Microsoft has released Internet Explorer7 last week, with a whole bunch of new features mainly focusing on security and "internet safety". Currently it's available from the Microsoft site as a download, but as of November 1st (or there abouts) it will be added to the critical updates that most windows xp systems download and install on your computer (if you have the updates set to automatically download).
If you don't want the download to happen automatically, you have a couple of options. For the technically savy, you can download a "installation blocking kit" from microsoft that will remove it from the critical install, or you can set your update option to "download the updates, but let me choose when to install them". Then when you get the little yellow shield down in the system tray (beside the time) you can click to say install now, but chose the CUSTOM method, and deselect the IE7 update. If you chose EXPRESS then it will install it for you automagically.
I have been evaluating this new release for the past week so that I can offer my clients advise on whether or not to install it, I'll share my observations here:
First thoughts, I'm quite liking it. The tabs are a welcome addition, as during the day I'll have a dozen (sometimes more) windows open so to have them in tabs is very welcome. The new security features look for suspicious aspects of the website your going to, such as phishing attempts, non matching certificates, etc.
They have decluttered the top menu bar, so it gives more "screen real estate" to the actual webpage that you're looking at.
It seems to be a bit faster at loadup than version6 is, and you can define mulitple home pages. Not sure about that feature yet, but it's there if you want to use it.
Favourites (bookmarks) come up in it's own window, and disappears quite easily as well.
I've tested Citrix, MS web based apps (CRM if you're interested), DB driven websites, TD Bank, PCFinancial, Royal Bank, and various other "specialized" sites that might have a problem with it, so far there has been no compatibility issues that I've noticed.
Of course, the 7days website comes up clean :D
the only "glitch" that I've noticed so far, is that some pages that are coded to open in a new browser will actually open in a NEW browser, as opposed to a new TAB, including 7days. It may be a setting with in IE, or it may require some minor updates to the code on the site. I'll look into that a bit further.
If you're going to do the update, make sure you run all of the critical updates to your system first, otherwise the install program will do that, and it adds considerable time to the install. (they should all be done already, right? ;) )
Make a copy of your favourties (bookmarks) folder, just in case. you can find them at c:\documents and settings\{your user name}\favourites (where {your user name} is the name that you logon to your computer with.
Simplest way to do that would be to create a folder on C:\ called TEMP or BACKUP and then go to the area listed above, do a right click and copy on the favourites folder, then navigate to the C:\TEMP folder and do a paste into it. I've yet to hear of it trashing that folder, but better to be safe than sorry.
The install will require a reboot so make sure you do this install with everything closed, especially the current Internet Explorer program, otherwise it will nag you incessently to close it so that it can update the files.
if you have any other questions, post them here.
