:o) [I'm outta here]
A: No meat donuts.... just the regular donuts. :) Bye, Robear!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: One of the biggest problem in IE is when I download a file, connection broken, and I can´t continue my download after connection established. Is there any improvement for this issue?
A: IE ~should~ resume the download upon reconnect if the following is true: 1> The server indicated that it supported resumption via the Accept-Ranges: bytes. 2> You attempt to resume the download from the exact same URL (some sites make this hard) 3> When you attempt to resume, whatever connection problem was previously present has been resolved.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw: Yes, I was using "Use Machine for Security Settings". Is it an unwanted side effect of this setting?
A: Quite possibly. I'll ask our team to investigate. Thanks for the note!

Frank Olivier [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: can someone help me?...i can use browser by clicking my favorites ...and it takes me there...BUT...when i open internet explorer 7 ..and type in an address, like msnbc..Hotmail....Google....or any address i type ...it doesn’t open ...what can cause this browse
A: Try running IE with all add-ons disabled; it sounds like one of your add-ons might be causing this

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is there any improvement on exception handling on javascript.
A: What specifically would you hope to see changed?

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: Why were the standards compliant changes for ie 8 not implemented for ie 7?
A: Down-porting platform changes make an inconsistent developer experience for the older platforms. We'd prefer to focus on people upgrading to the newer version.

JohnHrv [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Ah, debugger, yes, I would like to see more details on error messages, sometimes we get "error in line 0". I would be happy to see some lines before/after the line which throws the exception. This should be available in IE (not additonal debugger)
A: yes, this is something we've heard from customers and are looking into.

Cyrar [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is it possible to share information about when code freeze is planned?
A: At this point we are only being specific about the next Internet Explorer 8 Beta coming out sometime around August.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
@JAY or IEBlog comments

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Till now. I m unable to get any documentation on this actually. Can you provide document for silverlight rendering methods.
A: Jay [73], you'll need to ask the Silverlight team, since Silverlight runs on a number of browsers, not just IE. Please go to http://silverlight.net/forums/ where they should be able to better answer your questions.

JohnHrv [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What's your commitment to fully "fleshing out" the Web Developer runtime debugging (like Firebug) in IE 8 upon release?
A: at this time, we're not committing to any new features in upcoming releases. are there specific things you're looking for?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: javascript exceptions are not clear to understand now actually.
A: Javascript exceptions aren't intended for the end-user to consume; they're intended for the try/catch code in Javascript to process and deal with. Web developers, of course, can observe these exceptions and modify code accordingly, but I haven't seen concerns that the exceptions themselves are unclear.

Daniel (Moderator):
Well that wraps things up for today's chat. I'd like to thank all of our guests for joining us today, and especially thank you to our Experts for answering so many great questions! Our next IE8 chat will be on August 14th-- same time: http://www.microsoft.com/communities/chats/default.mspx

Kristen [MSFT] (Expert):
Thank you all for joining today! Talk to you next month :)

Allison [MSFT] (Expert):
Thanks for the questions! Bye!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Until next time!

Richard [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: will the Aug.14th chat be before or after the Beta 2 release ;-)
A: To Steve_web [81] ... Releasing IE8 Beta 2 in August is all that's announced at this time. :)

Harel Williams[MSFT] (Moderator):
Later guys! Good times.

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