IE7 Beta 3 is out

Lots of people said Internet Explorer Beta 3 would not be released until August... they were wrong!!!!

 

IE7 Beta 3 has been released and is available for download now at the Internet Explorer Home Site, and at www.microsoft.com/downloads.

Yes, you will still have to go through Windows validation, and the Malicious Software Removal Tool is run as part of the installation.  Also, required updates will be installed.

Please note that this build is intended for technical enthusiasts.  Be aware that *I* expect you to be ready, willing and able to reformat your system if things go wrong - therefore, if you come to the groups and say "IE7 killed my machine but I have no backup and can't reformat, I hate Microsoft" you won't be getting much in the way of sympathy from me ;o)

This upgrade to Internet Explorer 7 focuses primarily on bug and compatibility issues and is currently available in English for XP SP2, x64 and Windows Server 2003 SP1 on June 26, 2006.  Other languages are to come soon (German, Japanese, Finnish & Arabic).

Uninstallation instructions - these are quite different to what has gone before. 

IE7 Beta 3 creates this directory:

C:\WINDOWS\ie7beta3

In that directory is an spuninst folder.  Inside that folder is spuninst.exe as well as a very interesting document called spuninst.txt which details exactly what will be deleted and replaced with older copies during uninstall of IE7 Beta 3.

Now, in the past some have offered their own copies of the uninstall directory when others have foolishly deleted their own copies, or third party software has done it for them.  But be warned, there is more to removing IE7 Beta 3 than just that directory.  A directory called C:\WINDOWS\$hf_mig$ is also edited/created during the installation of IE7 Beta 3, and it is full of various security update folders.  The potential for damage if you take somebody else's C:\Windowsie7beta3 and install it on your own system to remove the beta is incalculable.  On my system $NtUninstallKB915865$ and $NtUninstallKB904942$ were also created/updated.

There are a few changes on the surface, mostly cosmetic, but one BIGGIE!!!  We can now drag tabs into different positions.  And, we can add an email button to the toolbar.

 

 

In a pristine installation, Windows Live Search is the only provider now, not MSN Search.

 

The only pre-populated RSS fees are the Internet Explorer team blog, and Microsoft Feeds.  Also, the Favorites icon has changed slightly - don't like that very much.   The page button icon has also changed.

 

 

There will be unlimited phone support for the USA, Germany and Japan.

RSS change: "Automatically mark feed as read when reading a feed" has been added.

 

The text in the new tab window has changed slightly..

 

I've decided my karma must be very bad... IE7 Beta 2 was released while I was in transit from Code Camp (and broke www.ie-vista.com).. now, IE7 Beta 3 is released while my laptop, on which my life is stored (including my ability to update my web sites) is at Hewlett Packard Hospital for repairs Sad


 

Published Thu, Jun 29 2006 16:18 by sandi
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Comments

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Thursday, June 29, 2006 12:16 PM by Pete
Any info as to upgrading the version that's on my Vista?

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Thursday, June 29, 2006 4:05 PM by Wayne
Looks like even without your laptop you managed to update your website :-)  Good work Sandi

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Thursday, July 13, 2006 2:10 PM by Patrick

I know this is a really dumb question/problem... I downloaded IE 7 B3 but when I try to start the program, I get an error message that shuts down the app before it even gets going...

Sandi says: Details of the error message will be helpful.

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Sunday, July 23, 2006 12:35 PM by Shaden
i have a problem with the uninstaller hanging at "running processes before uninstall" any help would be greatly appreciated

thank you

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Wednesday, August 02, 2006 10:36 PM by paul
went thru the whole IE7 install process and on reboot IE7 no-where to be seen.  IE6 stiil there & working.  Tried a number of times and no different.

Any ideas as to why

cheers
Paul

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Wednesday, August 02, 2006 10:39 PM by paul
went thru the whole IE7 install process and on reboot IE7 no-where to be seen.  IE6 stiil there & working.  Tried a number of times and no different.

Any ideas as to why

cheers
Paul

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Thursday, August 17, 2006 9:50 AM by G Rutzen
I've tried Beta 3 and found the features useful, but there are some problems. 1) The navigation bar on a website with CSS does not appear properly. 2) I am using GoDaddy's Website Tonight to create a website.  I am unable to create forms using the Website Tonight software with Beta 3 (works fine with MSIE v6).  3) I am unable to submit a payment online because the website has a pop-up for confirmation of the checking account number.  The pop-up doesn't appear in Beta 3, but works fine in MSIE v6.  I anyone has solutions to these issues, I will return to MSIE v7 Beta 3.

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Friday, August 18, 2006 9:07 AM by Dennis
IE7 has made some changes as to how it interprets ActiveX controls which causes many legitamate controls to fail. I use an internet based security camera which uses an ActiveX viewer. This control works fine with IE6 or Firefox but fails with an out of memory error under IE7. Unfortunately, removing IE7 does not cure the problem so apparently the IE7 removal only partially removes the damage it does - be advised!

# re: IE7 Beta 3 is out

Wednesday, November 01, 2006 11:18 AM by John Ward

Well I really hope Microsoft are f***ing happy with themselves. I install a beta products (IE beta 3) only to find that when the full version was released, windows update tried to install the full version and appears to have deleted my spuninst.exe and spuninst.txt, there are still 3 dlls in my ie7beta3 folder but nothing else.

Now what could possibly make me want to help microsoft out with betas anymore? This was the second one I installed, fortunately the first one was vista beta1 which wouldn't install on my home machine for whatever reason. Microsoft have once again gone down in my estimation (just as they were starting to impress me)

Sandi says.  Let's make something very clear.  MS did not delete your uninstall files.  You, or something on your system, did that.  Products such as ccleaner have been the most common cause of missing uninstall files.

In any event, the final install of IE7 should be able to adapt to a missing uninstall directory, so, instead of ranting, how about you share specifics of what your problem is and we'll take it from there.