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Download Site: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/internet-explorer/download/ie-9/worldwide Under “Windows Server Languages”
Test Machine: Windows Server 2008 Enterprise 32-bit
Installation Process: At least for me this was a major pain in the rear. The first thing I checked was to see if the Internet Explorer 9 beta was supported on the Windows Server platform. The 5th platform preview does not support Windows Server so I did some research to find out that the beta IE9 IS supported. I installed the 32-bit executable from the download site listed above. The download process would start off fine, but the progress bar would hang at the “q” in “Downloading Required Updates…”. Through trial and error, I opened task manager and found a process known as ienrcore.exe. Upon ending this process the installation phase halted with an error message saying I must install an additional update in order to install IE9 beta. I was prompted with a website to visit which allowed me to uncover the reason why IE9 froze during the installation process. I visited this page to find out that I needed two supplemental updates, KB971512 followed by KB2117917. I click on the link to download these updates. Upon starting the installation of these updates I am prompted with a “This update does not apply to your system” message. Just lovely! At this point I was about to give up with IE9, but I decided to try a different approach. I rebooted my computer and launched the installation process from new again, when the screen got to the part where the progress bar would freeze at the “q” I went to task manager, right-clicked on ienrcore.exe and chose “Open file location”. Upon doing this it redirected me to the “Temp” folder. After browsing around a few locations I found the contents of the standalone packages inside them! I installed the two packages located inside and rebooted my PC. Keep in mind I did not fully complete the GUI version of the IE9 beta process. Upon rebooting I see my Internet Explorer 8 logo changes to the IE9 logo and *POOF* IE9 is installed. Strange installation is it not?!
What I like:
-Download Manager
On previous editions of Internet Explorer your only option was to run or save a download which could not be resumed if the browser was to crash or a user accidentally closed it. Another added bonus of IE9’s download manager is that all your downloads are centralized into one place which makes it easier for the average PC user to remember where they saved their downloads. It’s pretty simple. Your downloads are saved in “Downloads”. How much easier could it be?!
-GPU acceleration
I like the way Microsoft has shifted focus toward a new generation of web browsing, with their
native HTML5 support for Media and canvas rendering. I’m not touting Microsoft in any way as their previous generation browsers were WAY BEHIND the curb. It’s a positive step nonetheless. Another advantage of this added GPU acceleration is the HTML5 tags support a lot of native audio and video codecs (MP3, H.264, etc) that allow you to play videos without Adobe Flash Player. To tell the truth I’ve kind of grown up into web browsers assuming “Adobe Flash Player” was a prerequisite to watch YouTube videos on my PC! Adobe Flash Player has added 3rd party support to the IE9 browser, so if there are any websites you use that require flash (lol which ones don’t?!) you have that added flexibility.-Polished User Interface
I like the approach Microsoft has made with the beta of Internet Explorer 9. The first thing you will notice when you launch the browser for the first time is that it has a very minimalistic design. To borrow a page from Google Chrome, I think Microsoft wanted to make users feel their browser was less bloated by disabling a lot of the unnecessary features in the browser. For example your Favorites Bar is disabled by default as well as toolbars that would otherwise clutter your browser. It’s not the greatest. It took me a second to figure out how to enable the favorites bar. I was able to enable the favorites bar, by going to any random website, clicking on the favorites star on the right hand corner, and clicking the drop down arrow next to “Add to Favorites…” and then pinning it to Favorites Bar. Upon doing this the favorites bar was automatically enabled.
What I don’t like
-Initial Load Delay
With all the added features that has come with Internet Explorer 9 beta comes a price. Upon launching IE9 beta for the first time after a reboot the user interface would appear, but there is a lengthy (5+ second delay) before the web page would begin to load. I have Google.com set as my home page so its not like theres anything flash-fancy or anything it has to load. It’s basic text and a single image! Maybe I can tweak around with it later to figure out what is causing the annoying delay.
-Site Pinning
Some people may like this feature but I find it useless. Most people have a favorite site that they regularly visit (Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc). With IE9, you can drag your webpage to your taskbar and pin the website as if you would a regular program. Doing so eliminates the need to open the web browser, open your favorites bar and then clicking on your site. By doing this you eliminate a few steps, but here’s what I don’t like. If you click on the pinned icon on the taskbar and open it up, you are only allowed to browse that site. It will not load any of your toolbars or BHOs.Your home page disappears which means if you want to change sites you have to type it in manually in the address bar. A lot of us probably have search engines set as our home page (yahoo.com, google, msn.com, etc) so i find it with ease-of-comfort that whenever I want to search for something I’m only a home page icon click away from doing so. Personally, I rarely manually type a website into the address bar to get to the site I want to visit. Another beef I have with this “site pinning” feature is that it won’t take long before your taskbar is cluttered with all these icons making your desktop look less polished. If you want put up with a shitload of icons on your taskbar, go for it! Personally, this feature is not for me.
-Compatibility
I’m not referring to the fact that the browser is still in beta, but rather the decision that Microsoft has decided to only support Internet Explorer 9 on the Vista/7 and 2008/2008R2 platforms ONLY. I personally think this is a bad way to approach this. The reason I say this.. is when the final release of IE9 is published and the 20 some odd million IE users flock to download it, when Windows 8 is released in a few years from now, they will need to adjust to Internet Explorer “10”, which can be troublesome for those who have adjusted to the current version of Internet Explorer. Of course this doesn’t apply to all end users (like ourselves on this site) but i personally think that is a bit rather annoying don’t you think? I can remember back when I was a loyal XP user (before my days on Server) and I was so excited to try the beta release of Windows Vista (sad, lol) but upon installing it I was so used to the style of XP that my initial impression of Vista was CRAP. I was like “I hate it!”… Over time I grew accustomed to the interface changes and I am so used to the Vista interface that now a days I think the XP interface sucks! Strange how we adapt to these changes made by Microsoft.
What do you guys think? I know Internet Explorer is a long way away from becoming a reputable browser but atleast we can say that Microsoft is FINALLY making positive steps forward toward reclaiming their place in web browser market shares. In 2008 Internet Explorer comprised over 80% of PC user’s everyday web browser. That number has dropped to nearly 50% this year (a 30% decrease). No surprises!
On a funny side note, when I was testing the download manager feature of IE9 I decided to download the Google Chrome dev release on FileHippo.com. When the download process was complete I launched the executable to install the latest version of Chrome on my system. Internet Explorer crashed! Funny thing is it only did it once, and only if I chose to download Chrome ON Internet Explorer. HAHAHAHA Microsoft employees must hate Chrome. Thats’ funny. 😆
IE9 beta is better then IE8
like windows 7 beta is better then vista 🙂i would recommend to replace the old shi77y ie8 to everyone
@halladayrules even with those flaws u found
i dont use it so often anywaynice review very informative
btw ie9 is still slow with bloat flash running
@aviv00 wrote:
IE9 beta is better then IE8
like windows 7 beta is better then vista 🙂i would recommend to replace the old shi77y ie8 to everyone
@halladayrules even with those flaws u found
i dont use it so often anywaynice review very informative
btw ie9 is still slow with bloat flash running
Thank you aviv00. I’m still optimistic about Microsoft will reduce the initial load delay when they release the final product hopefully toward the end of this year or early 2011. My primary browser is Chromium/Chrome, but I still need to use IE for some stuff because compatibility is so high. For example I watch online streams of my baseball game and the embedded player will only run in IE/Firefox. Since I am not a fan of Firefox I just stick with IE. For the most part I don’t have any troubles with IE crashing, atleast for me. Microsoft still needs to pass the Acid3 test. Their beta version failed that. Microsoft has been touting forever about how their acid3 tests have improved. A 99/100 is still failing Microsoft! You only pass if you get a 100. Funny how they are gloating about their reduced failures. It’s like an elementary kid saying… MOM! I IMPROVED MY F+ to a F -!! “Horray, son! Keep working harder.” Don’t worry Mom, if I put my mind to it I can achieve a D!
Overall I’m pleased too, though I don’t like the way the Favorites pop-up on the right but are then pinned on the left; in fact I haven’t liked the Favorites behavior since IE8, which just got worse with 9. I also wish Microsoft would re-unify it’s UI design scheme, the OS it’s applications and utilities looks like a bad science project run by a schizophrenic committee and handed off to their kids to finish.
I can’t remember her name but the woman originally behind the native Windows 9x/NT UI who I believe drew on or was also involved inTaligent composed brilliant design guidelines — and for a while at least everything Microsoft had a very consistent, efficient and congruent ‘form that follows function‘ approach to design that was uniform across everything the product line (no less the OS itself), and a lot of popular applications as well.
Now with the advent of Vista, Windows 7, and the Server 2008/R — regardless of whether you use the Theme overlay system or not; I count more then fifteen completely different design motifs that have little in common other then they ship on the same product; which I think is very warty…
😐
The installation was smooth on my R2 machine except that you need to reboot to finish the installation
I like the GPU acceleration but it is only a matter of time before the other browser has it as well. When all browser has GPU acceleration then will the web designers take advantage of it and it will end with that you need a top-of-the-line graphic card only to surf the web…
The only problem I had so far is that it couldn’t import my firefox bookmarks direct, I needed to export them and then import them, well it is a beta…
@144Floppy wrote:
The installation was smooth on my R2 machine except that you need to reboot to finish the installation
I like the GPU acceleration but it is only a matter of time before the other browser has it as well. When all browser has GPU acceleration then will the web designers take advantage of it and it will end with that you need a top-of-the-line graphic card only to surf the web…
The only problem I had so far is that it couldn’t import my firefox bookmarks direct, I needed to export them and then import them, well it is a beta…
Google Chromium 7 has GPU acceleration and can achieve over 30FPS on the FishIE tank on the Microsoft website. I was able to achieve 7 FPS higher using IE9 beta. On top of that Firefox 4 beta 5 was able to surpass IE9 by 2 FPS.
U can check the IE9 Preview Graphicsacc. here..
http://ie.microsoft.com/testdrive/performance/fishIE%20tank/default.html
greetz
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