Windows Internet Explorer 8 Expert Zone Chat (June 18, 2009)

Chat Topic: Windows Internet Explorer 8 Expert Zone Chat
Date: Thursday, June 18, 2009

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

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

Introductions:

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

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi! I'm Frank, a user experience program manager on the IE team - I work on add-ons mostly.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Hey, everybody, I'm Eric and I work on IE security and some other stuff. ;-)

Jacob [MSFT] (Expert):
Hi I'm Jacob and I'm a PM on developer experience and object model. And I'm late, but I got a donut. :)

Start of chat:

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Hi there can anyone help out with something that just started to happen with my outlook 2003, when I click on an attachment it opens the application software need it for it, but then I get a error message "The system cannot find file specified"
A: Sorry, you'll need to ask the Outlook team about that type of problem.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What do you think of Acid 3 ? Do you expect IE9 having a good score on it ?
A: At this point, we're interested in getting feedback from the development community about the features and scenarios most important to them. While ACID3 is a widely cited benchmark, it wasn't developed to be representative of developers' needs.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Has Chris Wilson already left the IE Team? or is he still around?... and who gets to fill his shoes?
A: Chris is still wearing his shoes; he's working on browser technologies at Microsoft, which as you might imagine, means he's still working with us quite a bit.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Native W3C Event Listeners. They will be in IE9... correct?
A: Supporting the standard for event listeners is absolutely something we've seen requested from many developers outside (and inside) of Microsoft.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: what is windows live essentials? that is an addons right?
A: Windows Live Essentials is a suite of software - Photo gallery, movie maker, etc. Some of the software plugs in to IE (Live Toolbar, for example) You can pick the bits and pieces you want to install. Also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_Live_Essentials :)

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Windows Seven will not be delivered with IE. Don't you fear that the IE usage will become very thing after that ?
A: I'm afraid I don't understand your question. While it's correct that it's possible to disable IE in Windows 7, and to buy certain editions without it, most Windows 7 SKUs will have IE8 available out of the box. For those that don't, users may restore it if they wish.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What is this Marketing BS all about? http://digg.com/d1u7Az (IE8 claiming superiority over both Firefox and Chrome)
A: It's marketing. I already responded to this question on the blog, but it's fair to say that all browsers currently put forth their version of this chart on their websites.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When I visit a web page that wants to run an deactiveted AddOn, IE shows me in the bottom státus bar, that IE blocked an AddOn from running. So, how can I see _which_ AddOn tried to run?
A: Unfortunately, this isn't easy, but if you click the icon, you'll go to manage addons and see the list of disable addons.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: First ..I really like IE8 ..the enhancements in zoom rendering over IE7 are excellent ! I do have one concern about a possible bug with IE8 and Vista Mail (the orginal Vista Mail ..not Live Mail) ..
A: Thanks! We spent a lot of time making sure that zooming 'just works' - a lot of laptops have super-high-resolution screens these days, so zooming is essential. What is the Vista Mail issue?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Eric : I share your meaning about Acid 3. The problem is that others browsers get good points on it, and it's the main arguments to say IE is a 'bad' browser regarding to the standards. And this arguments is the most widely used arguments for IE.
A: Yes, we've noticed that some tend to focus on the arcana rather than real developer and user needs.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Whos "dumb" idea was it to remove favicons from the "smart" address bar? This *IS* a major step backward in usability
A: Thanks for the feedback.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Microsoft Australia is hosting a $10,000 contest that requires the use of IE8. They haven't declared this yet but is it because of a Web Standard that IE8 supports that others don't or is it some lame IE proprietary thing? (e.g. not open standards)
A: The sweepstakes wasn't about web standards, it was about driving folks to install IE8. This is a standard task for marketing folks.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: ...It would be imo useful, if IE show me, when I hover over the "AddOn Blocked" Icon which AddOn excactly was blocked.
A: I agree.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Hi all... my first question... what is in store for IE9's development tools? Anything more Fiddler-like we could expect (a great tool BTW... EricLaw, I'm looking at you)?
A: We've got a bunch of different proposals, but I'm mostly interested in learning what you find lacking today and hope to see in 9.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Eric : In Europe, many computers will have IE not installed by default, reportedly, but a browser at the choice of the manufacturer. It may be another browser. It will be if Google is ready to pay...
A: I think it's a little early to predict the future here, but it's always been our goal to provide Windows users with full choice of what browser they use. Since Windows XP, it's been possible to fully hide IE if desired.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: EricLaw, excatly. But I want know, which one was blocked. Simply, because I disable unused AddOns. So, in the last few days I went to a Microsoft website, which doesn't worked for me, due to a disabled AddOn.. try to find out which it was of the 100 AOs..
A: Wow, I haven't heard of so many disabled. Good scenario, thanks.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: does MSFT acknowledge that there is an intermittent bug with Vista Mail users who have installed IE8 (unable to open email attachments) ??
A: What type of attachments and what specifically happens?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When can we expect some posts about IE9 on the IEBlog? When Windows 7 ships or when?
A: We'll be posting more when we have plans that folks will be interested in and that we can confidently share. Currently, I can say we're hard at work taking feedback, planning, and, of course, finishing up IE8 on Win7.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw, the HTTP headers view and timeline views mostly really... Firebug has them on by default, and to get them in IE, you need IE8 + Fiddler + the timeline add-on
A: Good to know, thanks. This comes up pretty often and we know folks are interested. FWIW, Fiddler now ships with the timeline view by default.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Feature request for future versions of IE: Please support CSS 3 Media Queries. It is now a Candidate Recommendation - http://www.w3.org/TR/css3-mediaqueries/
A: Thanks for the suggestion.

Jacob [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: When I click on about IE or view privacy summery a new IE windows will appear in my toolbar , any idea why?
A: I'm not sure what you mean by this. Could you clarify what you mean by "new IE windows will appear in my toolbar?"

Matt H [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: IE8 Crash Mode doesn't work sometimes. I couldn't restore all opened web pages and it's real pain. Do you think add a feature like "Previous Tabs". Because "Last Opened Tabs" not useless when you reopen explorer.
A: Not sure I follow your question....I believe we have that feature as 'Reopen Last Browsing Session' (under Tools)

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I have a aspnet application, this application limits user sessions to 1 per user.With The new session sharing model ie8 its dificult to detect ending session.Users logon, open several windows and tabs, then close all tabs, all windows, except one tab.
A: Session state sharing isn't really new to IE8; you'd see the same thing in IE7/6/5 if the user opened a new tab or window.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Understood about the marketing of IE8 to try and drive installs... but from a world-full of developers pushing open web standards.... there's gonna be a bunch of complaints flying around if this is proprietary stuff....
A: I think it's fair to say that all browser teams try to get users to adopt their latest version. Whether it's trying to set a record, or running a sweepstakes, or the like. I certainly hope we pull lots of IE6 and IE7 users up to IE8.

Jacob [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Any way to detect last closing tab?
A: If you accidentally close a tab, CTRL+SHIFT+T will reopen your last closed tab. Also, the "What do you want to do next?" page that appears when creating a new tab gives you options to reopen closed tabs.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: there are dozens of threads about this problem in google group microsoft.public.windows.vista.mail
A: Feel free to shoot me an email pointing at the best thread with the best repro steps. thanks!

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What is the strategy for IE9 for compatibility mode(s)? Will IE9 drop all support for IE7/IE8 rendering? Or will users/devs be confused with yet another compat option?
A: It is probably a bit too early to fully answer this question yet :) wrt IE8's default standards-mode rendering: That (and more) will obviously be in IE9, and standards-based markup will be rendered correctly. Wrt IE7 rendering, imo it depends on if IE7 rendering mode is still needed on the web/on the intranet.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: On which thing will you the most focus for IE9 ? GUI / CSS 3 / HTML 5 / XHTML / Browser Speed ? IE7 was GUI/HTML/CSS, IE 8 CSS2.1/GUI, what can we expect for IE 9 ?
A: I don't know that I'd necessarily agree with your summary of IE7 and IE8 (for instance, you didn't mention our major investments in security), but it's fair to say that we have requests for all of these areas and many more. Our goal, to cite MattCrow, is to deliver an "awesome" IE9.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Now that @font-face is being implemented widely I'm wondering why - at larger sizes - most fonts get an extreme case of the jaggies. Why no vertical anti-aliasing? Looks awful. Makes Flash and Photoshop a necessity and it shouldn't be.
A: Hi Fontman - could you point to some examples? I'd like to fully understand the issue

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: How do you explain the need of the need to use the Compatibility View on some webpages that otherwise would go blank ? It this a known bug or a really a feature ?
A: Please read Scott's blog post on the topic, currently up on the IEBlog. The short answer is that cases where the page would render blank demonstrate (generally very obscure) bugs, and automatically using Compatibility View to bypass the bug is a feature.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: the MVP's are telling most people that the only solution is to uninstall IE8 or convert to Windows Live Mail
A: Odd...I'll follow up with the mail team; You do get an updated webOC (browser control) when you install IE8, but it should not break apps...

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: The security fix for IE8 that was supposed to improve performance when SpyBot or similar was installed (adding sites to the restricted zone). The update made no noticeable difference on any WinXP box I've tested. New tabs still open slower than molasses !
A: The fix for the ZoneMapping code wasn't a security fix, it was a performance fix that applied only to folks with thousands of sites in their manually-mapped zone lists. If this didn't describe your config, then this would not impact you. I'm not aware of any performance regressions reported in the set of fixes delivered; but if you can send me more info about your config, addons, and how slow "molasses" is, I'm happy to look into it.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: ok ..its an intermittent problem ...not reproducible at will ...but it seems to affect many people
A: odd...I'll look into it. Thanks for reporting it.

Allison [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: about Q20, I mean taskbar botton. When I open internet explorer a Internet explorer will appear in my taskbar , but in same Window when I do those actions it will become 2 taskbar botton( it seems I open 2 internet explorer windows but I open 1).
A: Please file a bug on this in the Technical Beta Program on Microsoft Connect. Please include screenshots.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: You already have SVG suggested many times... let me add to that a request without which SVG support wouldn't be as nice - http://beta.w3.org/TR/2007/CR-WICD-20070718/ (or to put it simply - SVG in <img/> and background-image)
A: Interesting suggestion, thanks.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: is there any way to detect last closing tab of a certin web site?
A: Not easily, no. You can watch onunload events, but associating them with all of the onloads is non-trivial.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Eric : I just have read that post. It's why I'm asking that. I was not really understand #why# the page goes blank...
A: When IE's rendering engine contains a code bug, an "assertion failure" may occur. This aborts the rendering process, and results in the blank page, and we'll recover. We fixed the vast majority of these failures between Beta-2 and RTM, and we use the Watson program to collect data on any lingering problems.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: is it true that IE8 has a bug?
A: no

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
A: lol

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: is it true that IE8 has a bug?
A: We're currently investigating reports that IE may contain a bug. :-)

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Re: Molasses - Long story short. Openning a new tab or site shows "Connecting..." for 5-10 times longer than any other browser takes to open a new tab or site. In Firefox,Chrome, Safari & Opera its instantaneous. "In IE8 you have to wait"
A: 5-10x longer, meaning ... 50 to 100ms? Or 5 seconds? Or...

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: VML - along with Canvas on FF - has become a platform for rendering text in products like Cufón. Far superior for text replacement than Flash or background images. But right now, it can't be selected. Is this fixable. Are you open to a fresh look?
A: If you're asking for further investments in VML technology that would be good to know. We've definitely had requests to implement Canvas support, although I can't tell if you're suggesting that text rendered to a Canvas bitmap should be somehow selectable?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: could you please make UI for custom zone more nicer? like add increment bar as well such as icrease volume in Windows.
A: I'm not sure I understand your question. IE doesn't support "Custom Zones". I'm not sure what you'd do with an "Increment bar" in the existing Zone Management UI?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: 5-10x longer meaning... as soon as I type CTRL+T (bang!) its there in other browsers. In IE8 its as if IE needs to communicate with the moon before starting... in reality likely less than 3 seconds... but when users expect it to be instant...
A: In a normal case, we expect you should see new tabs ready in less than 300ms or so. How long do your tabs take when you run in No Addons mode? What AV engine do you run?

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: Are there any plans for a new add-on architecture? The larger part of IE8 end-user issues seem to be related to poorly written add-ons, so I'd guess this should be on your agenda...
A: We are considering it with our other feature work for IE8 (and, I agree with you, it's important). Our current add-on model is difficult to write for and, in many cases, lends itself to the creation of unperformant/unreliable add-ons which put a damper on the user experience.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: About opening a new tab speed, in my old computer it takes less than one second to open one on FF, and 3-4 seconds on IE8
A: In a normal case, we expect you should see new tabs ready in less than 300ms or so. How long do your tabs take when you run in No Addons mode? What AV engine do you run?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I can confirm that the most annoying thing in IE is the time needed to get a tab opened. In Chrome or Safari, it's instantly. In IE, it can take between 1 and 6 seconds. It seems the key factor too huge data to put into the memory from the drive. (it seems
A: In a normal case, we expect you should see new tabs ready in less than 300ms or so. How long do your tabs take when you run in No Addons mode? What AV engine do you run?

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Q45 sorry, I mean custom zoom not zone. sorry for misspell.
A: Ah, gotcha. Try holding down the ctrl key and using your mouse scroll wheel...

Matt H [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: If we report website as unsafe then are you investigate it for click jacking as well?
A: The SmartScreen Filter (and associated service) is used to protect users from phishing and malware sites.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What are the plans for HTML5 support in the next version of IE, including the video and audio tags?
A: The HTML5 spec isn't finished yet, but IE8 introduced support for some of its further along features, and we've gotten lots of feedback from developers about various parts of HTML5 that they'd like to see in IE9. Thx!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: 2 Key things. No user on this planet is going to run their browser in no-addons mode so using that as a baseline is just not right. and second, the same AV and Anti-spyware runs when I use Firefox or Chrome. FTR, AVG 8 (no link checking) and SpyBot
A: Actually, a significant number of AV engines behave very differently with IE than other browsers. I run with a pretty normal set of extensions and see new tabs ready in under 200ms.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw: >I can't tell if you're suggesting that text rendered to a Canvas bitmap should be somehow selectable? Yes. It isn't selectable as an image, so why not as the text it's rendering? Necessary to make it a viable, accessible siFr-like technique.
A: That's a very interesting suggestion...Thanks for the suggestion.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Eric : Most of the time, it's 500/700 ms. Addons seems to explain 150ms on my computer. But sometimes, it's much longer (when the drive is more busy). I don't have this problem on Chrome.
A: 500-700ms is longer than we'd like, but certainly not unheard of. Updating to the latest versions of addons may help. How much memory do you have?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Q50, so I suggest to add something that user could report click jacking and CSS injection as well.
A: Generally, these are site bugs which would need to be reported to the site owner. Right now, the SmartScreen feedback loop doesn't have that capability, but I agree it would be interesting.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: I have a spooler problem. I have called brother printer company because I couldn't print out from computer. She told me to uninstall brother driver and install it. It still doesn't work. There is spooler error#5, access is denied. Could you tell me how sol
A: I'm afraid you'll have to ask this type of question in a different forum. We can only really help you with browser problems.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Is support for animated PNGs into consideration, or is the fact that it's a Mozilla spec disturbing you (legal issues and all...)?
A: This is probably the 2nd request I've seen for animated PNGs. Have you filed a request on Connect?

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: That said, I can reproduce the slowness on a PC without either of those 2 apps or equivalents.
A: Are you using a proxy server?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw, I don't have writing permissions in Connect (I did once applied at that email though...)
A: Interesting, thanks. I'll be sure the right folks know about your request.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: as for my setup... I have only Adobe's PDF addon installed... all others are DISABLED. (since I can't remove them from the IE interface!) Pls tell me that this will be fixed in IE9 (the ability to UNINSTALL extensions from within IE)
A: This is something we're looking into for IE9; we're also working with application developers and OEMs to ensure that IE is running in a good environment.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: when i open my IE8 its very slow and sometimes i need to go to safe mode with networking to be able to access the internet, why is that happening?
A: Have you tried running on no add-ons mode to check to see if it's an extension causing the issue? Start IE from the command line using: iexplore.exe -extoff

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: suggest: possibility to drag one tab from one IE Windows to another IE Windows .
A: Thanks for the suggestion!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: how do you see future app going, browser (html,javascript,ajax) or more sofisticated silverlight, or smart client?
A: All of the above.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Can we expect any of Microsoft's XML work being intergrated into IE9? MSXML 6.0 in particular comes to mind... and I'd also really love some XSLT 2.0 and XPath 2.0 support (XSLT is my favorite language), though my hopes for that are really low...
A: Well, MSXML is exposed as an ActiveX control, so you can use it in IE already. In terms of replacing the default XML handling-- it's something that we look at, but unfortunately, there are some compat implications in some scenarios.

Jacob [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: How high of a priority is improving javascript performance compared to other planned features? This is something commonly compared between browsers and I hate seeing IE always behind Firefox, Chrome & Safari.
A: JavaScript is one of the many things that affect performance of web sites. We'll continue to make improvements in all aspects of performance. Thanks for the suggestion.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Eric : I've only 1.37Go RAM memory on AMD Sempron 1.6Gz; . I plan to buy a new computer, but I don't have many money to spend on that...
A: That should actually be all you need. Are you on XP or Vista? How much free memory do you typically have?

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: BTW, Animated PNG would be cool to have as GIF are not supporting full transparency...
A: Yup, Animated PNG would have a number of benefits. Of course, it wouldn't work in most users' browsers in the near term.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: nope, no proxy (and again, repro-able on several PCs)
A: Very odd...we'll have to look into your scenario a bit; we know from telemetry that opening a tab is quick for users (that don't have slow add-ons installed)

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Actually, considering that there are so many reported issues with the speed of new tabs and the like, would you consider offering an IE version for your Connect contributors that has debugging enabled... (e.g. just a log of times and events to help you
A: Generally, building "one-off" builds is prohibitively hard for us. Rest assured that we have quite a few machines available to us that we investigate. As mentioned, addons are the primary cause of slowness, but we continue to investigate performance from end-to-end.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: How happy are you internally when comparing all aspects of browsers agins competition. (ahead of the crowd or behind in all aspects) which do you see as the most competitive?
A: Right now, I believe IE7 is the market-leader that we're competing with.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: On the mobile side, the BlackBerry and iPhone browsers are stomping all over mobile IE... is this going to get an upgrade? and if so to IE6 level, IE7 level or IE8 level?
A: The Mobile IE team is hard at work to offer an improved browsing experience.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Hi, official shoe tree here.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @Eric: WinXP, SP3.
A: Good to know, thanks. Generally, you might try typical PC-optimization strategies (remove unneeded software, update to latest versions, defrag the hard drive, etc).

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: It now seems that with a little more CSS3 support, and THE NECESSARY JAVASCRIPT EVENTS AND PROPERTIES, IE can become a very capable E-Reader. I'm tired of having to turn to special apps like Stanza, etc... Any thoughts along those lines? :D
A: IE aims to be a very capable browser for a wide variety of scenarios; reading is one of those.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Have you had time to look into the VML performance issues? At least one of the particularly slow cases seems to have been addressed in the version that came with Windows 7 RC, but it still exists in the official XP SP3 + IE8 Virtual PC image.
A: I'm not sure if you had submitted the initial test cases for VML performance, but I know that we made some fixes based on those test cases.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: I see IE's Platform Architect emeritus has joined us. Feelin' good?
A: Feelin' GREAT, Fontman. :)

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Are there plans for any *proprietary* features you can share (enough with standards already; lol)?
A: We're always interested in delivering a platform that users and developers will love. Right now, that often involves standards-related work. If there's some feature you'd like to see that's not yet a standard, certainly, propose away.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: maybe it could be great to allow us to make our own Webslices by choosing tables, cells, instead of using HTML tags from websites creator
A: It's a cool idea, and something investigated in IE8. The challenge with this approach is that it tends to be comparatively fragile, as the site may change and completely break any "user slices" created this way.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert)
:Q: MSIA software from http://www.microsoft.com/resources/sam/msia.mspx casue several problems in IE8 . after install it some windows will not show anything. did you notice that?
A: My team hasn't seen these issues...but I'll follow up with MSIA - thanks for reporting it.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw, anything 3D comes to mind?
A: I'm pretty sure there are a number of 3D proposals working their way through standards organizations.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What do you feel, that IE team can provide a better thant Webkit, even Google who just came like last year tops whole lot browsers, including a decade old IE?
A: I'm not sure I understand the question.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: what is the ie recomended way of creating watermarks for input text boxes?
A: check out this demo: http://www.xfunda.com/demo/demo1.htm you can just use a very light background imge in a text box

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: as for the proprietary stuff... I'll give you one.... I'd like to know from the JavaScript layer if Windows has been "themed" or not... so that when I provide "special" controls I can try and match up the look and feel.
A: Interesting suggestion, thanks.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: CSS Rounded corners in IE9? - I know you can only say "we'd like to" but please tell us that there is a descent chance of this making it in ;-)
A: We'd like to :) it's way too early in the process to give you an answer on it though.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: How soon IE team can provide an engine that is faster than webkit and V8?
A: Actually, that's more than one engine; there's at least the layout engine, the rendering engine, and a Javascript engine. But yes, we're certainly aware of the competitive engines you mention.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: is there any kinda release date for IE9 ? :p
A: yes.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw, Q78: When are the fixes going to make it to the official/stable version? Also, are you accepting more test cases?
A: I'm always happy to get test cases, shoot them my way at any time. If you're asking about if/when VML improvements would be back ported to IE8 on down level platforms, I'm afraid I don't have any info on that topic.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
Q: Will IE team can build a framework that makes building extensions more easily?

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: @mattcrow, and I suppose you can't share that date yet, yes?
A: yes.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
A: :)

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What do you think about Google chrome? They just came like last year and topping all charts in speed and simplicity design.
A: Google Chrome is a cool browser for Windows that takes advantage of some cool Windows Vista+ features, including Integrity levels and DACLs.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Hi, im having a software issue...We recently had a hard drive failure on one of our PC's here in the office. We lost all of our software including Microsoft Office. The disks for this software were lost in an office move.
A: I'm afraid you'll need to contact Microsoft support for that one; http://support.microsoft.com

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Will IE team can build a framework that makes building extensions more easily?
A: We already have some tools for enthusiasts for making IE add-ons (like SpicIE - http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/SpicIE) and (as always) we are looking into making this easier in the future.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: any way of adding thum nail (speed dial) view like opera, safari, chrome?
A: I believe the IE7Pro addon offers a feature similar to that Opera innovation. I haven't tried it in a long while though.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: "plug in crash" in safari, for example Flash, it doesn't crash the tab or the whole navigator, you just got box with a message instead of the Flash movie and you click on it to relaunch the plug in, it's pretty cool i guess.
A: lets break 100 questions everyone!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: What option should i use after clicking http://support.microsoft.com for best support?
A: You'll need to search for your issue (e.g. lost product key) and go from there.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: How soon you will be releasing an update that makes IE faster than now?
A: Soon.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: It's probably too early to ask, but on what Windows versions do you plan to release IE9 on? Is XP still in?
A: Sorry, but you're right, it is too early to ask.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: i am interested in building my own pc... but the problem am having is that am not sure which chip set would be better for me to use ... i have narrowed it down to the phonom x4 from amd .... but i wanted some expert advice .......
A: www.bing.com is a nice search engine where you can ask general questions of this nature. If you've got any IE questions, we're happy to answer them.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: you get the full support of CSS2 just with IE8, will you do the same about CSS3 for IE9 ?
A: CSS3 is made up of a variety of modules; some are in the candidate recommendation stage, and some are not yet draft. We've certainly got plenty of feedback about interest in CSS3.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Just a final suggestion for IE team. Please make a better browser with better layout engine, the rendering engine, and a Javascript engine.
A: We certainly aim to do that, and more.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: @EricLaw - simo and I will be ganging up on you about VML and/or Canvas - as a platform superior to Flash for text replacement. Please keep an open mind. I'll have published examples for next chat.
A: Feel free to send me mail when your samples are done.

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: "plug in crash" in safari, for example Flash, it doesn't crash the tab or the whole navigator, you just got box with a message instead of the Flash movie and you click on it to relaunch the plug in, it's pretty cool i guess.
A: IE8 does tab/process isolation, and any ActiveX crash should just cause the page to be reloaded (with all text that you've entered on the page). The 'box with a message' approach is another way of handling plugin crashes, but it has the disadvantage of getting the (scriptable) plugin out of sync with the page's javascript.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
Q: For add-ons, maybe you should try to add small HTML+JS addons. Maybe they could be 'compiled' when installed to run easier. JavaScript is the most used language of Web Devs. And WebDevs are the greatest Addons-creators...
A: HTML/JS/CSS addons are interesting and definately allow more people to build, debug addons (plus lend themselves to a safer and more performand experience)... so, i agree, and great suggestion. :)

Frank [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Thanks for continuing the dialog with these monthly chats. It's smart in all kinds of ways. ;)
A: Thanks - we enjoy the chats too :)

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Opening a new tab and tab switching is really slow in IE8. Is IE team aware of this and will take serious step towards it?
A: If you scroll up in the transcript, you'll see lots of information on this topic.

Daniel (Moderator):Well we're already out of time for today's chat. Thank you very much to all of our guests who joined us today as well as to our Experts for answering questions.

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: A simple question : Safari has chosen to make the 'Easy Hompepage'/'Speed Dial' a non-HTML page but a C++ control. It load very fastly because it don't need the browser to run. Will you consider that option for IE 9 ?
A: We believe browsers should be very fast for rendering HTML pages.

Chris Wilson [MS] (Expert):
So long, and thanks for all the donuts!

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

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Any plans to support w3c widgets?
A: Thanks for the suggestion.

Jacob [MSFT] (Expert):
Bye everyone, thanks again for some great questions.

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
alright, back to w3rk. We'll see you this time next month... bring your 1337 h4x0r skill$!

Matt H [MSFT] (Expert):
Q: Thanks for continuing the dialog with these monthly chats. It's smart in all kinds of ways. ;)
A: Thanks everyone

mattcrow [msft] (Expert):
bye :)

Matt [MSFT] (Expert):
Bye everyone. Thanks for all the questions and suggestions!

EricLaw [MSFT] (Expert):
cya!

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