Microsoft enlists WSUS, ex-Superman, and puke in IE8 push

Microsoft will start injecting Internet Explorer 8 into large organizations through its Windows Server Update Services beginning at the end of August. The latest edition of Microsoft's browser will be available for download through WSUS as part of an update roll-out from August 25, Microsoft has said. WSUS lets system …

[Anonymous Coward]

Gee.

That's an incredibly bad idea...

[ElReg!comments!Pierre]

Gap?

"Firefox 3.5 closes the gap on IE 8 with features such as private viewing and the ability to spin up extra tabs without straining memory."

Yeah, these folks at MS are clever. How did they come up with this tabs idea? I'm sure glad Firefox's catching up!

[Anonymous Coward]

No Forced IE8? Our IE6-Compliant Intranet Thanks You.

Oh good. Corps don't have to install IE8. That way their huge intranet that was foolishly designed and developed years ago in a way that would only work right in IE6 won't have to be rewritten just yet.

Frankly, I think Microsoft should force the download and install. :)

[Will Godfrey]

Hmmm

For a moment I read that abreviation as WUSS

[frymaster]

Re:Gap?

Aye, unless that's a poorly-worded reference to the previous point about FF taking market share from IE, it makes no sense. I'm an IE user by choice - but only because I'm used to and comforatble with it. While IE has some unique features I'd be the first to admit FF has more

[Anonymous Coward]

OMGIGP

The OMGIGP ad seems to be inspired by some weird and skanky Jap p0rn.

And with Bing being The search engine for video porn (beating down firewalls and proxies), it seems clear...

That old devil Steve Balmer is as much a dirty old bastard as the regular El Reg reader..

[Chris Beach]

Just got IE6

bah, we've just got IE6 too...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't get it

WSUS makes it ludicrously easy to block installation of IE8 - simply don't approve it.

On the other hand, it would be very convenient if I could roll it out now, should I want to, rather than suffer from the wonderful mix of IE 6, 7 and 8 that the company has (I don't want to deploy IE7 to everyone now, that would be pointless).

I know I can deploy a customised install via Group Policy, but that's not the ideal way of doing it...

*sigh*

[Anonymous Coward]

Consumers?

Haven't most consumers basically upgraded to IE8 even if they've not realised. I just don't see what those adverts are trying to do, or who they're trying to sell to.

If they'd wanted to do PSA type adverts then they really needed to enlist Mr Cholmondley-Warner, then they might at least have been funny rather than just disturbing.

[Anonymous Coward]

Not much of a story

Nothing comes through WSUS that can't be be put on hold so MS isn't really forcing IE8 on those who use WSUS which includes SmallBusinessServer users (small businesses)

[Geoff Mackenzie]

Actually, in fairness

Based on my limited testing with MSIE 8, the backward compatibility is not bad at all. People really should test and deploy this; IE6 deserves to be wiped out.

(Firefox using Linux fanboy / MS hater myself, but me and IE8 have a common enemy).

[Doug Glass]

Exactly What You'd Expect ...

... from a bunch of impotent corporate suits doing their best, albeit pitiful, imitation of real people and how they think. Too bad their very best is still a laughable Microsoft "Group Think"*. The same kind of group think among the anointed at NASA that doomed the shuttle Challenger.

This crap will never do what Microsoft wants it to do, but then they'll never know it. They'll just have a celebration, congratulate themselves all over again and thereby continue the process of failure without knowing.

* In non corporate terms, "Group Think" = "Cluster F**k"

[Colin Morris]

Browser Fail

Sorry for the annoying You Tube-esq, teenage US college boy-esq title of this comment but why are MS pushing IE8 when it fails the ACID3 test miserably with a score nearer to zero than 100?

[Mark Dowling]

You can install IE8 via WSUS already

You just have to manually add it from the Windows Catalog to your WSUS server.

[Anonymous Coward]

You would think that ...

... MS would have worked out how to get IE updated on its own fricking OS while still leaving the user with a working copy of IE 6 (for compatibility reasons) by now but, oh no, here we all are stuck with a complete dog turd of a browser just so our corp can continue to be based back in the dark days of the 90s. What a bunch of wankers.

[Tim J]

IE8? No need, we've got IE6...

...and that's as good as internet browsers are ever going to get - that's what Microsoft themselves said circa 2003 - how *can* it possibly get any better, it's at the end of the evolutionary chain. Wait, don't tell me I'm living in the past again...