IE7 and Web Standards

[Roy Schestowitz]

Paul Thurrott:

"Wilson's (IE Lead Program Manager) post is disappointing because Microsoft
doesn't plan to fully support the latest CSS standard in IE 7.0..."

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/...7208.html?Ad=1

Roy

[Jim Moe]

Harlan Messinger wrote:

IE7 is completely irrelevant to us and will be for at least another
5 years.

Why? Do you think it will be that long before it shows up on Windows
Update and comes loaded on all new standard-order Windows machines?

It will take that long before IE6 becomes not worth designing around.
Like Navigator v4.x is largely ignored now.
IE7 is mostly a bug fix release. At least that is how they are
portraying it at this time. Unless MS seriously bungles some aspect of
standards compliance, IE7 will just be another mostly conforming browser
with a quirk here and there. Not the PITA IE6 is.
IE7 is coming to *new* computers only, winXP sp2 and later. Not
everyone has Windows Update enabled, especially those on dialup lines.
(Typical update sizes start at 20 MiB.)

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[C A Upsdell]

Roy Schestowitz wrote:

C A Upsdell wrote:

Roy Schestowitz wrote:

>>Paul Thurrott:
>>"Wilson 's (IE Lead Program Manager) post is disappointing because
>>Microso ft
>>doesn't plan to fully support the latest CSS standard in IE 7.0..."
>>
> IE7 is completely irrelevant to us and will be for at least another 5
>years.

Why? Do you think it will be that long before it shows up on Windows
Update and comes loaded on all new standard-order Windows machines?

It only works under Windows XP or later. Most machines are still running
Windows 2000 (or something to that effect).

What source of stats do you depend on for your assertion that most
machines are still running Win2000? Stats I follow indicate that
Win2000 usage is at about 12%, and XP usage at about 65%.

Finally found it...

http://news.com.com/The+slow+road+to+Windows+XP/ ...
2100-1016_3-5746046.html?pa rt=rss&tag=5746 046&subj=news

(long URL so append lines and remove " ...")

It took me a while to find this again. I said "something to that effect"
because it speaks of businesses and I think it also refers to the States.

This June 14 article claims that "nearly half of business PCs are still
running the older Windows 2000." But many PCs are not business PCs.
There are various stats sources which indicate that the percentage for
all PCs is closer to 12%. See:

http://www.usgs.gov/server_stats/2005/www-06.html#os

http://www.thecounter.com/stats/2005/July/os.php

http://www.doctor-html.com/agent_stats/

This suggests to me that IE7 usage will grow considerably faster than
you expect.

An interesting perspective on this issue is that it took IE6 only 16
months to capture 50% of the browser market. And IE7 may grow much
faster if, as I would expect, it becomes an automatic update for
everyone with XP SP2 and up.

[Stuart Millington]

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 14:42:27 -0400, C A Upsdell
<""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

This June 14 article claims that "nearly half of business PCs are still
running the older Windows 2000." But many PCs are not business PCs.

If you are selling to business customers then that 50% is _very_
significant.

Although, MS's blogs indicate (possible) progress in IE7's standards
support, as long as it is XP only it's already failed IMO. YMMV.

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[C A Upsdell]

Stuart Millington wrote:

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 14:42:27 -0400, C A Upsdell
<""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

This June 14 article claims that "nearly half of business PCs are still
running the older Windows 2000." But many PCs are not business PCs.
If you are selling to business customers then that 50% is _very_
significant.

12% is significant regardless, but surely most significant for B2B
sites. and less so for other sites.
Although, MS's blogs indicate (possible) progress in IE7's standards
support, as long as it is XP only it's already failed IMO. YMMV.

If 65% have XP, and most people have set XP for automatic updates ...
don't you think that IE7 might spread a lot faster than (say) IE6 did?

[Eric B. Bednarz]

C A Upsdell <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

This June 14 article claims that "nearly half of business PCs are
still running the older Windows 2000." But many PCs are not
business PCs. There are various stats sources which indicate that
the percentage for all PCs is closer to 12%. See:

I totally agree that many PCs are not business PCs and don't have
Windows 2000 installed, but I much prefer to see things myself.
Everybody who's really interested in statistics should falsify his own.

When I try to recall the windows home installations I've seen this
year, I've seen XP two times, ME once, and the rest was all 98. :)

[Stuart Millington]

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 23:59:48 -0400, C A Upsdell
<""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

Stuart Millington wrote:

Although, MS's blogs indicate (possible) progress in IE7's standards
support, as long as it is XP only it's already failed IMO. YMMV.

If 65% have XP, and most people have set XP for automatic updates ...
don't you think that IE7 might spread a lot faster than (say) IE6 did?

For XP users, yes. But, to a smaller % of machines. Unlike previous
versions of IE, the use of IE7 on the significant % (whatever the %
is) of pre-XP machines will be zero. This is not good.

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[C A Upsdell]

Stuart Millington wrote:

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 23:59:48 -0400, C A Upsdell
<""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

Stuart Millington wrote:

Although, MS's blogs indicate (possible) progress in IE7's standards
support, as long as it is XP only it's already failed IMO. YMMV.

If 65% have XP, and most people have set XP for automatic updates ...
don't you think that IE7 might spread a lot faster than (say) IE6 did?

For XP users, yes. But, to a smaller % of machines. Unlike previous
versions of IE, the use of IE7 on the significant % (whatever the %
is) of pre-XP machines will be zero. This is not good.

I think that we are dealing with two populations: business PCs, and
personal PCs.

For the business PCs -- which, as was pointed out earlier, 48% still use
Win2000 -- PCs are replaced about every 4 years. This means that
Win2000 will become effectively extinct within 4 years.

For personal PCs, perhaps 10% use WinME or older, and most of the rest
use XP. I suspect that those using WinME or older will be replacing
their PCs fairly soon, as their current PCs are very old.

The bottom line, I think, is that natural attrition will fairly quickly
(say by 2008) have weeded out most of the Windows PCs that can't run IE7.

[Tim]

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 12:21:48 -0400, Harlan Messinger sent:

Windows XP has been out for three years and most new (non-server)
machines come with it, so your remark doesn't address the question of
why it would take *another* five years for IE7 to be anything other than
"completely irrelevant to us"

The time it takes places to replace their PCs? Let's face it, many people
(and businesses) will carry on using a PC until it stops working, many
never even updating anything on it. Many won't get XP until they buy a
new PC that includes it.

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[Stuart Millington]

On Fri, 05 Aug 2005 00:17:48 -0400, C A Upsdell
<""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

I think that we are dealing with two populations: business PCs, and
personal PCs.

For the business PCs -- which, as was pointed out earlier, 48% still use
Win2000 -- PCs are replaced about every 4 years. This means that
Win2000 will become effectively extinct within 4 years.
As Tim said earlier, it depends on the business. Some smaller
companies I know are still running 95, with a few 98 and the
occasional NT box thrown in. More are primarily running 98 with the
occasional W2K box. Upgrades depend on when the machine physically
dies or when the latest version of <insert business critical software>
won't work with it. It depends if your customers are "small"
businesses (& typically miserly!), SME's or corporate's.

Either way, I think 4 years for W2K and IE6 to die to a point where
they can be ignored by commercial web developers is optimistic.

For personal PCs, perhaps 10% use WinME or older, and most of the rest
use XP. I suspect that those using WinME or older will be replacing
their PCs fairly soon, as their current PCs are very old.
I've only just moved my main home PC from W2K to XP Pro and my older
laptop won't run XP. Although, it won't hurt to keep that laptop for
IE6 testing ;-)
The bottom line, I think, is that natural attrition will fairly quickly
(say by 2008) have weeded out most of the Windows PCs that can't run IE7.

YMDoesV ;-)

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[Erik Funkenbusch]

On Wed, 03 Aug 2005 03:20:39 +0100, Roy Schestowitz wrote:

Paul Thurrott:

"Wilson's (IE Lead Program Manager) post is disappointing because Microsoft
doesn't plan to fully support the latest CSS standard in IE 7.0..."

http://www.windowsitpro.com/Article/...7208.html?Ad=1

Roy

I'm not even sure what that means "support the latest CSS standards".
Neither CSS 2.1 or 3 is even in recommendation stage, and we all know (or
should anyways) that a browser that implements a standard before it's
finalized is just creating yet another nightmare we have to support when
it's implementation invariably differs from the final standard.

CSS2.0 was never fully implemented by any browser, and isn't going to be
(which is the reason for 2.1).

Frankly, if *ALL* Microsoft did was fix the bugs in IE6 i'd be ecstactic at
having a browser that did what I expected it to do, even if it didn't
support everything I wanted it to. My life would be SO much simpler.

Happily, that doesn't appear to be all their doing, though they're not
going to have full support, with lots of stuff they didn't support earlier.
Is it a disappointment? Sure, but I doubt anyone expected it to be
perfect.