IE8 Beta 2 has a surprise for Windows XP SP3 users

[Prrkitty]

http://www.tgdaily.com/content/view/39103/128/

Quote: Users of Windows XP SP3 who simply install IE8 Beta 2 may actually find the browser being locked into their system without any chance to remove the browser without a full reinstallation of the operation system. According to a Microsoft IEBlog post, this scenario will be in place if you installed Windows XP SP3 after installing IE8 Beta 1 and you now choose to install IE8 Beta 2 on top of Beta 1 - and ignore a window with a warning. Microsoft said that you will be able to install Internet Explorer 8 Beta2, but once installed, you will not be able to uninstall either IE8 or Windows XP SP3 later.

“If you chose to continue, Windows XP SP3 and IE8 Beta2 will become permanent. You will still be able to upgrade to later IE8 builds as they become available, but you won’t be able to uninstall them,” program manager Jane Maliouta wrote in her blog post.

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I can't help but be surprised at this... "... you won't be able to uninstall them... ".

Do companies really think that "John Q. Public" will put up with this bullshit? And especially those that are computer savvy?

[rock_nog]

Wow, that just sounds like the epitome of bad design. Who on Earth would design software specifically so that it could not be removed (aside from virus and malware programmers)? I mean, if something goes wrong, you'll have to reinstall the whole OS. That's just absurd!

[The_Amaster]

Wow, that just sounds like the epitome of bad design. Who on Earth would design software specifically so that it could not be removed (aside from virus and malware programmers)? I mean, if something goes wrong, you'll have to reinstall the whole OS. That's just absurd!
People who don't want you uninstalling for their competitors.

[bigjoe]

Why is it so surprising? Microsoft has pulled stuff like this before.

[Mr. 207]

I didn't know you could uninstall IE to begin with....always thought it was kind of built into the operating system anyway.

[AtmaWeapon]

Wow, that just sounds like the epitome of bad design. Who on Earth would design software specifically so that it could not be removed (aside from virus and malware programmers)? I mean, if something goes wrong, you'll have to reinstall the whole OS. That's just absurd!There's two things at work here.

First, it's IE 8 beta 2. There is risk involved with running beta software. Between the final beta and the RTM, there is tons of testing that is done in an attempt to catch oddball scenarios like this and address them. The beta phase is the phase in which you are telling your customers, "We have implemented all of the features and fixed all known bugs. Please evaluate this software and tell us about any bugs you find." In other words, "There are bugs, but the 30 of us can't find them as easily as the 100,000 of you." In other words, "This has no guarantee and could completely bork your machine. Take precaution."

I blame Google and several other companies for screwing up the public perception of what a beta really is; Gmail's been "beta" since the day they released it. They probably have some stupid reason that sounds like, "Oh, Gmail is under continuous development and the beta status reflects this!" but that's bull. That means you have a release candidate (the working version of Gmail) and a beta (the version under development).

So, to read this headline as it really is, it should be, "John Q. Public amazed that pre-release version of software not meant for widespread public distribution has bugs." Sorry John, you are ignorant of the software development process and you shouldn't have downloaded a beta.

Now, on to the other point:

Wow, that just sounds like the epitome of bad design. Who on Earth would design software specifically so that it could not be removed (aside from virus and malware programmers)? I mean, if something goes wrong, you'll have to reinstall the whole OS. That's just absurd!It's probably not their fault, and if you have a little understanding of how Windows Installer works you could see how this can happen. Unfortunately, I do have a little bit of knowledge.

Go have a look at some directories on your system. C:\Windows is the first one we'll talk about. How many directories that match the pattern $NTUninstall.*$ are there, how big are they? This is the information that Windows Installer saves so that it can uninstall a Windows Update. If you dig around in them, you'll find a ton of DLLs and system files. What's happening here is when you install an update, the system first determines what system files will be replaced, then it backs up the file to one of these places. Finally, the new system file is saved over the old one. If you uninstall the update, Windows Installer will try to replace the current system file with this backed-up copy. You'd think that Windows Installer would be smart enough to notice that the file was updated after this update and not replace it. You'd be wrong. There's two choices it can make in this scenario, both of them bad: Decide you are saying, "This update broke something; make my system like it was before this update was installed." In this case, the proper response is to replace the system file with the backup. Don't think about anything; leave the current file alone.
Think about these two options for a moment. I can give you a doomsday "Your machine is broken" scenario for both of them. Let's look at the first case (replace the current file) and why Windows Installer might pick it. Let's say you install a hotfix that trashes your networking; you need to get your old behavior back, and replacing the DLL with the backup will do this. Now, let's look at the doomsday scenario. You install a hotfix that replaces XYZ.dll with a new version. Later, you install a 2nd hotfix that adds new things on top of the first hotfix's XYZ.dll, so it gets replaced again. Now, you realize that hotfix 1 broke things, so you go about uninstalling it. Oops! Now hotfix 2 is expecting XYZ.dll to be a different version than it really is! You broke the system!

Let's look at the other option ("Leave my files alone!") in the same scenario. You install an update that trashes your networking. You uninstall the update, Windows Installer sees that XYZ.dll hasn't been updated, so it replaces the backup and you're back to normal. Now let's look at the doomsday scenario. Hotfix 1 installs XYZ.dll version 2. Hotfix 2 installs XYZ.dll version 3. You trace problems to hotfix 1, so you uninstall it. Windows Installer leaves XYZ.dll version 3, since it's newer than the one that was installed. Oops! Since this is version 3, it contains version 2, so you'll still have the problem. Even worse, when you uninstall hotfix 2, it backed up XYZ.dll version 2, which is not what you want! You broke the system!

In many cases, Windows Installer can identify dependency problems like this and sort out that you must uninstall things in a specific order. This is in RTM software; it requires the installer developer to do a good bit of work to make it happen, and basically consists of identifying every other installation package that can cause a problem. The only way to find these problems is to test, which is something a beta is meant for. In the end, the developer has to make the choice as to which of the two behaviors to follow. This bug is probably the result of the default behavior being wrong in this special case.

So, you install IE8 Beta 1 because you don't realize what beta means. Then, you install XP SP3, which updates a ton of system DLLs. Then, you upgrade to IE8 Beta 2, which updates the same system DLLs again; however unbeknownst to you, some of these DLLs were built at a time when SP3 wasn't finalized, so they are basically in an SP 2.5 state. Now you have a version conflict: uninstalling IE 8 puts things in a state SP3 can't handle because it thinks its SP 2.5 version of the DLL is older than the backup so it doesn't replace it. Oops! These DLLs don't work with vanilla SP3 so your systme is borked. What if you uninstall SP3 instead? You go back to the SP2 versions of the files that don't work with IE8 b2, and your system is borked.

Wait for the release of the product to get indignant. If you don't have full system backups ready to deploy, you shouldn't be touching beta software.

[rock_nog]

Well, that's my point exactly - being a beta, you expect to find bugs. Therefore, having a beta that can't be uninstalled just seems to be asking for trouble. I mean, aside from the fact that I can't believe anyone actually uses IE anymore, it would occur to me that when releasing something that's a beta, because you expect bugs to be present, you wouldn't want that level of system integration.

I mean, frankly, I don't care what Microsoft does, as I don't use IE, but sometimes it just blows me away how bad their design really is. Ideally, you want your OS to be as modular as possible - I mean, that's a basic rule of programming, isn't it? So that one bug doesn't take down the whole system. It's just, beta or not, it just sounds really sloppy to implement software like that. Oh well, it is Microsoft, after all.

[Starkist]

According to a Microsoft IEBlog post, this scenario will be in place if you installed Windows XP SP3 after installing IE8 Beta 1 and you now choose to install IE8 Beta 2 on top of Beta 1 - and ignore a window with a warning. Microsoft said that you will be able to install Internet Explorer 8 Beta2, but once installed, you will not be able to uninstall either IE8 or Windows XP SP3 later.

Emphasis added. The problem is the user.

[rock_nog]

It's like, say, I dunno, buying a car that's designed in such a way that it explodes when you turn the ignition. Obviously, if the car is covered with warnings to that effect, and a person gets in and turns on the ignition anyway, it's the person's own bloody fault when they get blown up. But that doesn't explain why on Earth a car manufacturer would design a car that way, even if it is an experimental car. Just saying you might want to fix fundamental design flaws before going and looking for superficial design flaws.

[Cloral]

Emphasis added. The problem is the user.

Thats like saying it's your fault you got kicked in the balls because I said "Warning: I am about to kick you in the balls" before doing it.

Anything you add to a machine should be removable in some way without having to reinstall the entire operating system. Especially since MS is pushing the beta as the 'correct' version of IE to download. You and I might know the difference, but Joe Blow Consumer probably won't.

[AtmaWeapon]

These days, a lot of people do beta testing in virtual machines. Odds are most of the people involved with testing up until now have been running IE 8 in a virtual machine, and uninstallation isn't an issue in that scenario since you can simply revert to a snapshot (VMware) or use an undo disk (Virtual PC).

It is a big "shame on them" that no one thought of this test scenario, but let's consider the facts. There wasn't a beta 2 until very recently (today?). To get into this scenario, you have to install beta 1, then install SP3, then install beta 2, then uninstall beta 2. It's not exactly a common scenario. In fact, it's going to be impossible in the RTM time frame: you will install IE 8 RTM, and that is it. In general, I've never found it possible to uninstall IE to a previous version without reinstalling the OS. Blame MS for that, because it is a bad design to integrate applications into the OS.


It's like, say, I dunno, buying a car that's designed in such a way that it explodes when you turn the ignition.Not quite. It's more like climbing into an experimental rocketship. Before you climb in, the lead scientist takes you aside and says, "We've never test-fired this thing; we don't know what will happen. You don't really need to be in the rocket for this test; we could use a dummy [this would be using a VM]." You laugh and climb inside the rocket anyway, and it explodes. You got a warning, you were told you were taking a risk for no reason, and you lost the gamble.


Thats like saying it's your fault you got kicked in the balls because I said "Warning: I am about to kick you in the balls" before doing it.Bad analogy again. It's more like you said, "I have leg spasms and tend to randomly kick really hard in the direction I am facing. Currently, my position would put my foot into your scrotum. If you don't move out of the way, there is a random chance you might get kicked in the balls." and I decided to sit in the same spot. You warned me there was a risk, you told me how to avoid the risk, and I decided to take the risk.

I will not agree that installing beta software should be safe. You're requiring that a non-RC beta should have the same robustness as a gold master. Shame on you for suggesting such a thing.

[rock_nog]

Well that's exactly what I'm saying! It's nothing to do with the fact that it's a beta in itself - but rather, I think it's bad design to have it so thoroughly integrated into the system in the first place. When I made the analogy of an exploding car, I didn't mean to refer to the risks of using a beta program. I was referring to the risks associated with supporting such a poor design philosophy - fundamental design flaws vs. superficial design flaws.

My point is, with the exception of MAYBE some early prototyping, Microsoft should NEVER have integrated IE so completely with its OS. It should have been built modularly from the ground up. And you can't defend this as being a result of the beta, because at this point in the game, it would be far, far easier to start from scratch than it would be to try to retool IE to be less integrated into the system.

[phattonez]

Why is it so surprising? Microsoft has pulled stuff like this before.
Like Windows Genuine Advantage? That thing was worse than any virus I've had.

[Shazza Dani]

Who are these people installing IE betas in the first place, and why hasn't natural selection killed them off yet? 'tis all I wanna know...

[Zaphod Q. IX]

Who are these people installing IE in the first place?
fixed.

[Shazza Dani]

Who are these people installing IE in the first place?

fixed.

That's what I originally typed, but then I changed it to be more specific to the topic. You're totally right though.

[AtmaWeapon]

You don't really install IE; it kind of just comes with Windows :/

[The_Amaster]

God, anyone remember all that crap years back with Netscape Navigator? I was only like 5 at the time, but Netscape was a superior browser that threatened IE, so when after a few years Microsoft had barely even caught up, they actually paid Apple to start including IE over Netscape on computers.
*sigh* I miss Netscape. My first browser. So smooth, so reliable.

Yeah, Microsoft don't like the little folk having alternatives to their market dominance, that's for sure.
Well some of the Netscape guys went on to found Mozilla, so we'll see who's laughing in 10 years when Firefox has a 90% share of the market.

[Pineconn]

Firefox is utter crap. I haven't found any problems with IE8 beta 2, except I have to use the built-in compatibility mode to view the webpages 100% correctly. Overall, I like it better than IE7, especially the semi-built-in translator feature. Also, if a webpage crashes, it'll restore it automatically.

[Shazza Dani]

I wouldn't say Firefox is crap. I use both Opera and Firefox; together they have everything I need.


(However, I WILL say Firefox is extremely overrated, and its "fanbase" is really annoying.)

[Pineconn]

Eh, yeah, that's sort of what I meant. I mean, I always hear people praise Firefox, and I'm honestly not too impressed with it. It looks and feels outdated. I use it only if I want to access PureZC since IE doesn't like that site.

[erm2003]

Firefox 2 was kinda crap. Firefox 3 has been doing very well for me. I am not a fan boy of this at all since I have only been using it for a couple months, but I do notice a speed difference (faster loading program, faster loading pages) and it uses less system resources than IE. It's nowhere near perfect though. I still have some issues with sites here and there, but I will take the improved overall performance of my computer when running Firefox over IE any day.

[SUCCESSOR]

I will take the improved overall performance of my computer when running Firefox over IE any day.

Definitely! IE kills my computers performance. Which is my fault for filling my computer like a closet that hasn't been cleaned in almost 3 years and has a few things rotting somewhere in the havoc.

On topic: If windows warns you about it, how is it a bug? If windows can foresee the problem with this scenario how does it get passed development to a beta release? I don't know much about this stuff but it seems fishy.

Is this really a "dooms day" situation? Wouldn't it be possible for the next update to make it uninstallable?

[rock_nog]

It's not a bug, per se, so much as it is flawed design. I mean, it's nothing new to Microsoft, really - the fact that the browser is not uninstallable is more a symptom of Microsoft's tendency to integrate everything into its OS, which, while probably easier to code, is lazy and dangerous.

[AtmaWeapon]

I'm using Opera right now and I'm not sure how I feel.

Firefox 3 is bloated and slow, but since I've been a Firefox man for about 3 years now I just haven't noticed it. WHen I installed Opera, I was amazed at how much faster things loaded. I play Kingdom of Loathing, a browser-based RPG, and my typical daily session involves something like 800-1200 page loads. I finish 20 minutes faster when playing with Opera.

On the other hand, using Opera at this point feels like using Firefox about 2 years ago: many web sites only test with IE and Firefox, and there's a lot of box-model "text is under the picture" or "item appears where you can't see it" bugs out there. It also hurts to lose the "awesome bar" (which I might add is a feature of IE 8).

You'd do well to not pooh-pooh IE8 away though. It passes Acid 2 and by default displays pages in "standards mode", which basically means the IE team sat down and addressed most of the IE rendering bugs and fixed them. If the page is broken in standards mode, you have to click a special button to enter quirks mode. You have no idea what a boon this will be to the internet as crappy bank and credit card companies across the nation start losing hundreds of thousands of dollars to phone support because they have to tell people to click this button; it just might motivate them to fix their stuff. Basically, many people feel like IE8 is kind of like Firefox with several extensions installed.

My only complaint is that out of the big three browsers, Firefox is still the only browser that is easy to extend. I miss my Greasemonkey scripts and NoScript; Opera has similar stuff built-in but it doesn't have the community support and it isn't as easy to work with.

[Dann Woolf]

When I see the words "Windows" and "surprise" in the same sentence, one other word comes to mind.

That word is "assrape".

[AtmaWeapon]

A rare snapthot of the life of Dann_Woolf (http://www.penny-arcade.com/comic/2002/7/22/ms/)!

I just tested IE8 out on a VM and some of the new IE 8 features explain the flurry of activity (http://labs.mozilla.com/2008/08/introducing-ubiquity/) at Mozilla Labs.

My personal favorite feature? Accelerators. Let's say I'm browsing a site and I see an address, and I'm curious where the address is. As soon as I highlight the address, a little button pops up; I click on it, choose "Map with Google Maps", and it takes me straight to a Google Maps page with the address highlighted. Mozilla Labs showed doing this with Ubiquity on a craigslist page, but for the life of me I can't find a craigslist page with a ton of addresses on it like they did to test it out. Accelerators exist for mapping, defining words, and blogging, but it's an open development type thing so I'm sure there'll be plenty of "shop at Amazon", "post 95 times to Digg", and other such things.

I don't believe I'll be switching to IE8 over the things I've seen, but I do hope some of them creep into either Firefox or Opera.