IE7 will require Windows XP

The way I read it on the MS site, you'll need XP with SP2 installed to run IE7. In view of all the problems SP2 has caused and people having to remove it or simply not install it in the first place, I can well see many more XP users turning to Opera or Firefox to keep up to date with the latest features.

"Guess someone'll offer a service that provides screenshots of one's works in various browsers."

Yep. http://browsercam.com

Well, it's pretty sad that IE7 will be an XP-only thing.

From the standpoint of a hobbyist when it comes to HTML, XHTML, and CSS, this isn't all that fair to us who can't, won't, or don't use WinXP.

I don't want to plop down USD$200+ for XP Pro (sorry, but I dislike 'home' editions), plus the time it takes to reinstall all of my old software, plus the time it takes me to reconfigure said software to get it working the way I had it... just to get my hands on a new browser.

I'm content with my copy of Win2000 SP4, and don't want to change unless security issues force my hands.

I'll stick to Firefox, consider trying Opera again and see if the interface isn't so "meh", and go from there. Guess someone'll offer a service that provides screenshots of one's works in various browsers. :P

I love the anti-MS paranoia here. So IE7 only runs on XP - big deal. What do you want them to do. Develop for a 10 year old OS? Cripple their new products to ensure they work with old machines and obsolete OSs?

{{TjL writes: Opera and Firefox both have no problem running on older versions of Windows. The only reason why Internet Explorer does not is that they have, stupidly, integrated it into the OS, which causes security problem even if you do not use Internet Explorer. There's no reason why a browser can't work even on Windows 95, as Opera does. No paranoia, just astonished that so many people are willing to drink the Kool-aid.}}

Everyone should uninstall IE, it took me about half a day, but I did it.

I don't where this hate for IE came from. I think it's quite good to access Windows Update and Office Update. And some people say it even has some features that allow to access the Internet, although in a basic way...

So I don't think we should talk about this in here. This is a site about browsers, like Opera, Firefox or Safari, not Windows Management Utilities.

It's obvious that MS wants us to use XP. And they need to trick us into using XP by restricting Software for XP-usage. IE7 is not the only piece of Software, there's this Movie Maker (which i wouldn't use anyway, there's VirtualDub, hehe) and some more examples. I think there's even a DirectShow Filter available only in WinXP.

Just my opinion, but I don't care what version of OS or IE MS releases. Like many, I'm through with them. No need to explain to this group, you know why people come to this conclusion. When I needed to replace the old ME box I searched for a PC with no OS installed. With no time to build my own, I bought a Dell server, installed Yoper Linux and added Opera. Opera works well with this distro. I'm now learning how to use Linux with all the time I'm saving not having to daily update a half dozen programs to keep windows safe. Like I said, just my opinion...

Microsoft can shove it, if it wern't for the fact that most user software is made for win32, I wouldn't have anything to do with microsoft.

Recently and as always I have been play'n with alternate shells for MS OS and nothing has quite been right. However I did play with Opera6 once and had it running as my shell. It was very intersting to see a marked improvement in my systems overall performance and stability. Unfortunatly I'm not that good at messin around with software and making major mods.

Point is...I really hope to see Opera creat a nice lite weight shell to replace the exsisting MSwindows shell and add emulation to win98 as to support products that will not install in win98 (that require winXP). Microsoft seems to be providing fanancial support to software writers and producers to only support winXP. I have noticed in the past few months that more and more software states that it cannot be installed on my OS, of caurse I always mannage to trick it into installing one way or another with positive results and find there is absolutly no reason why it can't be installed on win9x systems.... I don't know about everyone else but this kinda bull is ticking me off.

My request is to Opera software to work towards a shell replacement for windows and maybe an operating system of their own someday (win32 compatable).

It does not seem to matter to me.

Having an excelent comercial browser such as Opera, and a great ones based on Gecko, a new version of IE will only make sense to newies.

internet explorer, like windows itself is a most irritating piece of software. unfortunately i cannot yet migrate to linux as the mandrake 10 dvd i got with a linux magazine cannot be read when a new package is to be installed and it fails to pick up on all the hardware on the old machine i use for experimenting with.

i downloaded opera on the recommendation of a friend having tried both firefox, which, except for the infuriating 'the page contains no data' and mozillla, to which the same applied, drove me to hope for something more consistent and with perhaps better help files. opera delivers in spades. where i need it to it holds my hand like a baby and leads me to where i want to go.

of this i heartily approve.

one of the more detestable aspects of microsoft products is the insistence that the user do it the microsoft way. like frank, i'll do it in mine.

already, having only had broadband for a couple of weeks, i have been able to zip around the universe and take a look at some of the websites available. i only went to apple because quicktime came with my laptop and it offered to update itself, something i have consistently refused to do whilst on dial-up as all i ever seemed to do on dial-up was update my protection.

to describe my reaction as jaw-dropping is to understate the case. i saw how well mac-users are looked after. everything is laid out with stunning clarity and sublime elegance. i followed a few links with regard to upgrading software and could do it without recourse to helpfiles.

opera's own site is cool and easy on the eye, bright without being garish. i have seen a significant change in the tenor and tone of a number of websites. they have become infinitely more appealing.

finally returning to the point, i have installed xp on a 233mhz machine with 6gb hd, 96mb ram and it runs fine. i shoved in another hard disk slaved to the cd/dvd rom which i passed along when i upgraded to an all round whizz drive lg.

runs fine, if a bit slow.

linux runs all right too, subject to the proviso mentioned earlier.

as to ie7 and the decree from on high that it shall run in xp - stuff that. there is a multitude of better, completely free browsers, standalone and integrated into packages such as realplayer, winamp, quicktime and itunes.

i've always liked and admired bill gates. i nicknamed him supernerd because he is such a clever chap and he spotted gaps in the market and used his chutzpah to forcefeed the rest of the world through that megalithic moron ibm (when it was) as a result, we still have an operating system devised by some idiot in whose considered opinion it was that 1 (ONE)mg ram was all that anybody would ever need or want.

i still like and admire him, but i'll be damned if i obey his dicta.

i hate, loathe, detest and calumniate internet explorer. it has a nasty habit of crashing when i'm doing something interesting, like i've just found a rivetting site, but haven't bookmarked it. now i've lost the url and will have to hunt around for it.

enough. i'm more or less rid of it. i saw opera. i fell in love. 30 days to become an opera lover?

30 seconds for me.

internet explorer, any version, go fall in the dustbin.

j.

ps. on preview i see that this is one long indegestible paragraph, whereas i put in lots of spaces. i suppose i shall have to learn html formatting, when i learn what it is.

j.

XP is such a resource sucker, though. I think that's a load of bull. IE 7, only for XP users? I recently switched from Firefox to Opera because I found Opera to be more tasteful to my liking. (Plus, I like the side panels, EMail, and RSS feeds.)

Another reason for staying with Windows 2000 is the simple fact that it runs faster than Windows XP when using AMD Athlon CPUs. Last time i dual-installed WinXP next to my Win2K i ran about 10 different benchmarks on both operating systems which were situated on the same exact comp, both fully upgraded. The results showed a 20% increase in graphics power and a 50% drop in cpu power...

Pretty good reson to keep 2K running as far as I'm concerned.

THE BEST OPORTUNITY FOR OPERA AND OTHER BROWSERS.......

Promote Opera please. The marketing it's all alternative browsers need. It's the oportunity to take advantage of/on/about MS-IE. Sorry I don't speak english, I speak spanish, I live in Uruguay-SouthAmerica, and a few people can buy a new pc (in Uruguay... Windows XP=U$S140=prohibitive cost)

I have a 5 year old laptop that came with Windows 2000 on it (and only because I refused to let the Dell Sales Guy talk me into using Windows 98SE, which he tried really hard to do). Because I know how to tweak it, I can run Windows XP on it... but do I really need anything XP has to offer? Not really. The only reason I upgraded was because where I work we were able to get a discount on a bulk purchase (about the only feature I use is Remote Desktop which I’ve mentioned several times before.

Also, thinking beyond single users, what about places like schools and businesses? What is in XP that they need? Very little. Adoption of XP was much slower than anticipated. Why? Because Windows 2000 did what they needed to do.

Microsoft is driving sales of XP not just to individual consumers who can plop down $500 for a new computer, but to companies who have much larger installations of Windows machines.

Recently I was at a school where they were running Windows 95 and 98 and old versions of IE5. This is bad for everyone (less secure, less web standards). There are a lot of them out there. But the price of new computers is prohibitive, plus the loss of time getting them setup the way they want, etc.

Having to get a new computer to get a secure browser isn’t free. Fortunately of course, they don’t have to, they can use Opera (and, if their hardware isn’t too old, Firefox).

Perhaps what this speaks to even more than the problem of the price is that the browser is tied to closely to the operating system that you can be vulnerable even if you don’t use it.

I don't know, I'm a big supporter of Opera and definitely not a supporter of IE, but, this argument seems like a pretty big stretch. A "normal user" is already going to be running Windows (no, I just really don't see Aunt Susie booting Red Hat, in which case she wouldn't be using IE, anyway), and chances are, they've gotten a new computer since XP came out 4 years ago that comes with XP on it and is able to run it just fine.

Nor does it seem likely that someone running a Pentium 233MHz computer with 32 megs of RAM and Win98 is really going to care about a new version of IE, or want to upgrade to XP specifically for it. Heck, even if you do, you can get something adequate for less than $500.

There are much better arguments to be made against IE. "Prohibitive cost" of running Windows XP is simply not one of them. It smacks of grasping at straws and fanboyism, providing no service to getting people to switch.

I think this could be an excellent marketing opportunity for opera, if they're trying to take on IE. Then the nesxt thing they should do is take on Firefox, by making another browser with a very simple interface similar to IE's and filled with only the features that regular end users require.

{{radonX: I don’t know if you were being serious, but I read this as being sarcastic [my apologies if I was wrong, but since you did not include a valid email address, I had no way to check with you].

if you read the reviews of Opera8, you will see that the vast majority of reviewers think that Opera8 has a much better feel than previous versions. Personally I liked the old way where you saw more of Opera’s features initially, but Opera found that it overwhelmed the majority of users. So they changed to give the users what they wanted. I agree that having all of the browsers look nearly similar is unfortunate, but it seems to be what most people want. -- TjL}}

Randy - sure, that is an option, but it will hinder standards adoption and will be less secure than IE7.

Hopefully IE6 [SP1] will remain a viable and supported option for those who still want to use IE. And it works on Win98 and higher.