<img style="float: right" src="http://www.iexbeta.com/images/news/logos/iexIE.gif">If you're one of about 200 million people using older versions of Windows and you want the latest security enhancements to Internet Explorer, get your credit card ready.

Microsoft this week reiterated that it would keep the new version of Microsoft's IE Web browser available only as part of the recently released Windows XP operating system, Service Pack 2. The upgrade to XP from any previous Windows versions is $99 when ordered from Microsoft. Starting from scratch, the OS costs $199.

That, say analysts, is a steep price to pay to secure a browser that swept the market as a free, standalone product.

"It's a problem that people should have to pay for a whole OS upgrade to get a safe browser," said Michael Cherry, analyst with Directions on Microsoft in Redmond, Wash. "It does look like a certain amount of this is to encourage upgrade to XP."

Microsoft affirmed that its recent security improvements to IE would be made available only to XP users.

View: Full Article
News source: C|Net News

you've got to be kidding!

Most of us already knew this, but it just confirms that no more security enhancements will be made to IE for sub Windows XP OS's. This will probably be a good sale point for MS. I own 2 legit copies of XP Pro as of now and it's totally worth it for SP2 and the little extras built into internet explorer. Not to mention the DEP.

hey, i guess those users will just have to use ANOTHER BROWSER .... such as Firefox. i even HAVE xp, and i use firefox. so no big loss in my point of view for the users who don't have the cash for a new OS, just download a free browser.

this is a GOOD way for microsoft to lose the browser war

Well, people need to upgrade. I'm so tired of the "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" concept that companies work on. To keep up with technology, upgrade people. If you're a student, you can get it for even cheaper and get your family to just pay you back.

i say it's way to lose the OS war.
people WILL upgrade, but they won't pay for it

I think its pretty dumb. Just because they push it does not mean people will upgrade or change browsers.

You do relize most people (windows users) dont even know what a browser is. Hell they cant even tell what the damn internet is. lol

They just click crap. And how they install sp2 you ask?

Automatic Updates of course!! They just click and go!! lol And pray that it works or they just say "You stupid pos stop bugging me, uh go away dumb shit!!" lol.

Its just making the backdoor big and wide. Bigger than ever. Pretty stupid!!!

I for one think its a crock of shit that Microsoft or any Company can even do that.

Leaving the customer in the dark and not fixing security problmes. Hotfixes are just that, hotfixes.

But yeah in the end Microsoft will just loose like always.

If these people are so dumb etc than how will they know to install hotfixes?

And we have to end support sometime, however I do think Windows 2000 should still benefit but o well.

I don't know exactly how man people this will effect. Most businesses are up to date with XP/2000 or Mac.

Expert home users who regularly run Windows Updatewill be switching to Firefox, or other free (better) browsers.

People who don't know what Windows Update is won't be effected because odds are, they already have 450 viruses on their system.

95% of the people whose computers I did work for didn't have any updates done. The only reason they had SP1 was they bought a computer with it pre-installed.

You guys have to realize that everything Pre-XP is reaching EOS (end of support) within the next year anyway. The only reason this is news is because MS hasn't realeased an OS every 3 years like they used to do, so everything except XP is reaching the 5-year support limit. Honestly, how long should a company be expected to spend money to fix something after they've already released a newer version of it? People need to bite the bullet and get up to date - it's not like XP came out YESTERDAY.

As for "losing the os war", there just plain isn't one on the desktop. MS and Apple control over 99% of the desktop market, and we know how little Apple controls.

Once again, the people here on boards like us are NOT typical users. 9 out of 10 computer users out there have never ever heard of Linux, and 8 out of the 10 that have don't have the techincal skills to use it.

EDIT: 4000th Post!!!

well i've used linux before
if it were longhorn or linux,linux would be my choice
as for ie i don't use it n i bet more ppl will be going with either ff or opera(opera fan here)
as for xp only
i know many ppl who still use 98 se and 2000 n they know lotsa stuff
they keep there os cuzz they like it
if support ended all they'd need to do is find all the drivers they needed n stuff n they'd be fine

Looks like a great reason for a lot of people to switch to Firefox.

It's a problem that people are still using an insecure OS on an outdated computer. While it may be possible for Microsoft to backport IE's new security measurement's to work on 9x, I'm sure pieces of 9x system code need to be replaced as well. 9x wasn't designed to be a secure computing platform, it was designed to be a gaming/home workstation platform, performance over stability. Windows 9x has been gradually losing tech support and its very understandable as the products have gotten old enough. We need to have people put on the secure NT codebase found in Windows XP .. despite the security exploits that are posted every so often regarding Windows XP, its alot more secure than 9x ever was, and its hell of a lot better than NT4 and better than Windows 2000. Plus with XP users can still get tech support and patches for their vulnerabilities and as long as they stay up to date they are fine. For those of you still using 9x : Get a firewall, get virus protection... the internet can be a dangerous place, if you don't have those, you can get screwed within a minute of being connected.

*laughes like 50 Cent*

Quit deluding yourself. 99% of people don't even know what browser they're using, let alone that there are other browsers out there. They just click the icon that gets them there. They also don't know what OS they're running, or what a firewall is, or if they have AV software installed.

Don't make the mistake of applying your knowledge level to the majority of computer users - it's not even remotely true.

Believe me, I work in a place with 1200 employees, and 1150 of them are utterly clueless, click drones. Of the remaining 50, 25 work in IT, and 10 are working in the Computer Science department. So, of the common users, we have maybe 1% that are capable of actually understanding the concepts you talked about, and of them maybe half are competent enough to install a different browser and use it.

Another great reason to use Firefox.

edit:

...and thats where the issue lies.

I wont be surprised if we see a massive Class Action Lawsuit in the US stemming from this issue alone. In fact, we could see one just because Microsoft is forcing a still-bugged-out and placebo-fied service pack upon businesses and customers.

Totally agree. My mom can surf the internet fine and use MS word etc. But ask her what version she's using? She says MS Word. What browser? The Internet. Etc.

It's not a lack of paying attention it's the lack of interest. Sure I could explain things to her and show her what versions she is using but she doesn't like computers that much so she doesn't take in the information in the same way.

My Tech teacher said a couple days ago:

1. Who here knows how to type a document MS Word?

I and the whole class raised their hand.

2. Who knows what RAM is?

I, and some (probably 1/4 of the class) raised their hands.

3. Who here fixes computers at home, installs the operating system, adds more memory, etc?

I was the only one that raised my hand. I was shocked, that out of 35 students in the class in my IT class at University had never installed Windows, added memory or knew what the inside of the case (the CPU as they called it hahahaha) looked like.

Everyone looked at me weirdly. The teacher asked me questions to "test" my knowledge in front of the class. She asked "What is a hard drive?" "What do you do to the hard drive when you install windows when you want to completly erase it?" etc

Everyone was like wtf how do you know this!?

It was sorta funny, and today I got to class, three people had dropped out. Others were asking me questions about things like "Omgwtf my router is broken, come fix it" ok

The thing is the class was not all girls (Probably about 85% of my University is female). It's pretty much a split class. I was suprised that even most of them didn't know the basic stuff. Like how to change a windows them to silver or how to make a shortcut.

It's like this everywhere. As was mentioned, we here on iexbeta, neowin, and other tech sites know more, WAY MORE, than the average user.

That makes me feel proud. It really does. It comes in handy so much that a lot of us here know more about different things and can help each other on here, at the workplace and at home/school.

You need these skills in today's world to have any type of computer job. Sure if you can type a document that's all you'll need to know for certain jobs, but if you're going to take a course or something, make sure you have an interest first, or you're not going to do that well.

I have a feeling they are trying to force upgrades for more resons than just a more secure IE.

How about a more Secure OS? (98 Vs. XP)

Not sure if you mean that 98SE is more secure than XP or not. But if you do then i'll ellaborate on this .

Ok 98SE/98 doesn't have the technology and features of XP, so less to patch. That's what it comes down to. It's like comparing the Palm OS to XP, tough 98 is a bit more advanced .

Somehow I doubt it. This whole thing is being taken completly out of context, as you would see if you read the whole article:



They are still patching, but they aren't including the features from the "still-bugged-out and placebo-fied service pack" that you mentioned. Seems to me that would make you HAPPY, not angry.

And PHC: Welcome to my world. I have to support these morons on a daily basis

well in my neck of the woods nobody is forcing the latest service pack on any of the computers in our network in fact many of our machines are still running 9x NT and 2k and service packs never go on untill we have fully tested it with our software and various computer models. Since Internet explorer is not actually considered essential software were not in any hurry to upgrade it beyond what free support microsoft offers. If they stop supporting the browser on older platforms we will move to another free browser that is supported we dont have any brand loyalty around here and many of us already use mozilla for our web and email clients (its an optional part of our installs) so it will be an easy move to leave microsofts browser and email clients out of our installs when they stop supporting them.

Microsoft is trying to nudge businesses into upgrading faster than they are willing to upgrade, its part of the new revenue scheme. the problem is were not going to fix something thats not broke just because Microsoft is deluded into thinking we need to give them more money.

Only time will tell how this plays out but if other business are like ours we will all simply drift farther and farther away from being dependant on Microsoft software ..

Wow, and you are still functioning? We used to do that, until MSBlast killed our entire system for 2 days because (despite my warnings) the destop support group wanted to test the patch. Once we lost two entire days worth of work for 1200 people and paid out overtime to every IT staff member as they worked to get the patch installed manually (because the entire network was disabled by it), suddenly people started getting a clue that you can't afford to do things this way anymore.

Just this weekend our mail system was crushed by Evaman, because McAfee dreagged their feet to long on getting the update for it out, and a few were able to sneak in before the AVG could block it. Since it was a Sunday, by the time a staff member was able to get in and shut down the student machines who were infected, our mail system had over 150,000 infected messages queued up - all because McAfee took 4 hours longer than they should have to push out the new DAT files.

Two years ago, the average resonse time for someone to exploit some security hole was 6 weeks. Now it's closer to 6 HOURS. You can't afford to wait to put these updates on - it needs to be done THE DAY they come out.

You may have been OK so far, but mark my words, if you keep up that practice, you will have a REAL problem on your hands - one that might cost you your job.

Well next year I'm budgeting anyway to get all of our win2000 workstations up to xp mainly because of spyware issues. I'm sure it wouldn't be tough for my to bring the XP SP2 browser and the other SP2 enhancements to win2000 but they won't. Otherwise why would businesses upgrade. Tools.

As for servers I'm going to be keeping most of those at win2000 for quite a while. The new ones I buy are win2003 but there are no real advantages I've seen for 2003 over 2000 so I guess I am taking the old attitude of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" there.

You should subscribe to a filtering service. We use postini and it's wonderful. I still run groupsheild on my exchange server but there is really no reason to do so.

Same here. They only good reason to go to 2k3 are for file servers (Volume Shadow Copy saves me hours each week, as people can pull their own backups now), and for IIS6. For all other tasks, 2000 is just as good, and I am not inclined to take down live services to upgrade.

I'll have them look into it. We would have gotten hit anyway, as we can't control our student's machines. It was just bad because we had some staff machines get hit because of the McAffee snafu. McAfee is going out the window for the Gateway ASAP ayway, and we are going to something better, probably Sophos. Seems like the only time we get money for this stuff is when a disaster happens.

Also check out message labs. Their filtering is better in that it filters all mail coming through, not just the mailboxes you set up for filtering. However I think it's almost twice as expensive at about $4 per mailbox per month.